Judge: Airlines can't question FBI in 9/11 suits

A federal judge ruled Thursday that airlines and other companies in the industry that are being sued by families of terrorism victims can't question FBI agents about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The defendants wanted to depose the agents and sought access to other evidence related to the investigation of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in order to show at trial that the government's failure to catch the terrorists and prevent the attacks mitigates and excuses any alleged fault on the aviation companies' part. The government objected. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York said the defendants have also argued that the terrorists likely would have succeeded even if the defendants had exercised due care. "The issues to be tried relate to the acts and omissions of the aviation defendants, not the government," Hellerstein wrote in his ruling. "The government's failures to detect and abort the terrorists' plots would not affect the aviation defendants' potential liability."...AP