The 9/11 families, the passage of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), and the pursuit of in the Saudi legal cases

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper offers a critical rhetorical analysis of the counterterrorist arguments that were presented by 9/11 families and their representatives when they sued Saudi Arabians for their role in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. By drawing from Foucault’s concept of governmentality, and by extending the work of critical security studies scholars who critique populist support for the Global War on Terrorism, the authors argue that supporters of the eventual passage of a bill known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act were able to interrogate official notions of <sovereign immunity>. By taking advantage of their social capital, their victimage status that was based on their traumatic experiences, and their moral authority, empowered 9/11 family members allowed the National September 11 Memorial and Memorial Museum to function as a governmentality that helped produce contested public memories and particular types of subjectivities. Visitors and defenders of this hallowed site were invited to become freedom fighters who vigilantly engaged in counterterrorist practices by questioning more official historiographies and public memories of 9/11 as they sued Saudi conspirators.