Justice Dept. appeals injunction

Administration wants to ban app because of security concerns

WASHINGTON » The federal government on Friday appealed a judge’s ruling that prevented the Trump administration from imposing a ban on WeChat, the popular Chinese- owned messaging app.

The Justice Department said in a short filing that it was appealing a preliminary injunction issued by Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of U. S. District Court for the North District of California. Mollie Timmons, a Department of Justice spokesperson, declined to comment further. The appeal was made to the 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The decision to appeal the preliminary injunction blocking the ban escalates the battle over the future of WeChat, owned by the Chinese company Tencent Holdings. Officials in Washington increasingly have looked to stop people in the United States from using Chinese- owned apps such as WeChat and TikTok and have worked to banish Chinese telecommunications products from American networks.

Last month, the Department of Commerce moved to block American companies such as Google and Apple from hosting WeChat in their app stores, as well as bar companies from hosting its data or helping to deliver content to its users. But Beeler blocked the ban last month, days before it was supposed to take effect, in response to a request from a group that says it represents WeChat users.

Beeler granted a preliminary injunction because there were “serious questions going to the merits” of their argument that the ban violated the First Amendment. A Department of Justice lawyer argued in the case that the rules were written narrowly to protect the rights of WeChat’s users to share personal and business information.

Beijing has for years blocked American websites and apps. But only in recent years has the American government acted against Chinese- owned companies. It has pushed American companies to abandon Chinese telecom providers such as Huawei and ZTE. More recently, it has targeted Chinese- owned consumer apps like Grindr, TikTok and WeChat.

In August, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning WeChat as of midnight Sept. 13. The injunction temporarily delayed the ban. The app is widely used around the world by people to communicate regularly with friends and family in China.