Rule may endanger attorney-client privilege

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Rule may endanger attorney-client privilege
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jun 4, 2008 7:47:44 EDT

Legal experts are alarm over a recently approved Pentagon directive they say infringes upon the right of protected communications between military defense attorneys and their clients in uniform.

“The bar is very serious about keeping peoples’ secrets, and communications to and from clients,” said Eugene Fidell, a Washington attorney and president of the National Institute of Military Justice. “And in this day and age, a lot of that is done by e-mail — particularly in the military environment. And if you don’t have the kind of assurance that nobody’s peeking, that’s very disturbing.”

According to the May 9 directive, use of a government computer grants the government permission to “inspect and seize data,” and states that “communications using, or data stored on, this are not private, are subject to routine monitoring, interception, and search, and may be disclosed or used for any” government-authorized purpose.

The directive goes on to say that attorney, doctor and clergy communications and work product “are private and confidential,” and that use of a government computer does not constitute consent to investigative searching or monitoring of those communications for the purpose of personnel misconduct, law enforcement or counterintelligence investigations.

But the directive does allow all communications and data to be monitored “for purposes of network administration, operation, protection, or defense, or for communications security.”


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/military_attorneyclient_privilege_060308w/

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1. Property triumphs over people yet again.