3 ms·

The complaint is directed against the German federal government, the presidents of the German secret services. Can we in USA sue the president and Feinstein fo

• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• ghayes 13y ago
  Yes and no, I'd suggest reading about sovereign immunity in the US: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity
  • k__ 13y ago
    The german regime has immunity too. I don't think, if they get sued and lose, any individual will go to jail. But some legal entities will be in big trouble.
  • rayiner 13y ago
    Sovereign immunity protects the state, as a sovereign entity, from suit. It doesn't protect individual agents of the government. Public officials generally enjoy immunity from civil suits for monetary damages to the extent that they are acting in their public capacity and not violating clearly established law. They are not immune from criminal liability. The "clearly established law" part is usually the catch. I'll use Obamacare as an example. Say Obamacare had been found unconstitutional. Could businesses have sued Kathleen Sebelius for the money they spent in preparation for implementing this unconstitutional law? There are probably a number of reasons why not, but one of them is that she is protected by immunity because the question of whether Obamacare was a valid exercise of Congressional power was not "clearly established." Sovereign immunity would not protect her, because she is an agent of the government, not the government itself. In the context of NSA spying, there's quite a bit of debate on the legality of various programs, so that would not be considered "clearly established" either.