DOJ Wrong on Liablity for Aiding Terrorists, Says Amicus Filing

A DOJ filing in U.S. Supreme Court Section 230 case Twitter v. Taamneh “wrongly” narrows the circumstances under which entities can be held liable for aiding terrorists, said a group of law professors who specialize in counterterrorism, in an amicus brief posted in docket 21-1496 Wednesday. DOJ erred in saying plaintiffs arguing that an entity had violated the Antiterroism Act or the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act needed to show that an entity had “anything more than an arms-length transactional relationship” with terrorists, the filing said. Such allegations “are not necessary” to state a claim under the anti-terrorism statutes, the brief said. The question of whether an entity provided substantial assistance to ISIS “turns not on whether its services were bespoke; it turns on whether the services had a meaningful impact on ISIS’s ability to carry out illicit activities,” the filing said.