Attorney client privilege is so 20th century
by digby
Anybody have a problem with this?
An unnamed U.S. law firm was caught up in the global surveillance of the National Security Agency (NSA) and its overseas partners in Australia, according to a newspaper report on Saturday.
A top secret document obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden shows the firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States, according to The New York Times.
The government of Indonesia retained the law firm for trade talks, which were under surveillance by the Australian Signals Directorate, said the report, citing the February 2013 document.
The Australian agency notified the NSA that it was conducting surveillance of the talks, including communications between Indonesian officials and the U.S. law firm and offered to share the information, according to the Times.
The Australians said that “information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included” in the intelligence gathering, according to the document, which the Times described as a monthly bulletin from an NSA liaison office in Canberra, Australia.
The law firm was not identified in the document, but Mayer Brown, a Chicago-based firm with a global practice, was then advising the Indonesian government on trade, the Times said.
I didn’t think so. Attorney client privilege is sort of old fashioned anyway. After all, when you sign up for a Facebook account you’re selling off your privacy in all ways, right? Isn’t that we’re being told? And why shouldn’t the government be spying on law firms over trade talks? They’re working on behalf of the job creators to make sure all of us average citizens are safe. Let’s just move along.