(JNS.org) A federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit filed against the U.S. government in 2012 by Alan Gross, who has been imprisoned in Cuba since 2009. Gross, serving a 15-year prison term for helping Cuba’s Jewish community access the Internet while he was a subcontractor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was working to promote democracy, but Cuba convicted him of “crimes against the state.” The lawsuit against the U.S. said that Gross had not been prepared for the risks he later encountered while doing his job in Cuba. But in his opinion, Judge James Boasberg wrote that federal law does not allow the government to be sued based on injuries that occurred outside of the U.S. Scott Gilbert of Gilbert LLP, the law firm representing Gross, told JNS.org, “We are disappointed in the court’s ruling. This is an example of the exception swallowing the rule. We will be filing a notice of appeal shortly.”