Francis Boyle, an international lawyer and professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign, has revealed an alarming story of how federal agents from the FBI and CIA/FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force attempted to get him to inform on his Arab and Muslim clients, in violation of their Constitutional rights to attorney-client privilege. When Boyle refused, he claims the FBI placed him on a “terrorist watch list.” His own lawyer found that he is on all of the United States government’s “terrorist watch” lists, and despite a legal appeal to get his name removed, Boyle believes he will remain on them for the rest of his life. Boyle warns that “the government goes after your lawyer in order to get to you,” and that the “war against terrorism” is a war against the United States Constitution.
Professor Boyle, a leading American practitioner of international law, holds doctorates in both law (cum laude) and Political Science from Harvard, and has over two decades of experience representing pacifist anti-war resisters, suspects in the so-called “War on Terror” and foreign governments such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is the author of several books, including “Protesting Power,” (Rowman & Littlefield), “Biowarfare and Terrorism,”(Clarity) and “Destroying World Order”(Clarity).
The American Bar Association defines the attorney-client privilege as “the right of clients to refuse to disclose confidential communications with their lawyers, or to allow their lawyers to disclose them.” It further states that the privilege is “viewed as fundamental to preserve the constitutionally based right to effective assistance of legal counsel, in that lawyers cannot function effectively on behalf of their clients without the ability communicate with them in confidence.”
Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Justice Department has launched a series of actions that challenge the Constitutional right of privileged communication between lawyer and client. According to an article in “Criminal Justice Magazine,” Summer, 2002, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an order that permits the government to monitor all communications between a client and an attorney when there is “reasonable suspicion” to “believe that a particular inmate may use communications with attorneys or their agents to further or facilitate acts of violence or terrorism.” This order “raises a wide range of constitutional concerns under the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments,” authors Paul Rice and Benjamin Saul wrote.
Reports indicate that military interrogators at Guantanamo prison have gone so far as to pose as “lawyers” in an effort to illegally obtain information from detainees. “Newsday,” the Long Island, N.Y., daily, reported that the military has set up a system that delays legal correspondence between lawyers and prisoners for weeks, and that guards and interrogators peruse prisoners’ private legal papers. Additionally, interrogators have allegedly asked detainees if they were aware their lawyers were Jewish.
The U.S. government has been accused of “not only trying to deny counsel to the prisoners, but is actively trying to remove Guantanamo from any scrutiny, legal or otherwise” as well as “marginalizing the lawyers representing the prisoners,” according to “The Catholic Worker” newspaper. Furthermore, “USA Today” reported that the Terrorist Watch List grew from 288,000 names in 2005 to 1-million in March, 2009. Those on the list can be blocked from flying, stopped at borders or subjected to other scrutiny.
The attorney-client privilege is the oldest such privilege enshrined in Anglo-Saxon law and has been respected since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The disregard for this privilege by the U.S. government today, with a constitutional lawyer occupying the White House, is an alarming stain on the fabric of American democracy.
