49 U.S.C. § 44941
Section 44941 · Immunity for reporting suspicious activities
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 11 court decisions — leading case 134 S. Ct. 852 - Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper (2014)
Most recently applied in Project Veritas v. Cable News Network, Inc. (November 2024)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) In General.—Any air carrier or foreign air carrier or any employee of an air carrier or foreign air carrier who makes a voluntary disclosure of any suspicious transaction relevant to a possible violation of law or regulation, relating to air piracy, a threat to aircraft or passenger safety, or terrorism, as defined by section 3077 of title 18, United States Code, to any employee or agent of the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, any Federal, State, or local law enforcement officer, or any airport or airline security officer shall not be civilly liable to any person under any law or regulation of the United States, any constitution, law, or regulation of any State or political subdivision of any State, for such disclosure.
(b) Application.—Subsection (a) shall not apply to—
(1) any disclosure made with actual knowledge that the disclosure was false, inaccurate, or misleading; or
(2) any disclosure made with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of that disclosure.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
2018—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 115–254 inserted "the Department of Homeland Security," after "Department of Transportation,".