By Blair Wallace, ACLU Policy and Advocacy Strategist

Abortion is legal in Texas and across the United States, but that doesn’t stop anti-abortion politicians from doing whatever they can to interfere with access to reproductive healthcare. Local governments have added fuel to the fire by passing anti-abortion ordinances that confuse residents about their rights and increase the ever-present stigma around seeking abortion care.

That’s why, for the first time, reproductive rights, health, and justice groups in our state are joining forces to expand essential health care access for all Texans by creating the Texas Abortion Access Network. Join us for TAAN’s launch on Thursday, August 20 at 6 PM CT, to become a founding member of TAAN and hear about how you can get involved. 

In the last year alone, 13 cities in Texas have passed so-called “sanctuary cities for the unborn” ordinances. These ordinances attempt to ban abortion in those cities if Roe v. Wade is overturned, and some even attempt to ban contraception. At one point, many of these ordinances even declared abortion providers and other advocacy groups to be “criminal organizations.”

We sued and successfully pushed those cities to remove the most harmful parts of those ordinances — but those laws are just one example of the many ways Texas politicians have attacked reproductive freedom. For years, Texas politicians have piled restriction after restriction on abortion access. From enacting 2013’s House Bill 2, which led to the closure of half of all Texan abortion clinics, to banning abortions during the early COVID-19 pandemic, elected officials in Texas continually work to block essential healthcare.

But together, we are fighting back for the right to determine our own lives and destinies.

The Texas Abortion Access Network (TAAN) is a new collaboration between the ACLU of Texas, AFIYA Center, NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Progress Texas, Texas Equal Access Fund, Texas Freedom Network, Jane’s Due Process, and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance. We’re building community among Texas residents who are fed up with attacks on their reproductive freedom. 

Through TAAN, we are building grassroots power across Texas. We will not only defend against further restrictions but also empower activists to dive into action and put proactive, protective laws on the books in their hometowns. We are building a diverse base of volunteers that represent every corner of the state and equipping them with the tools they need to be leaders in their communities. 
 
A key component of TAAN is the Texas Abortion Access Academy, an 8-week online training program led by abortion access experts. The academy will cover a comprehensive array of topics to build each person’s capacity to become an effective abortion rights advocate. We’re including a crash-course on the status of abortion in Texas, how to talk to others about abortion, background on reproductive justice, and how to advocate and organize for abortion access. At the end of the program, cohort members will have gained the skills to lobby their local government, have difficult conversations about abortion, and get others involved in the movement. 

Let’s be clear: Attacks on abortion care won’t stop Texans from needing, and seeking, abortion care. They’ll just ensure that the most vulnerable Texans have a much more difficult and costly experience accessing it. We’ve seen it again and again — restrictions to abortion care disproportionately harm Black and Brown people, people struggling to make ends meet, those who are already parenting, folks in rural areas, undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and young people.  

Without access to reproductive health care, our communities can’t thrive. And while abortion remains legal, the fact that the Supreme Court nearly allowed a Louisiana law— one identical to a Texas law they struck down just four years ago — to take effect shows that we can’t take the judicial system for granted. Our rights won’t be handed to us, we have to take them.

By Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project, Jennifer Stisa Granick, ACLU Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel & Daniel Kahn Gillmor, ACLU Senior Staff Technologist

President Trump’s executive orders threatening to ban TikTok and WeChat, two of the most popular messaging and social media apps in the world, are an unprecedented abuse of emergency powers. No president has ever taken actions like these against platforms that tens of millions of people in the United States use.

Selectively banning platforms does little to protect our personal data from abuse — comprehensive surveillance reform and consumer privacy legislation would actually help accomplish that goal. Instead, the bans could cut off the flow of information, art, and communication that social media provides, interfering with communities and connections users in the United States have with each other and with people around the world. This interference with freedom of expression and association violates the First Amendment.

Trump’s executive orders are vague and don’t explain the “emergency” purportedly at issue. They also leave important details unclear for 45 days — like the definition of “transactions” to which the bans apply, and how the prohibitions will apply to WeChat’s parent company, Tencent, which has investments in a number of U.S.-based businesses, including Reddit and Riot Games.

But here is what we do know:

Trump’s orders are an abuse of emergency powers under the pretense of national security.

Trump has claimed the power to ban TikTok and WeChat under a law that Congress passed in 1977, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). When Congress passed this law, it intended to rein in abuses of presidential power. Too often, though, it has not worked that way.

The law allows presidents to respond to “any unusual and extraordinary” foreign “threat” to the United States’ “national security, foreign policy, or economy.” But Congress did not define terms like “emergency,” “threat,” or “national security,” or impose constraints on powers that presidents can abuse too easily, in violation of fundamental rights. That is why the ACLU believes presidential emergency powers — and IEEPA — must be fundamentally overhauled.

Meanwhile, Trump has taken abuse of authority to yet another level, invoking emergency and national security powers far beyond what Congress intended and the Constitution allows, to score political points, serve his xenophobic and racist agenda, and spread fear and uncertainty. He appears to be doing the same thing by selectively banning TikTok and WeChat, which are owned by companies based in China. But even under IEEPA, Congress explicitly says that presidents can’t ban any “personal communication, which does not involve the transfer of anything of value.” Trump’s orders appear to ignore this important constraint.

Selectively banning entire platforms violates the First Amendment and harms freedom of speech online.

Millions of people in the United States watch or post videos to TikTok and rely on WeChat for connections to family, friends, and work relationships. They are all engaging in First Amendment-protected speech, association, and expression.

The online communities created by TikTok and WeChat are important to their users. People derive joy from posting songs and videos, or de-stressing in these stressful times with games or images of cats sitting in boxes. Simply sending a emoji to a family member or friend is a meaningful personal communication. People also use the apps for political activism. Influencers like Jalaiah Harmon, James Jones, and Addison Rae have hundreds to millions of followers on TikTok — with all the fun, earnings, and political influence it can bring. “Favoriting” or “liking” a post can convey meaning. It can also be financially important to the platform and to the businesses that advertise their goods and services based on that expressive information.

In about six weeks, the Trump administration will specify the “transactions” it wants explicitly to ban. The consequences could be far-reaching, impacting TikTok and WeChat users or app stores, Internet Service Providers, web hosting companies, or any of the other network services that are part of online communications.

Still, people who use the platforms are worried that they will lose access to their services and may already stop posting on or engaging with them. And there is real cause for concern. Failing to comply with Trump’s orders could violate IEEPA, which carries civil fines of up to $250,000 even if the violation is not intentional and criminal penalties if a violation is intentional. Subjecting people to penalties for exercising their freedoms of expression and association violates the Constitution.

Privacy concerns are not the motivating factor behind the bans.

The Trump bans refer to threats to privacy if the Chinese government gets its hands on Americans’ private information. It is true that the Chinese government censors, suppresses dissent, and commits authoritarian, rights-violating abuses — mostly against its own people. It is also true that TikTok and WeChat collect broad categories of their users’ data and there are legitimate concerns about the sharing of that information with the Chinese government. But the administration has provided no specific and direct evidence of harm from TikTok and WeChat — only vague speculation and assertions. There is no legitimate public basis for these extraordinary bans — and in any event, sanctioning entire platforms significantly harms users’ First Amendment rights.

In fact, the data TikTok and WeChat collect does not appear substantially different from the kinds of data other foreign companies or American companies like Facebook or Google collect. And Trump has made no attempt to address privacy invasions caused by these companies operating in the United States. Nor has he supported surveillance reforms that would better protect the sensitive data of Americans and others against warrantless spying by U.S. intelligence agencies.

If protecting the information of users in the United States were a true motivating factor, the U.S. government could, for example, support strong consumer privacy legislation that would limit the amount of data social media companies can collect in the first place. This, as the ACLU has long said, would reduce privacy threats from security breaches; discriminatory advertisements for jobs, housing, and credit; data brokers selling our information to target immigrants; and abusive demands by foreign governments.

The government could also pass legislation or seek international agreements ensuring that data brokers or companies providing services to people in the United States can only hand over data, such as location history or web browsing logs, to any government — including our own — if there is a search warrant or a similar process involving independent oversight and a showing of just cause.

The privacy harms from data collection by apps are real. But the solution isn’t to capriciously ban two platforms. Bans that violate the First Amendment are the worst choice — ineffective, unconstitutional, and harmful to the lives and interests of tens of millions of people.

By Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project, Jennifer Stisa Granick, ACLU Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel & Daniel Kahn Gillmor, ACLU Senior Staff Technologist

President Trump’s executive orders threatening to ban TikTok and WeChat, two of the most popular messaging and social media apps in the world, are an unprecedented abuse of emergency powers. No president has ever taken actions like these against platforms that tens of millions of people in the United States use.

Selectively banning platforms does little to protect our personal data from abuse — comprehensive surveillance reform and consumer privacy legislation would actually help accomplish that goal. Instead, the bans could cut off the flow of information, art, and communication that social media provides, interfering with communities and connections users in the United States have with each other and with people around the world. This interference with freedom of expression and association violates the First Amendment.

Trump’s executive orders are vague and don’t explain the “emergency” purportedly at issue. They also leave important details unclear for 45 days — like the definition of “transactions” to which the bans apply, and how the prohibitions will apply to WeChat’s parent company, Tencent, which has investments in a number of U.S.-based businesses, including Reddit and Riot Games.

But here is what we do know:

Trump’s orders are an abuse of emergency powers under the pretense of national security.

Trump has claimed the power to ban TikTok and WeChat under a law that Congress passed in 1977, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). When Congress passed this law, it intended to rein in abuses of presidential power. Too often, though, it has not worked that way.

The law allows presidents to respond to “any unusual and extraordinary” foreign “threat” to the United States’ “national security, foreign policy, or economy.” But Congress did not define terms like “emergency,” “threat,” or “national security,” or impose constraints on powers that presidents can abuse too easily, in violation of fundamental rights. That is why the ACLU believes presidential emergency powers — and IEEPA — must be fundamentally overhauled.

Meanwhile, Trump has taken abuse of authority to yet another level, invoking emergency and national security powers far beyond what Congress intended and the Constitution allows, to score political points, serve his xenophobic and racist agenda, and spread fear and uncertainty. He appears to be doing the same thing by selectively banning TikTok and WeChat, which are owned by companies based in China. But even under IEEPA, Congress explicitly says that presidents can’t ban any “personal communication, which does not involve the transfer of anything of value.” Trump’s orders appear to ignore this important constraint.

Selectively banning entire platforms violates the First Amendment and harms freedom of speech online.

Millions of people in the United States watch or post videos to TikTok and rely on WeChat for connections to family, friends, and work relationships. They are all engaging in First Amendment-protected speech, association, and expression.

The online communities created by TikTok and WeChat are important to their users. People derive joy from posting songs and videos, or de-stressing in these stressful times with games or images of cats sitting in boxes. Simply sending a emoji to a family member or friend is a meaningful personal communication. People also use the apps for political activism. Influencers like Jalaiah Harmon, James Jones, and Addison Rae have hundreds to millions of followers on TikTok — with all the fun, earnings, and political influence it can bring. “Favoriting” or “liking” a post can convey meaning. It can also be financially important to the platform and to the businesses that advertise their goods and services based on that expressive information.

In about six weeks, the Trump administration will specify the “transactions” it wants explicitly to ban. The consequences could be far-reaching, impacting TikTok and WeChat users or app stores, Internet Service Providers, web hosting companies, or any of the other network services that are part of online communications.

Still, people who use the platforms are worried that they will lose access to their services and may already stop posting on or engaging with them. And there is real cause for concern. Failing to comply with Trump’s orders could violate IEEPA, which carries civil fines of up to $250,000 even if the violation is not intentional and criminal penalties if a violation is intentional. Subjecting people to penalties for exercising their freedoms of expression and association violates the Constitution.

Privacy concerns are not the motivating factor behind the bans.

The Trump bans refer to threats to privacy if the Chinese government gets its hands on Americans’ private information. It is true that the Chinese government censors, suppresses dissent, and commits authoritarian, rights-violating abuses — mostly against its own people. It is also true that TikTok and WeChat collect broad categories of their users’ data and there are legitimate concerns about the sharing of that information with the Chinese government. But the administration has provided no specific and direct evidence of harm from TikTok and WeChat — only vague speculation and assertions. There is no legitimate public basis for these extraordinary bans — and in any event, sanctioning entire platforms significantly harms users’ First Amendment rights.

In fact, the data TikTok and WeChat collect does not appear substantially different from the kinds of data other foreign companies or American companies like Facebook or Google collect. And Trump has made no attempt to address privacy invasions caused by these companies operating in the United States. Nor has he supported surveillance reforms that would better protect the sensitive data of Americans and others against warrantless spying by U.S. intelligence agencies.

If protecting the information of users in the United States were a true motivating factor, the U.S. government could, for example, support strong consumer privacy legislation that would limit the amount of data social media companies can collect in the first place. This, as the ACLU has long said, would reduce privacy threats from security breaches; discriminatory advertisements for jobs, housing, and credit; data brokers selling our information to target immigrants; and abusive demands by foreign governments.

The government could also pass legislation or seek international agreements ensuring that data brokers or companies providing services to people in the United States can only hand over data, such as location history or web browsing logs, to any government — including our own — if there is a search warrant or a similar process involving independent oversight and a showing of just cause.

The privacy harms from data collection by apps are real. But the solution isn’t to capriciously ban two platforms. Bans that violate the First Amendment are the worst choice — ineffective, unconstitutional, and harmful to the lives and interests of tens of millions of people.