A new report based on leaks by Edward Snowden reveals the NSA played a role in the monitoring of a U.S. law firm that represented the Indonesian government during trade disputes with the United States According to The New York Times, the NSA’s Australian counterpart told the NSA it was spying on trade talks between the United States and Indonesia, including potentially privileged communications between Indonesian officials and the U.S. law firm Mayer Brown. The document notes the Australian agency has been able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested U.S. customers. The report, front page New York Times by James Risen and Laura Poitras, bolsters claims by Snowden and others that the NSA and its allies conduct spying for economic gain.
Michael Ratner talking:
I think there’s two big points here. One, you brought out, which is that this is economic spying. And Edward Snowden has said that what will be revealed as we go through these documents are more and more economic spying, and that, essentially, this whole claim that this is about stopping terrorism is just bogus, really. I mean, that’s really what’s going on. And so I think that’s a crucial point here. This was to get an advantage in various trade talks over shrimps, etc.
they actually—not only for themselves in trade negotiations, but also may well feed this material to private corporations, U.S. corporations in particular. So I think that’s one thing.
The second thing, we’ve all been concerned for a very long time about spying on attorneys and our clients. And we do know that, for example, if I talk to my client, Julian Assange, that because he at least—we don’t have any—there’s no public indictment of him. We don’t know if he’s actually been indicted; we suspect he is. But according to NSA spying rules, they can actually take in attorney-client conversations with our clients overseas, as long as those clients haven’t been indicted. That’s just wide open. That’s ridiculous. I mean, as an attorney, I have a right of legal confidentiality with my clients, indicted or not. So we know they’re already—already doing that.
In this case, of course, they were taking in a law firm suspected to be this law firm, Mayer Brown, which, interestingly enough, actually helped us with the Guantánamo cases, and they’re taking in what they’re negotiating or what advice they’re giving to the Indonesian government. So it does seem to me at this point that certainly the lawyers’ conversations with Julian Assange and all of our clients—Jesselyn’s, as well, with her clients—are probably—are more likely that—almost for sure just swept in there, no minimization, just every—all of our legal advice to our clients are taken in by the NSA. It’s outrageous. I mean, the question I would have: What happened to Julian Assange’s right to counsel? What happened to it? It’s basically been destroyed by the NSA.
I think they want to know everything about what—for example, in the case of Julian Assange or other whistleblowers out there, other publishers, what they’re planning to do, what legal moves they might make. Like, for example, on these recent stories that have come out today, the Glenn Greenwald stories, are we planning to bring a lawsuit? What are we planning to do? If they can get—what’s going to be our—what’s going to be our legal take on it? If they can get advance notice of that, they can begin to counter it in their own publicity and how they deal with it legally, etc. You know, there’s a reason why you have the attorney-client privilege, and that’s so your client can share with you confidentially both what their situation is, as well as what your legal tactics are. Essentially, the government now, it’s wide open what the legal tactics are.
today is the fourth anniversary, the actual day today, of the release by WikiLeaks of Reykjavik 13, which was the first Cablegate document released, which is the one that was showing there was pressure on Iceland to try and concede to IMF, etc., demands when they were going through their difficult economic period. It’s the first one of the Cablegate documents.
— source democracynow.org
Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a legal adviser to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.