A few people messaged me to say “who cares how they prosecute criminites, I'm not a criminal”, and “oh, well they'll only use this against terrorists.”
Those are not valid arguments. The reason that we have client-lawyer confidentiality is to encourage frank communication between lawyers and clients, thereby serving the public good. By removing this right, clients will not be able to discuss their case fully with their lawyers, stopping them from getting fair trials.
As far as the “I'm not a criminal” argument, think about it for a minute. It may come as a shock to you, but sometimes the wrong people get arrested. If lawyers know their conversations are monitored, it means that they can not effectively discuss your case or defense with you, because literally everything they say to you can be used against you. Even if it's as simple as the fact that when the prosecution has intimate knowledge of your case, it makes it MUCH easier to undermine and put an innocent person in prison.
As far as the “I'm no terrorist” argument, that's not valid either. First of all, legislating a situation where certain kinds of criminals get less right to a fair trial is ludicrous. Second, there is nothing written that this will only be used sometimes… Which means that it will be used always.
I've left out a million arguments why this is a bad idea, including the obvious fact that this is a stepping stone.
In addition, the arguments above could be used in Afghanistan. “I'm not an infidel, why does it matter to me that the Taliban will execute me if I use the Internet?”
Links worth checking:
- US will monitor calls to lawyers (MSNBC)
- Power Grab Allows Government Eavesdropping on Inmate-Attorney Conversations (ACLU)
- War profiteering (MichaelMoore)
- Operation Enduring Avarice (Alternet)
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