Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh (21-1496)

argument 21-1496

Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh

Supreme Court of the United States 2h 29m 8 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the Court’s initial framing of the JASTA statute and the Rena attack?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We will hear argument this morning in case twenty one fourteen ninety six, Twitter versus Tomna. Mr. Waxman.

Mr. Waxman 0:11

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. JASTA permits any U.S. national injured by reason of an act of international terrorism to recover treble damages from a person who aids and abets by knowingly providing substantial assistance or who conspires with the person who committed such an act of international terrorism. The foundational points here are not in dispute. First The conceited and obvious act of international terrorism is the Rena attack. And the complaint includes no allegation that the defendants provided substantial assistance, much less knowing substantial assistance, to that attack or for that matter to any other attack. Second, as the complaint concedes, the defendants, quote, had no intent to aid ISIS's terrorist activities, quite to the contrary,

Mr. Waxman 1:07

they maintained and regularly enforced policies prohibiting content that promotes terrorist activity. The plaintiffs claim that because defendants were generally aware that among their billions of users were ISIS adherents who violated their policies, and therefore defendants should have done more to enforce those policies, does not constitute aiding and abetting an active international terrorism under the operative terms of the text, the constitutional principles articulated in Halberstam, or any recognized understanding of what it means to abet a criminal act. If Congress had wanted to impose treble damage liability for existing, assisting a terrorist organization, it had a ready model in the Material Support Statute, Section 2339 B.

Mr. Waxman 2:02

If it had wanted to create such liability for supporting international terrorist terrorism writ large. It likewise had a model in Section 23311. Instead, it provided a remedy against those who conspire with terrorists or who knowingly aid and abet acts of terrorism. It did not impose treble damage liability on companies whose services were exploited by terrorists in contravention of anti terrorism policies. I welcome the Court's questions.

Clarence Thomas 2:38

Uh Mr. Waxman it seems that you tie uh your analysis to uh knowledge of the RAINA attacks. Uh rather than just general knowledge of uh terrorism.

Mr. Waxman 2:51

So we it's thank you, Justice Thomas. Let me clarify we do not contend That there is no liability if these companies didn't know that the Reyna nightclub would be attacked. What they had to have known to satisfy the operative language of the statute was that they were in fact providing substantial assistance to the act of international terrorism that injured the plaintiff, and that they knew That their action would substantially assist an act of international terrorism. The flight trainers who provide who taught the Al-Qaeda terrorists how to fly planes so they could fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon didn't need to know that those were the targets. But he needed to know that he was in fact providing substantial assistance.

Mr. Waxman 3:47

assistance to people who aim to use that knowledge in order to commit a terrorist attack.

Clarence Thomas 3:53

So the the and I may have misunderstood uh your brief, but So you would and I assume you would agree that if uh I had a friend who was a mugger, a murderer and a burglar. And but other than that he was a good guy. Uh and uh I loaned him a gun but not knowing and not wanting to know what he was gonna do with it. that I that he that that possibly could be aiding and abetting.

Mr. Waxman 4:25

So I think it wouldn't be because it would it while it would satisfy steps one and three of the Halberstam legal framework that is uh is meant to be the model for the interpretive model for this statute, you also had to ha you also have to have a general awareness that you are assisting um in overall illegal or tortuous activity. So for example, If I have a farm and I'm I have a gate with my next door neighbor's pasture and it's got a padlock and I don't I can't open the padlock and I go to you, you're my neighbor on the other side and say, Justice Thomas, I'm trying to open this gate, but I can't get the padlock open.