New Hampshire
Congress silenced free speech in TikTok law, platform tells federal court • New Hampshire Bulletin
TikTok and its parent company argued Thursday in a federal court in the District of Columbia that the recently enacted law forcing a nationwide ban or sale of the popular platform violates the First Amendment.
TikTok Inc., which operates the video-sharing service in the United States, and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd., which was founded by a Chinese national, filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit calling the law President Joe Biden signed in April an unprecedented restriction on the constitutional right to free speech.
“Never before has Congress expressly singled out and shut down a specific speech forum,” the brief reads. “Never before has Congress silenced so much speech in a single act.”
Upholding such an “extraordinary speech restriction” would require the court to undertake “exacting scrutiny” of Congress’ action, but Congress provided only a hypothetical national security argument to advance the bill, the companies said.
“Congress gave this Court almost nothing to review,” the brief continues. “Congress enacted no findings, so there is no way to know why majorities of the House and Senate decided to ban TikTok.”
Many individual lawmakers who supported the law raised national security concerns, saying ByteDance’s relationship with the Chinese government meant the country’s Communist Party leaders could demand access to TikTok users’ private data.
They also said the platform, which the company says has 170 million users in the U.S., could be used to spread propaganda.
But under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, labeling speech as foreign propaganda does not allow the government to overlook First Amendment protections, TikTok said in its brief.
Speculation about how the app “might” or “could” be used, rather than any concrete examples of misconduct, do not clear the high bar required to restrict speech, the companies added.
“A claim of national security does not override the Constitution,” the companies wrote Thursday.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department, which is defending the law, highlighted the intelligence community’s national security concerns with TikTok and said the law was consistent with the First Amendment.
“This legislation addresses critical national security concerns in a manner that is consistent with the First Amendment and other constitutional limitations,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to States Newsroom. “We look forward to defending the legislation in court.
“Alongside others in our intelligence community and in Congress, the Justice Department has consistently warned about the threat of autocratic nations that can weaponize technology – such as the apps and software that run on our phones – to use against us. This threat is compounded when those autocratic nations require companies under their control to turn over sensitive data to the government in secret.”
Response to lawmakers
The brief said Congress had not included any official findings of harm from TikTok, but several individual members raised specific concerns about the kind of speech found on the platform.
The companies said Thursday those specific complaints bolstered the argument that TikTok is being denied free speech protections.
The brief cited several lawmaker statements:
- U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is ranking member on the House Select Committee on China, and former Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chaired the panel, said the platform’s algorithm fed an overwhelming share of pro-Palestinian content over videos that favor Israel.
- Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said the platform “exposes children to harmful content.”
- Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said the law would “make TikTok safer for our children and national security.”
- Nebraska Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts noted the popularity of the hashtag #StandwithKashmir, which protests a policy of India, a geopolitical rival of China.
“Legislators’ perception of the content reflected on TikTok was misinformed,” the companies said. “But well-founded or not, governmental policing of content differences is antithetical to the First Amendment.”
Oral arguments in September
Both chambers of Congress passed the law with bipartisan votes as part of a package that included aid to Israel and Ukraine. Biden signed the measure April 24.
TikTok pledged to sue and filed its legal challenge last month.
Tuesday’s brief expands on the company’s arguments. The government’s response is due July 26 and oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 16.
Divestment unworkable, TikTok says
TikTok and ByteDance said Thursday the provision in the bill to avoid a ban by divesting the service to a company without ties to China is unworkable, especially within the nine-month timeline required by the law.
Such a move would be technically complex, requiring years of engineering work, the companies said. It would also isolate the U.S. user base from the rest of the world, limiting revenue from advertisements.
And even if it were feasible from a technical or business standpoint, selling the platform would likely be rejected by the Chinese government, which has the authority to block exportation of technology developed in the country, the companies said.
On Tuesday morning a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours ushered in what will be a new recovery home in Rochester.
Dismas Home started operating out of Manchester, but they’ve expanded their services to Rochester, soon offering 28 beds between the two cities. Cheryll Andrews, executive director of Dismas Home of New Hampshire, said the goal is to one day put a home in every county in the state.
“Our founder, Julie McCarthy Brown wants a home in every county before she passes away,” Andrews said.
Dismas Home offers women who have been involved with the criminal justice system evidence-based substance use treatment programs and helps them establish independent living. Women who participate in Dismas Home can stay up to 15 months. The home is also staffed 24/7 and offers mental, behavioral, and physical health support.
Andrews said there’s already a waitlist to get in. The home gets referrals from court systems, county and state jails, and defense attorneys. They require people fill out an application, where they are vetted before becoming accepted into the program.
Andrews said Dismas Home differs from other treatment facilities that may work only with women with children by allowing women who don’t have children or aren’t with them to attend their program.
“We don’t serve women with children, we serve [women] who want them back,” Andrews said.
Andrews said about 67% of the women who enter the program complete it and 90% of those that do stay sober for the long term.
Alacia Linville graduated from Dismas Home’s program in Manchester. She was homeless when she went to jail in Belknap County in 2019. She said she had been to jail before for short periods of time but this time she was in for eight months for the sale of methamphetamine.
“After about my third month in, I started to think I need an aftercare plan,” Linville said. “I had gone to treatments numerous times and none of them had worked.”
Linville said a case manager referred her to Dismas Home in Manchester where she ended up staying over 15 months, starting in 2020.
She said she was hesitant at first. Manchester was the city she was using in, she hadn’t tried an aftercare program before and she thought it would end up being more of a transactional situation but she said she was surprised to find they gave her the help she needed.
“The support, that was different this time,” Linville said. “I was used to going into programs, getting the support, getting out – I was homeless again.”
Linville moved to Hampton after her time at Dismas Home and stayed at Magnolia House as she addressed other charges she had from Rockingham court. She said Dismas Home helped her navigate dealing with them.
She said it feels good to say she’s been sober. She said she has been since 2023 but found recovery in 2019. It was a year into her sobriety that she said she felt she knew she could continue to do it.
She now lives with her 2-year-old daughter Jocelyn and fiance in Newmarket.
“I look at my family today and I just can’t imagine, like ever moving backwards,” Linville said.
Dismas Home in Rochester is expected to start housing women in early August. The home still needs to be licensed, furnishings need to be placed and some construction is still undergoing.
NASHUA, N.H. — A Nashua woman was arrested after police say she stabbed her husband multiple times during a domestic dispute over trash inside their Kinsley Street apartment.
Keilin Hernandez, 25, was arrested on three counts of second‑degree assault with a deadly weapon, a Class B felony, after officers responded to a June 17 911 call that a man had been stabbed in the arm and hand, according to the Nashua Police Department.
The victim was treated at a local hospital for injuries that were not life‑threatening.
According to a complaint filed in court by police, the dispute began after the man told officers he found a cardboard box filled with trash inside a bedroom closet and confronted Hernandez about it. Hernandez gave a different account, saying the argument started over taking garbage out and escalated when the two began pushing each other.
The complaint states that the man told police that Hernandez scratched him during the struggle and later stabbed him in the left shoulder and “in the areas between his fingers” on his left hand with a kitchen knife as he tried to walk away with her phone, saying he intended to “ground” her by taking it.
Immediately after the incident, he said he left the apartment bleeding while Hernandez went to a downstairs neighbor’s unit with their 5‑year‑old son.
According to the complaint, he admitted to pushing his wife, but told police he pushed her “by the head,” not the neck, and denied choking her. He said he held Hernandez against the wall for less than five seconds.
Hernandez told police she acted after she was pushed against a wall and grabbed by the neck and chest. The complaint states that she said she scratched her husband to break free and attempted to call police. She alleged she grabbed the knife only after he twisted her arm to make her drop her phone and then followed her into the kitchen and “began to come at her.”
“Keilin stated she struck (her husband) with the knife to show him the pain he caused her from twisting her arm and grabbing her neck,” police said in the complaint.
Hernandez did not have any marks on her, according to police.
Police later searched the apartment with the couple’s consent and found a knife on the kitchen counter that matched the man’s description. Blood droplets were located throughout the residence.
Hernandez was arraigned in the 9th Circuit Nashua District Court on June 18 and no plea was entered on the three assault charges. She was ordered held without bail after a judge found probable cause that releasing her would endanger the community, according to court documents.
She is scheduled to return to court at 9 a.m. June 24.
In a press release about the incident, police asked anyone with information to contact the Nashua Crime Line at 603‑589‑1665.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
An 80-year-old Canadian hiker required a military helicopter rescue from Franconia Ridge Wednesday afternoon after suffering chest pains near the summit of Mount Lincoln in New Hampshire.
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department received a call at 4pm on June 24th, 2026, reporting that Andre Bissonnette, 80, of Orford Township, Quebec, was experiencing a medical emergency while hiking the ridge with his son Vincent Bissonnette, 45, of Drummondville, Quebec.
The two had ascended via the Falling Waters Trail when Andre began experiencing chest pains while traversing the ridge near Mount Lincoln. Vincent called 911 and a New Hampshire Fish and Game Conservation Officer spoke with the hikers by phone, confirming Andre was unable to continue under his own power.
After determining that rescuers were still hours away and a ground carry-out would take several hours more, officials contacted the New Hampshire Army National Guard to coordinate a helicopter hoist.
A flight crew departed Concord and reached Mount Lincoln just before 6pm. Crew members lowered a medic to the hikers and hoisted both men into the helicopter. By 6:05pm, the aircraft was en route to Littleton Regional Hospital for further treatment.
New Hampshire Fish and Game reminds hikers that mountain weather can change rapidly and extreme conditions can develop without warning. Hikers are encouraged to check the Higher Summits Forecast at MountWashington.org before heading out and to carry the ten essentials: map, compass, warm clothing, extra food and water, headlamp, fire starter, first aid kit, whistle, rain and wind jacket and pants, and a knife. Additional preparedness information is available at HikeSafe.com.
Related
-
Sports3 minutes agoParents of ex-NFL player Doug Martin allege excessive force by Oakland police in wrongful death suit
-
World13 minutes agoBurkina Faso cuts diplomatic ties with former colonial ruler France
-
News40 minutes agoA day after Alito’s testy response to Sotomayor’s dissent, court says it was a ‘misunderstanding’
-
Los Angeles, Ca2 hours agoWatch Project Angel Food's 'Lead with Love' telethon on KTLA
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoMetro Detroit weather forecast, June 26, 2026 — 4 p.m. Update
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours agoNewlyweds celebrate Pride-themed weddings inside SF City Hall as parade preparations underway
-
Dallas, TX3 hours agoAll Dallas restaurants firing up specials for July 4th and America’s 250th
-
Miami, FL3 hours agoHelping Venezuela: State Department deploys Miami-Dade search-and-rescue team
