Isn't this a bigger deal than just monitoring supposedly private Facebook communications? This would also violate attorney-client privilege too, right?
EDIT: This is just naïveté on my part.
EDIT: This is just naïveté on my part.
NSA lives in a world where they don't normally have to worry about attorney-client privilege because they're not trying to bring cases to trial, they're trying to gain intel on enemy networks, and ideally prevent them from gaining entry to the U.S. in the first place. So I'm not even sure if attorney-client communications is something their analysts would even check for (that is, if a human analyst even ever saw this conversation).
Edited to add: It's remarkably difficult to quickly find information about attorney-client privilege in settings other than US, UK, Canada, and Australia. I found a brief mention that the privilege does not apply to in-house counsel in the EU, and that Brazil breaches it with a court order, but that's all. I'd hope I could find more given some more time, but I need to get back to work.
(In other words: Practically all newly minted attorneys in the US)
There is no education in law school in the US at least on responsible data handling, and— in fact— schools often direct students to behave irresponsibly with respect to data security.
Do you have a specific case in mind?
schools often direct students to behave irresponsibly with respect to data security
Why would they do that? Reference?
Example software and policies are things like:
http://www.exam4.com/ (used by Harvard, George Washington, etc)
http://www.law.wisc.edu/help/for_students/securexam/
http://www.law.columbia.edu/academics/registrar/Laptop_Exams
https://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/registration/exams...
Most (all?) schools offer students the ability to take their exams on paper, but doing so is a substantial competitive disadvantage because examinations are usually timed and writing on paper is much slower, students are marked down for legibility and copy-editing noise, etc.
I don't have a citation studying it— but by all appearances it's only a small minority of students that opt out of using their laptops. ("Most Stanford Law School students take their examinations on laptops")
IIRC the California bar exam now also uses one of these spyware exam packages.
I'm mostly amused that we have a whole information-security critical profession who is nearly required to behave negligently wrt information security from day one. :P
(And then— some students do it anyways, because thats the only way to use it on their otherwise non-supported system or because of some other incompatibility. And nothing comes of it... I guess until something does. Better not make too many enemies)
It's certainly not the most secure thing to do, but they need to focus on studying law, not securing systems. I imagine that when lawyers are working on cases, they might end up using more secure devices than their old college laptops.
Which communication channels are supposed to be under attorney client privileges, then? I didn't know there was a list.
"Picture this, man convicted of murder after subpoena to online marketing date reveals targeted ads for icotoners and shovels after GMail exchange with lawyer."
It's a stretch of the imagination but we live in a crazy world.
[when americans visit other countries, do you expect to not have any rights here? to be treated to different laws from the locals? to not be able to talk privately with your lawyers? what do you think the rest of us are like? as bad as you?]
No, clearly 3 words are supposed to accurately summarize an entire area of rights and law!