The Trump administration on Friday appealed a court ruling that blocked its ban of WeChat. The administration is appealing the case from the Northern District of California to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The appeal comes after the administration entered a request to stay the district court’s injunction that blocked the administration’s WeChat ban. In its motion to stay the injunction, the administration argued that the continued use of WeChat is a serious national security threat due to possible Chinese surveillance and that new information has enhanced this threat:
A stay is amply warranted. First, the balance of harms weighs strongly in favor of a stay. The Court’s preliminary injunction permits the continued, unfettered use of WeChat, a mobile application that the Executive Branch has determined constitutes a threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. As set forth in greater detail below, the materials provided herewith relate to the Secretary’s September 17, 2020 Identification, and were cleared, in part, for release today, September 24, 2020; the prior briefing schedule did not permit the Court to consider any portion of the record of the Secretary’s decision because the briefing almost exclusively occurred before the Secretary’s action, and Defendants were not able to submit the materials to the Court in the 36-hour period occurring after the Secretary’s decision, in advance of the Court’s consideration of the renewed Rule 65 request. Defendants submit these record materials here to inform this proceeding. As previously explained, and as elaborated on in certain materials considered by the Secretary in conjunction with his decision, WeChat provides the capability for the government of the People’s Republic of China … to surveil the American people and collect and use vast swaths of personal and proprietary information from American users to advance its own interests. Furthermore, Executive Branch officials have determined that, if WeChat continues to be widely available for use in the United States, the PRC may use WeChat for these purposes..
This appeal and motion to stay are another step in a complex legal battle over the Trump administration’s ban on WeChat and TikTok, another Chinese social media platform. Like that court ruling that blocked the ban of WeChat, a federal judge in Washington, DC, blocked the same ban of TikTok on September 28. However, the Trump administration has yet to appeal the TikTok ruling.
