The Vandenberg Coalition is proud to have commissioned an amicus brief filed in the U.S. DC Court of Appeals case of TikTok Inc. and ByteDance v Merrick Garland. The brief, which is in support of the U.S. government’s effort against TikTok’s attempt to challenge the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act Pub. L. No. 118- 50, div. H (2024), was submitted in the name of the Honorable Ajit V. Pai, former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Honorable Thomas P. Feddo, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Investment Security and supervisor over the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Both Pai and Feddo are former senior U.S. government officials with substantial leadership overseeing national security regulatory programs and have in-depth, first-hand expertise on the national security risks posed by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) corporate ownership of entities within the United States. 

As the Vandenberg Coalition has previously argued in a letter to Congress, “Behind the entertaining videos, TikTok operates as a malicious tool of the CCP’s espionage and influence campaign.” The amicus brief explains in thorough detail the nature of this national security threat by highlighting the legitimate and longstanding U.S. governmentwide concerns over the PRC’s corporate ownership of other technology entities, including telecommunication companies Huawei and ZTE, and the implications of PRC laws compelling American user data sharing with the PRC government.

The Vandenberg Coalition’s commissioned amicus brief can be found here. For additional related materials prepared by the Coalition, you can find our “Myths and Facts on TikTok Divestiture”. You can also read our coalition Letter to Senate Leadership signed by former U.S, government officials and policy makers in support of the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”.