Veto override misstep?

I n voting overwhelmingly, for the first time, to override a veto by President Obama, Congress did the understandable and compassionate thing. But it may not have done the right thing.

By a 97-1 vote in the Senate and 348-77 in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congress amended federal law to allow the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any alleged role in the plot.

Most of the terrorists who commandeered the planes used as missiles in the 9/11 attacks were Saudis, and there have long been suspicions that government officials played some role in supporting the terrorist network. The Kingdom has denied it had any connection.

The commission that investigated the attacks found no link to the Saudi government, but left open the possibility that some Saudi officials could have been involved.

With the recent 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000, pressure has increased in Congress to give the families a chance for their day in court. But by doing so, amending a 1976 law that grants foreign countries broad immunity from American lawsuits, Congress may have well set a dangerous precedent.

It increases the chances of the U.S. facing lawsuits and court orders to release sensitive information about its military and intelligence gathering activities that have harmed many a civilian in foreign lands. The United States has lost the legal footing to claim immunity.

With Saudi officials facing the possibility that any adverse ruling could lead to U.S. courts seizing Saudi assets in this country to pay for potential judgments, they could well remove and sell hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. holdings.

The easy move for the president would have been to sign the popular legislation.

“Sometimes, you have to do what’s hard,” he said. Congress chose another path. Both Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, and eastern Connecticut’s congressman, Joe Courtney, voted to override. All are Democrats.

Blumenthal issued a statement calling the override, “A significant moment for American justice.” Murphy said the families deserved their day in court.

Courtney did not issue a statement, but told us the bill was sufficiently limited in scope — in his assessment exposing only the Saudi state for intentional acts, not negligence — and he considered the administration’s concerns about retaliatory legal action to be overwrought.

With the passage of this law, and the future president left to deal with it despite no executive signature, we can only hope Courtney’s right.