Tiktok, a popular video-sharing social platform, filed a lawsuit against Trump administration over an executive decision banning any US transactions with its parent company ByteDance.
Within a 39-page Indictment, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, US President Donald Trump, and the US Department of Commerce were listed as offenders, The Xinhua news agency reported.
As per the document, the US authorities were accused by TikTok for taking away the rights of the company without the need to provide any sort of evidence for the justification of the extreme action and issuing the order without any due procedure which the Fifth Amendment guarantees while banning the organization without out any notice or chance to be heard.
In the meantime, the document managed to produce remarks from Donald Trump about the entire issue, such as indicating in a campaign-style conference, that TikTok had no “right” and that he is also willing to ban the well-known application if the company does not agree to pay money to the government to assure its approval for any sale.
The report asserted, “By demanding that Plaintiffs make a payment to the US Treasury as a condition for the sale of TikTok, the President has taken Plaintiffs’ property without compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”
In addition, the indictment stated, by stopping TikTok from functioning in the US, the executive decision breaches the company’s First Amendment rights in its code.
The executive order is a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), claimed by the LA-based tech firm. Sanctioning the ban of activities that have not been proven to be “an unusual and extraordinary threat” in this case.
TikTok spoke out that previous presidents utilized power sanctioned by the IEEPA to defend the country from threats from the outside countries, including terrorist attacks, but this executive decision tries to use IEEPA in opposition to a US company, with a large number of employees across the country and to demolish an online video sharing platform used by millions of Americans.
“The President’s executive order is unconstitutional and ultra vires, and must be enjoined,” the document stated.
