U.S. Seeks to Dismiss Kaspersky Suit Against Legislative, Administrative Bans

The Justice Department has filed motions arguing Congress wasn’t illegally meting out punishment when it barred Kaspersky Lab from government contracts, but was making a perfectly legal move to protect national security.

One of Kaspersky’s suits claims that Congress violated the constitution by singling it out for punishment – an action known as a “bill of attainder” – without sufficient evidence of actual wrongdoing.

The motion to dismiss the suit against the legislative ban argues that Congress acted on months of executive branch fact-finding and congressional debate. And regardless, it argues, the point of the legislation was to protect national security, not merely to punish a private company as a bill of attainder would do.

The motion to dismiss the suit against the administrative ban by Homeland Security argues that Kaspersky received as much process as it was constitutionally entitled beforehand. Furthermore, it asserts that Kaspersky no longer has a legal basis to challenge the ban because the legislative ban supersedes it.