The Chinese Communist Party is collecting "huge amounts of personal data from Americans" through its spy tool TikTok, "which should be concerning to everybody," Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Newsmax on Friday.
"We've got tons of whistleblower evidence. We've got recordings from inside [Chinese internet company and TikTok parent company] ByteDance," Knudsen said while appearing on "The Chris Salcedo Show."
"The CCP has access to TikTok and all of the U.S. user data despite what they're claiming in their lawsuit. We know this to be true."
TikTok on Monday filed a lawsuit against Montana over a new law aimed at stopping people from downloading the app, arguing that it violates the First Amendment.
"We are challenging Montana's unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana," a spokesperson for the company said after the suit was filed. "We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an exceedingly strong set of precedents and facts."
TikTok is seeking an "order invalidating and preliminarily and permanently enjoining Defendant from enforcing the TikTok Ban," according to the complaint.
Montana last week became the first state to ban TikTok after state GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill restricting downloads of the popular social media app.
The ban takes effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
Knudsen also spoke about his state's ban on drag performers reading books to children at public schools and libraries, telling host Chris Salcedo, "That garbage might fly in California or New Jersey, not in Montana."
"If you want to dress up in drag or go do drag shows in private or in the privacy of your own home, we're a very libertarian state, knock yourself out," Knudsen said. "But to think you are entitled to come into our public schools, our public libraries and put on an overtly sexual performance like that for our young children, we're not having it in Montana.
"We're going to defend that one very hard."
Montana's law is unique because — although it defines such an event as one hosted by a drag king or drag queen who reads children's books to minor children — it does not require a sexual element to be banned.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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