Lawyers Fear Monitoring in Cases on Terrorism

PHILIP SHENON | PORTLAND, Ore. | April 28

NYT - Although the administration says it has shut down the security agency’s wiretapping program, lawyers involved in the Oregon case say they believe communication with their clients — and among themselves — is still being monitored.


Thomas Nelson, an Oregon lawyer, has lived in a state of perpetual jet lag for the last two years. Every few weeks, he boards a plane in Portland and flies to the Middle East to meet with a high-profile Saudi client who cannot enter the United States because he faces charges here of financing terrorism.

Mr. Nelson says he does not dare to phone this client or send him e-mail messages because of what many prominent criminal defense lawyers say is a well-founded fear that all of their contacts are being monitored by the United States government.

Because he is constantly shifting time zones to see his client face to face, “I just don’t sleep normally anymore,” Mr. Nelson said. “But I don’t have a choice. It’s very clear to me that anything I say to my client or to other lawyers in this case is being recorded.”


ww April 28, 2008 - 1:03pm