A new bipartisan piece of legislation, the Homeland and Cyber Threat Act, seeks to amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) to allow U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments for injuries sustained from foreign government-sponsored cyberattacks. As explained yesterday in an op-ed in The Hill from the bill’s sponsors, Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI) and Andy Kim (D-NJ), the bill “carves out a cyberattack exception to the blanket immunity of foreign governments — including foreign officials, employees, or agents — provided by FSIA with regard to money damages sought by a national of the United States for personal injury, harm to reputation, or damage to or loss of property resulting from cyberattacks.”
The congressmen point out how, under extant law and federal courts’ interpretation of that law, foreign governments are generally immune from U.S. plaintiffs’ legal actions. Accordingly, the Homeland and Cyber Threat Act would close this legal safe harbor and endeavor to hold hostile foreign governments accountable for their destructive actions against American citizens. The congressmen argue that times have sufficiently changed since the passage of the FSIA so as to make necessary such a legislative tweak:
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