Comment by kopecs
15 hours ago
> Right, I'm saying they based it on on the "text" of the law, instead of the motivation.
Sure, although they do discuss TikTok's challenge to the motivation ("Petitioners further argue that the Act is underinclusive as to the Government’s data protection concern, raising doubts as to whether the Government is actually pursuing that interest"). I just don't think the quote you had stands for what you were saying.
> At what point in the ruling did they wonder what motivated the effective ban?
Above is at page 15. Also, I think you're probably looking for the paragraph starting with "For the reasons we have explained, requiring divestiture for the purpose of preventing a foreign adversary from accessing the sensitive data of 170 million U.S. TikTok users is not 'a subtle means of exercising a content preference.' Turner I, 512 U. S., at 645." (at 12).
I saw elsewhere you likened this to the Trump muslim ban. I don't think that comparison is apt. The First Amendment issues there were not decided by the 9th circuit in the first one (“we reserve consideration of [First Amendment religious discrimination] claims until the merits of this appeal have been fully briefed.” State v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151, 1168 (9th Cir. 2017)) the stay there was issued due to likelihood of success on the merits wrt due process issues; I don't know offhand about the second one; and the third attempt was upheld.
Of course if the app have done anything seriously illegal it would not have been necessary to bring this law to ban it, because existing laws would have sufficed to do it.
Perhaps because US government wanted to do it despite TikTok not breaking any serious provisions of law this law has been made.
It feels like a sleight of hand from government to ban something that has broke no (serious) law (yet).
Did the SCOTUS go into the necessity of having this law to achieve what government wanted, if existing laws would have sufficed, provided that government met the standards of evidence/proof that those laws demanded.
If not, it is as if government wanted a 'short-cut' to a TikTok ban and SCOTUS approved it, rather than asking government to go the long way about it.
I appreciate the thorough response. So they speak to the motivation in part being "preventing a foreign adversary from accessing the sensitive data of 170 million U.S. TikTok users", but not at all the portion of the motivation to "prevent the CCP from having a megaphone into 170 million attentive US TikTok users" (my words). Did they omit that this was likely a motivation, or contend that it wasn't.
Edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42742762 for this same thread
I think this is discussed at length in part II.D (starts at the bottom of 17). I would write more but I have spent too long already on this thread :)
I would be a bit careful about trying to liken motivation for something like an EO to a law though; many members of congress voted to pass the exact language in the final bill, and they might not all have agreed with _why_. So I would put to you that the text itself is the primary thing one should consider, especially more in the legislative case than the executive one.