Bar Association protests NSA spying

February 24, 2014, 04:25 pm

Bar Association protests NSA spying
By Julian Hattem

The country’s top lawyers’ trade group is raising a formal complaint about the U.S. government’s support for spying on confidential legal communications.

The American Bar Association (ABA) last week sent a letter to leaders at the National Security Agency (NSA) expressing concern about reports that the agency’s Australian counterpart had spied on a U.S. law firm working for Indonesia. The agency allegedly offered to share details with the NSA, including “information covered by attorney-client privilege.”

“The attorney-client privilege is a bedrock legal principle of our free society and is important in both the civil and criminal contexts,” the group’s president, James Silkenat, wrote in the letter. “The ABA has consistently fought to preserve the attorney-client privilege and opposes government policies, practices and procedures that erode the privilege.”

“The interception and sharing of attorney-client privileged communications by government agencies — or any third party — raises concerns, including chilling the full and frank discussion between lawyer and client that is essential for effective legal representation,” he added.

Documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed that the Australian government kept tabs on discussions between Indonesian officials and an American law firm which was not named, but was said to be providing support on trade issues.

Traditional legal protections for attorney-client communication do not extend to communications with foreign governments.

The lawyers’ organization asked the NSA to “clarify and explain NSA’s current policies and practices” for protecting attorney-client confidentiality and asked whether or not those policies were followed in the Indonesian case.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group, cheered the ABA’s letter.

“Just as attorneys must zealously fight for their clients, the profession must zealously fight against surveillance that would undermine the ability to represent clients, and must see this most recent revelation for what it is — a step away from the constitutionally prescribed system of justice attorneys are sworn to uphold,” Nadia Kayyali, an activist with the group, wrote in a blog post.


http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/199075-lawyers-protest-nsa-snooping

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest. Tech Culture by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine. Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a ke...
Read more

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that th...
Read more

New ATM's: withdraw money with veins in your finger

New cash machines: withdraw money with veins in your finger Cash machine technology that reads the pattern of finger veins is already available in Japan and Poland   By Telegraph Reporters 6:59PM BST 15 May 2014 Cash machines could soon be installed with devices that identify customers by reading the veins in their fingers. The technology is already being rolled out in Poland, where 1,730 cash machines will this year be installed with readers, negating the need for a debit card and Pin. Developed by Hitachi, the Japanese electronics firm, the machines read the patterns of the veins just below the surface of the skin on your finger using infra-red sensors. The light is partially absorbed by haemoglobin in the veins to capture a unique finger vein pattern profile, which is matched to a profile. The technology is used by Japanese banks and also in Turkey, offering “groundbreaking levels of accuracy and speed of authentication”, Hitachi said, which in t...
Read more