[Another reason to rely on technology to protect your rights (as a general rule; I hardly think the 1,100+ detainees have smuggled crypto-hardware into their jail cells) rather than the weak, politically-malleable shield of the law. --Declan] ********* http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011108/us/attacks_sedition_1.html WASHINGTON (AP) - Prosecutors seeking to hold people they suspect were in the early stages of terrorist plots may turn anew to a very old weapon - the Civil War-era law on sedition. Last week, prosecutors cited the rarely invoked law in the case of a student being detained in New York, and hinted they might make fuller use of it in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. [...] ********* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64663-2001Nov8.html By George Lardner Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 9, 2001; Page A01 The Justice Department has decided to listen in on the conversations of lawyers with clients in federal custody, including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime, whenever that is deemed necessary to prevent violence or terrorism. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft approved the eavesdropping rule on an emergency basis last week, without the usual waiting period for public comment. It went into effect immediately, permitting the government to monitor conversations and intercept mail between people in custody and their attorneys for up to a year at a time. The move, which the Justice Department said was necessary "in view of the immediacy of the dangers to the public," stunned defense lawyers and civil libertarians. They assailed it as an unconstitutional attack on the right to counsel and, in the words of American Civil Liberties Union official Laura W. Murphy, "a terrifying precedent." The monitoring of attorney-client conversations is the latest in a series of extraordinary law enforcement measures the government has taken in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. [...] ******** Power Grab Allows Government Eavesdropping on Inmate-Attorney Conversations FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Gabe Rottman Friday, November 9, 2001 (202) 675-2312 WASHINGTON - Calling it an unprecedented power grab completely at odds with the Constitution, the American Civil Liberties Union today said it vehemently opposes the new Bureau of Prisons regulation allowing the government to listen in on conversations between prison inmates and their legal counsel. The right to an effective and vigorous defense is an absolute, said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington National Office. This is a terrifying precedent - it threatens to negate the keystone of our system of checks and balances, the right to a competent legal defense. The regulation removes all judicial review from the eavesdropping, allowing the government to listen in any time the Attorney General believes there exists reasonable suspicion that a conversation between an inmate and counsel has any connection to terrorist activity. Murphy said that this would discourage inmates from having full and open conversations with their own defense attorneys about the facts of the case, information which is a prerequisite for good legal advice. The new regulation appeared in the Federal Register on October 31 along with a number of other changes in the current rules governing the Bureau of Prisons. Even though the Department of Justice claims to protect inmates Sixth Amendment right to assistance of counsel in this new regulation by establishing a firewall within the department to prevent prosecutors from getting their hands on privileged information, Murphy questioned the departments trustworthiness. She pointed out that the Department of Justice just successfully petitioned Congress to remove the firewall between intelligence and criminal investigations, a key check on law enforcement power. Ironically, the new regulations come at the same time as the Administration is seeking to repeal the McDade-Murtha Law, a measure that was passed in 1996 in response to questions of professional misconduct by government attorneys. Its repeal would allow federal prosecutors to follow a far more lax set of ethical standards than defense attorneys. Civil liberties advocates also fear that the regulation could provide innocent inmates a disincentive to volunteer information to their defense counsel that could potentially clear their name. If an suspects sole alibi is potentially damaging, but unrelated to the alleged crime, he or she will obviously be hesitant to whisper this little secret directly in the governments ear, Murphy said. Each and every person in this country must given the constitutional right to private consultation with legal counsel. ### ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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