Give 9/11 families a legal avenue

The Senate will vote today on whether to override the president’s veto of our bill, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). As the authors of this legislation and firm believers in its purpose, we believe the Senate should confidently vote to override the veto.

JASTA was written for one main purpose: to clarify under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and the Antiterrorism Act that every entity, including foreign states, must be held accountable if they are found to be sponsors of heinous acts of terrorism on U.S. soil.

If the veto is overridden, this legislation would provide a legal avenue for the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks to seek justice in a court of law for the terrorist attacks that took the lives of their loved ones. And it would deter foreign entities from sponsoring terrorism in the future.

The concerns we’ve heard about the legislation don’t hold up to scrutiny. JASTA’s opponents claim that the bill will subject U.S. diplomats and other government officials to a raft of potential lawsuits in foreign courts. Not true; JASTA simply builds on well-established principles under FSIA.

It returns the law to the way it was before a 2008 court case that granted sovereign immunity even in terrorism cases where citizens are murdered on U.S. soil. In the decades before this, there was no flood of lawsuits against U.S. interests.

Consistent with FSIA, as designed by Congress, victims can sue a foreign government if one of its employees causes damage arising from drunken driving, assault or breach of contract. If U.S. victims can sue a foreign government for these reasons, they should be able to sue a foreign government that harms their loved ones by financing a terror attack on our homeland.

There is always an excuse not to do something, but the chief argument used by JASTA’s detractors is flimsy. When weighed against the moral imperative to do right by the families of the 9/11 victims — who continue to strongly advocate for this bill — the choice is clear: Senators should vote to override.