US Justice Department asks judge to allow government to bar WeChat from US app stores

[WASHINGTON] The Justice Department early Friday asked a federal judge in San Francisco to allow the government to bar Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google from offering WeChat for download in US app stores pending an appeal.

The filing asked US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco to put on hold her preliminary injunction issued on Saturday. That injunction had blocked the US Commerce Department order which was set to take effect late Sept 20 and that would also bar other US transactions with Tencent Holding's WeChat, potentially making the app unusable in the United States.

The Justice Department filing said Judge Beeler's order "permits the continued, unfettered use of WeChat, a mobile application that the Executive Branch has determined constitutes a threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

REUTERS