Money motivates.

Since little appears to stop the actions of terrorists and states from sponsoring them, make them accountable in a civil court – make them pay the families of their victims for damages with hidden assets in the US - nothing frivolous about these suits.

TheHill.com - Despite lawsuit, lawyers lobby together for terrorism victims

Despite lawsuit, lawyers lobby together for terrorism victims

By Kevin Bogardus
June 21, 2007

Despite being locked in a million-dollar lawsuit against each other, two attorneys have begun a lobbying campaign to ensure better compensation for victims of terrorist attacks and their families….

The two also have a bill in their sights. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is working on legislation that would allow victims’ lawyers to pursue more aggressively assets of states that provide support for terrorist groups….

Lautenberg’s legislative proposal is based on a 1996 amendment that Congress added to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which allowed American terrorism victims to go after state sponsors. Termed the “Flatow Amendment” for Alisa Flatow, a college student killed by a bomb in Jerusalem, Fay and Perles have cited the clause in several suits.

The planned bill would go further than past court rulings. Instead of being limited to seizing assets that state sponsors owned and managed on a day-to-day basis, lawyers for terrorism victims could go after hidden assets, like courts already do with drug cartels, to meet compensation demands set by judges’ decisions….

“The fact that we [still] provide more protection to a terrorist state than a drug cartel astounds me,” said Derbyshire.