Government Spying on Privileged Communications

With the revealed intel that the U.S. government collected phone and internet usage information from millions of Americans for years, what steps must attorneys take to safeguard the attorney-client privilege?

News reports broke the story that the government exercised authority that many argue they do not have, to collect data on phone and internet usage of millions of people without cause. These are not cases of a warrant being sought for a specific individual suspected of some wrongdoing, but rather wholesale collection of data from phone and internet service providers on all of their users. Thus far, available reports state that phone calls aren’t being recorded, but data such as what phone numbers are contacting other phone numbers, when and for how long, are being logged. Details of internet usage collected appear to include extraction of files such as audio, video, photographs, emails, and documents, to track people’s movement and contacts. It is not yet known whose internet data is collected, but it may well be everyone’s.

Many advocates and scholars are discussing the Constitutional problems with this massive surveillance of the general public, but attorneys have another potential concern ― the ethical issues that may arise with the knowledge that details of their attorney-client communications are in the hands of the government.

The Rules We Know

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.6 states that an attorney “shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation, or the disclosure is permitted” to prevent a range of significant harms, including the death of another person. Communications between a lawyer and their client are privileged, and neither may be compelled to disclose the content of those communications, but the privilege must be safeguarded. Without taking steps to ensure the communication is confidential, privilege may be lost. The attorney would then be in violation of Model Rule 1.6.

We typically hear of losing the privilege by allowing a third party to be present or listen into a conversation, either intentionally or because the conversation takes place somewhere public such as an elevator or coffee shop. Wiretaps, such as those put in place by virtue of a proper search warrant, generally may not be used to record privileged conversations. If any privileged conversation is recorded without the knowledge of the parties involved in the conversation, the privilege would not be lost.

The New World

Prior to the recent disclosure of the government’s surveillance program, no attorney would have any reason to suspect that their phone and electronic communications with clients were compromised. Now, though, we all have reason to believe that all of our communicated are monitored to some degree. How can we maintain privilege if we know this is happening?

Without advocating either panic or complacency, here are some things to think about when considering what course of action to take to protect the privilege.

• It is the federal government, not an opposing party, who has the information. Unless you are litigating against the federal government in a criminal or civil action, your opposing party has no more access to your privileged information than they did prior to this revelation.
• It hasn’t happened yet, but keep an eye out for a private litigant to subpoena the government, phone provider, or internet provider for attorney’s call records; they must argue that privilege was broken when the government collected the data. Since this was done without attorney or client knowledge prior to recent revelations, it does not sound like a winning argument, but consider whether it would be accepted by a court for data gathered after the public revelation of the surveillance.
• Everyone is impacted by this surveillance, so every attorney who might make the argument that privilege is broken will also be subject to losing their own and their client’s privilege.
• There’s virtually no way to communicate effectively with our clients without using electronic or telephonic means. To have nothing but in-person meetings and exchanges of documents is impossible for most attorneys if they want to keep their practices working. If this issue ever reaches litigation and a ruling, this will have to be taken into account.
• The type of information gathered does not allow attorneys to place any sort of privilege warning on the communications. An attorney meeting a client they suspect of being tapped in some way can announce before speaking to the client something to the effect of, “Stop recording. This is a privileged conversation.” An attorney sending an email can put in the text “ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION.” There are no safeguards to be put in place when the data collected is which phone number called which other phone number at what time and for how long, nor can an attorney place a warning on the internet usage history that shows the research done for a client.

It seems that there is little attorneys can do to maintain strict compliance with Model Rule 1.6 when privileged communications are logged by the government. The only protections are functions of reality ― that all lawyers are equally subject to the surveillance, that we cannot put warnings on our communications, and that to withdraw completely from the information grid subject to surveillance is unrealistic. Perhaps the only thing we can do is evaluate our own comfort level with the situation and advise our clients accordingly.

Please comment below on how you plan to handle privilege in this now-known era of massive government surveillance.