Comment by DannyBee
12 years ago
"The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. "
It's worse than this. You also generally can't sue the US government civilly unless they allow you to. US has abrogated sovereign immunity in certain situations for certain types of torts, but ..
Civil immunity is a subset of completely unconstrained by law. For example, judges are entitled to absolute civil immunity for actions taken in an official capacity. But they have occasionally been charged criminally for actions for which they were civilly immune.
"Civil immunity is a subset of completely unconstrained by law"
Sorry, I didn't read it that way :) Since the original thread seemed to be about criminalness, I assumed you meant they could not be charged criminally for their actions.
There is a huge difference, as you point out, between civil and criminal liability.