AP:
The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.
The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.
[...]
In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran.
WINGNUT OUTRAGE MACHINE: TURN ON!!
Here is a copy of the motion to dismiss. Here is a relevant excerpt:
To obtain the release of the plaintiff hostages, the United States, through an international agreement known as the Algiers Accords, agreed to preclude the prosecution of any claims against Iran arising out of the hostage taking. That binding international commitment must be honored by the United States unless and until Congress (1) abrogates the Algiers Accords expressly in conjunction with relevant legislation, or (2) unambiguously creates a cause of action for the embassy hostage plaintiffs against Iran. Congress has done neither. Accordingly, plaintiffs have failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The United States has sought intervention in this case, and now moves to dismiss, in order to carry out its obligations
under the Algiers Accords.
By statute, foreign states are immune from suit unless Congress creates an exception to immunity. Beginning in 1996, Congress passed a series of laws which together created an exception to foreign sovereign immunity to allow individuals harmed by acts of terrorism to sue state sponsors of terrorism in certain circumstances and also created a cause of action against foreign officials and later against foreign governments. Plaintiffs in this case previously sued Iran in 2000, but their case was dismissed because Congress had not created a private right of action against Iran in abrogation of the Algiers Accords. Plaintiffs’ present case is based on a purported new cause of action against Iran arising from Section 1083 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Pub. L. 110-181, 122 Stat. 3, § 1083 ("Section 1083"), enacted in January 2008, which in specified circumstances creates a private right of action against foreign governments that engage in terrorism.
While Section 1083 may create a private right of action against foreign governments likeI ran for other terrorist acts, it stop far short of creating a private right of action for claims arising out of the 1979 hostage taking. Because of the Court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ prior suit, Congress was well aware that only a clearly expressed abrogation of the Algiers Accords would permit a cause of action arising out of the 1979 hostage taking. Nevertheless, Section 1083 makes no mention of the Accords.
So basically, Obama's DoJ is interpreting the law correctly here. He's asserting no special privilege for Iran that no other president has not already asserted before.
For example, from a 2003 ruling from the USCA for DC:
On the eve of trial, however, the State Department, recently made aware of plaintiffs’ claims, attempted to intervene, vacate the judgment, and dismiss the suit. Plaintiffs’ hopes of recovery were once again placed in jeopardy. The United States argued that the Algiers Accords, the 1980 bilateral agreement between the United States and Iran, by which the hostages’ release was secured, and its implementing regulations, contain a prohibition on lawsuits arising out of the hostage-taking at issue here. See Govt’s Mem. in Supp. of Mot. to Vacate of 10/12/01. Because no act by Congress had specifically abrogated the Accords, the government argued, that agreement precludes plaintiffs’ claims and the case should be dismissed. The United States also raised several other arguments interpreting the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that this Court lacked jurisdiction to hear plaintiffs’ claims, and that plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed on the merits.
Basically, the Bush administration's DoJ made an almost identical argument against this lawsuit based on the Algiers Accords. So there really should be no real controversy here unless you want to challenge the legal reasoning of every single president since Carter.
Another day, another wingnut nontroversy debunked.