A decade and a half on, all we’ve learned from 9/11 litigation is that America’s legal system is even more hopeless than its real estate industry, which has finally finished a few grandiose structures at ground zero that are of some redeeming value.
As this magazine went to press, President Barack Obama was promising to veto a bill that would clear the way for a 9/11 tort litigation filed in 2002—a lawsuit that accuses Saudi Arabia and its charities of helping al-Qaida. Some senators were threatening to delay a veto override and soften the bill. But the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, as the bill is called, passed both houses of Congress unanimously. Some version of it is highly likely to become law this year. What will then unfold in the courts?
