Congress knew full well back in March that U.S. TikTok users engage in constitutionally protected speech on the app, and that banning it is an inadequate way to protect Americans’ privacy, according to a previously classified transcript. Yet Congress and President Joe Biden banned TikTok in April anyway, choosing political expediency over the hard work of passing and enacting the comprehensive consumer privacy legislation this nation so desperately needs.
The government submitted this partially redacted House Energy and Commerce Committee transcript Sept. 4 as part of the lawsuit over the federal TikTok ban; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments in the case Sept. 16. The transcript shows lawmakers and law enforcement officials in a March 7 executive briefing recognized that Americans’ speech on TikTok is protected by the First Amendment — the same recognition a federal judge had made last November when it blocked Montana’s TikTok ban from going into effect.
