It’s President Barack Obama against the almost unanimous both houses of Congress and the one issue that Unites Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump, support of this bill. It’s called the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” JASTA, but actually it will provide an opportunity for those families who have received seven billion dollars of compensation from the U.S. Government to go after a sovereign country, to try to collect again. President Barack Obama has the courage to see the damage and has vetoed it. If you haven’t seen the three page veto statement it’s no accident, it can only be found on the Whitehouse site after a half dozen clicks.
I feel strongly that the bill is ill conceived, and that the President was right in vetoing, I checked out the N.Y. Times, Washington Post, The Hill, Political and several others and no link to the full Presidential veto. Huffington Post Article, did include it but still not on other publications or the Whitehouse site. This single version can not be selectively copied to include quotations in an independent essay, something that will limit the full expression of his cogent argument.
The vote on overriding the President’s veto is Wednesday, and as of now the only entity I have found behind him is the Wall Streer Journal in this editorial. I have taken the effort to track down a version of his veto statement that can be copied and will make my own comments in italics :
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approval S. 2040, the ‘‘Justice Against
move sovereign immunity in U.S.
terrorism.
.
suffered grievously. I also have a deep
forts.
.
that planned the 9/11 attacks. The he-
killed Osama bin Laden. My Adminis-
on that terrible day and other sur-
vivors of the attacks will be able to re-
ceive treatment for any injuries result-
ing from the attacks. And my Adminis-
tration also directed the Intelligence
Community to perform a declassifica-
tion review of ‘‘Part Four of the Joint
Congressional Inquiry into Intelligence
Community Activities Before and After
the Terrorist Attacks of September
11,’’ so that the families of 9/11 victims
and broader public can better under-
stand the information investigators
gathered following that dark day of our
history..
.
Notwithstanding these significant ef-
forts, I recognize that there is nothing
that could ever erase the grief the 9/11
families have endured. My Administra-
tion therefore remains resolute in its
commitment to assist these families in
their pursuit of justice and do what-
ever we can to prevent another attack
in the United States.
.
This is the key, that the President of the United States has sole responsibility for foreign policy. It s this executives decision to balance all consideration of alliances that may not be ursurped by the judiciary. The name of this principle is unfortunate, Sovereign Immunity, as the connotation is that it means “The king can do no wrong. This has evolved, and the rule applies overwhelmingly to heads of state who are elected.
.
Enacting JASTA
into law, however, would neither pro-
tect Americans from terrorist attacks
nor improve the effectiveness of our re-
sponse to such attacks. As drafted,
JASTA would allow private litigation
against foreign governments in U.S.
courts based on allegations that such
foreign governments’ actions abroad
made them responsible for terrorism-
related injuries on U.S. soil. This legis-
lation would permit litigation against
countries that have neither been des-
ignated by the executive branch as
state sponsors of terrorism nor taken
direct actions in the United States to
carry out an attack here.
.The JASTA
would be detrimental to U.S. national
interests more broadly, which is why I
am returning it without my approval.
First, JASTA threatens to reduce the
effectiveness of our response to indica-
tions that a foreign government has
taken steps outside our borders to pro-
vide support for terrorism, by taking
such matters out of the hands of na-
tional security and foreign policy pro-
fessionals and placing them in the
hands of private litigants and courts.
Any indication that a foreign govern-
ment played a role in a terrorist attack
on U.S. soil is a matter of deep concern
and merits a forceful, unified Federal
Government response that considers
the wide range of important and effec-
tive tools available.
.
One of these tools
is designating the foreign government
in question as a state sponsor of ter-
rorism, which carries with it a litany
of repercussions, including the foreign
government being stripped of its sov-
ereign immunity before U.S. courts in
certain terrorism-related cases and
subjected to a range of sanctions.
Given these serious consequences, state
sponsor of terrorism designations are
made only after national security, for-
eign policy, and intelligence profes-
sionals carefully review all available
information to determine whether a
country meets the criteria that the
Congress established.
.
In contrast, JASTA departs from
longstanding standards and practice
under our Foreign Sovereign Immuni-
ties Act and threatens to strip all for-
eign governments of immunity from
judicial process in the United States
based solely upon allegations by pri-
vate litigants that a foreign govern-
ment’s overseas conduct had some role
or connection to a group or person that
carried out a terrorist attack inside
the United States. This would invite
consequential decisions to be made
based upon incomplete information and
risk having different courts reaching
different conclusions about the culpa-
bility of individual foreign govern-
ments and their role in terrorist activi-
ties directed against the United
States—which is neither an effective
nor a coordinated way for us to respond
to indications that a foreign govern-
ment might have been behind a ter-
rorist attack.
.
Second, JASTA would upset long-
standing international principles re-
garding sovereign immunity, putting
in place rules that, if applied globally,
could have serious implications for
U.S. national interests. The United
States has a larger international pres-
ence, by far, than any other country,
and sovereign immunity principles pro-
tect our Nation and its Armed Forces,
officials, and assistance professionals,
from foreign court proceedings. These
principles also protect U.S. Govern-
ment assets from attempted seizure by
private litigants abroad. Removing
sovereign immunity in U.S. courts
from foreign governments that are not
designated as state sponsors of ter-
rorism, based solely on allegations that
such foreign governments’ actions
abroad had a connection to terrorism-
related injuries on U.S. soil, threatens
to undermine these longstanding prin-
ciples that protect the United States,
our forces, and our personnel.
.
Indeed, reciprocity plays a substan-
tial role in foreign relations, and nu-
merous other countries already have
laws that allow for the adjustment of a
foreign state’s immunities based on the
treatment their governments receive
in the courts of the other state. Enact-
ment of JASTA could encourage for-
eign governments to act reciprocally
and allow their domestic courts to ex-
ercise jurisdiction over the United
States or U.S. officials—including our
men and women in uniform—for alleg-
edly causing injuries overseas via U.S.
support to third parties. This could
lead to suits against the United States
or U.S. officials for actions taken by
members of an armed group that re-
ceived U.S. assistance, misuse of U.S.
military equipment by foreign forces,
or abuses committed by police units
that received U.S. training, even if the
allegations at issue ultimately would
be without merit. And if any of these
litigants were to win judgments—based
on foreign domestic laws as applied by
foreign courts—they would begin to
look to the assets of the U.S. Govern-
ment held abroad to satisfy those judg-
ments, with potentially serious finan-
cial consequences for the United
States.
.
Third, JASTA threatens to create
complications in our relationships with
even our closest partners. If JASTA
were enacted, courts could potentially
consider even minimal allegations ac-
cusing U.S. allies or partners of com-
plicity in a particular terrorist attack
in the United States to be sufficient to
open the door to litigation and wide-
ranging discovery against a foreign
country—for example, the country
where an individual who later com-
mitted a terrorist act traveled from or
became radicalized. A number of our
allies and partners have already con-
tacted us with serious concerns about
the bill. By exposing these allies and
partners to this sort of litigation in
U.S. courts, JASTA threatens to limit
their cooperation on key national secu-
rity issues, including counterterrorism
initiatives, at a crucial time when we
are trying to build coalitions, not cre-
ate divisions.
.
The 9/11 attacks were the worst act of
terrorism on U.S. soil, and they were
met with an unprecedented U.S. Gov-
ernment response. The United States
has taken robust and wide-ranging ac-
tions to provide justice for the victims
of the 9/11 attacks
.
Here’s what President Obama is alluding to, The 911 Victim’s Compensation fund that was calculated how much each victim would have earned in a full lifetime. If a family accepted the offer, it was not possible to appeal. …….At the end of the process $7 billion was awarded to 97% of the families; the average payout was $1.8 million. A non-negotiable clause in the acceptance papers for the settlements was that the families were to never file suit against the airlines for any lack of security or otherwise unsafe procedures.[3]
Had the conditions been that those who accepted this could not sue any entity, there is no doubt they would have accepted the settlement, and this attempt to get reimbursed twice would not have occurred.
.
and keep Americans
safe, from providing financial com-
pensation for victims and their fami-
lies to conducting worldwide counter-
terrorism programs to bringing crimi-
nal charges against culpable individ-
uals. I have continued and expanded
upon these efforts, both to help victims
of terrorism gain justice for the loss
and suffering of their loved ones and to
protect the United States from future
attacks. The JASTA, however, does not
contribute to these goals, does not en-
hance the safety of Americans from
terrorist attacks, and undermines core
U.S. interests.
.
For these reasons, I must veto the
bill.