Norwegian lawyer had visa withdrawn after private chat with client on Facebook

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by Deestan • 13 years ago

449 124 13 years ago

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Deestan• 13 years ago

Summary: Lawyer conversing with client accused of terrorism, via private Facebook messages. Client's messages suddenly deleted as "spam", and 4 days later the lawyer was notified that his US Visa had been revoked.

oellegaard• 13 years ago

Not deleted as spam, rather marked as "spam or offensive content", basically flagged inappropriate for facebook.

katbyte4• 13 years ago

So private conversations i have on facebook can be "flagged inappropriate"? And thus likely checked over by a real human?

forget the NSA, why should anyone aside for me and who i'm talking to be able to flag (and likely checked by a human) private messages?

Private messages on facebook are well, not private it seems.

smartician2• 13 years ago

In other words: A Norwegian lawyer notices something weird going on with his private Facebook messages, and four days after this, his visa gets revoked. Later, after reading about PRISM in the morning newspaper, he's convinced that the NSA has been spying on him.

It's obvious! After all, spy rule #1 is "make sure your subject knows he's being spied on by marking his messages as 'infringing or spam'". And it's totally impossible that the visa thing coincided with this.

einhverfr5• 13 years ago

Twice in my life I have noticed things that made me wonder. The first time I currently think was in my imagination. This time I am not so sure. I am noticing for example a cell phone whose battery level drops when connected to the charger and not in airplane mode. Google chat messages apparently long delayed. That this started after the Snowden leak makes it even more suspicious to me. I am an American citizen residing abroad.

I could just be seeing things that aren't there. However as a vocal opponent of this sort of surveillance, it would make sense that I would be caught up in some sort of filter especially as the hunt for Snowden continues.

(So note: If you are listening I think you might be. I am a patriot, as I believe Snowden is. I have not provided any active assistance for him, but I applaud those who do. My wife thinks I am too political but at some point my loyalty to my country, the United States, compels me to stand up to this sort of thing.)

tropicalmug2• 13 years ago

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.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

Why would the not-an-American-citizen lawyer speaking to a not-an-American-citizen have attorney-client privilege from the perspective of an American governmental organization?

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.

tropicalmug2• 13 years ago

You're correct, it wouldn't apply. My naïveté had me a little carried away.

anaptdemise2• 13 years ago

Ha. Also, what kind of attorney would have the kind of conversation covered under attorney client privileges on Facebook, PM or otherwise?

andrewcooke• 13 years ago

common decency? human rights?

[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?]

jacquesm• 13 years ago

Because it says 'attorney-client privilege' and not 'American attorney-American client privilege'.

jlgreco2• 13 years ago

Because we expect our government to act ethically, not merely within the confines of the law?

mpyne• 13 years ago

Somehow I don't think even the NSA's system is going to pick up on the fact that it's an attorney-client conversation. The conversation itself would not be admissible in a court action, but if the NSA were looking for known "confidants" of the flagged terrorist suspect then it wouldn't be surprising that the Visa was flagged for cancellation by one of those automated NSA algorithms.

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).

deshmane• 13 years ago

what I am curious about in this and similar stories is whether the officials actually carry out due diligence in making sure the profile actually belongs to the person in question. after all, anybody can get an email and spoof a profile.

platz• 13 years ago

Two Facebook articles on foreign privacy events in one day? Where were these reports before Snowden hit the news cycle?

stackedmidgets• 13 years ago

Before that, you'd be voted down and hollered at because there would be little credibility for it among common idiots. This has been the case for years, because a lot of the information about the NSA published by journalists was built on anonymous sourcing. Now, there's more documentary evidence available to support it, so the US government no longer enjoys the benefit of ignorant doubt.

Now, these stories can gain traction.

epoxyhockey• 13 years ago

I'll also add that there are a lot of news stories that never get published. Some newsroom editor may determine to run one story over another because it would be better received and increase ratings/traffic.

MartinCron• 13 years ago

Or they would get fact-checked before publishing and revealed as sensationalist hyperbole.

mbel• 13 years ago

On the other hand, the latest revelations may be an "inspiration" for making up[0] such stories. As the demand for ominous surveillance themed news seems to be rather high right now, I guess it's one of the easiest way to gain wider attention by small publishers. After all most of the tabloids work this way, don't they?

[0] I mean, they might not be totally made up, just written in a way that suggests more than is really going on.

untog• 13 years ago

Conversely, these stories were previously ignored because of a lack of supporting evidence. Now that US surveillance is a talked about topic, these stories are gaining traction without people going through the critical thought processes they otherwise would have.

Neither of these options are provably false.

JanneVee• 13 years ago

Because there was no "evidence" that the surveillance was real. Now people are connecting the dots. Even if the connections aren't real.

smartician2• 13 years ago

UFO sightings often correlate with reports of alien abductions. Correlation does not imply causation. Meaning, people are more likely to link personal experience to a news event.

Zimahl• 13 years ago

Isn't the NSA supposed to be for foreign intelligence only? I don't find it shocking that the US would track the messages of an accused terrorist. What I find funny is that a lawyer used Facebook for privileged communication.

Vivtek2• 13 years ago

Ah. This one is actually kind of credible.

But if the client was already accused of terrorism, then this monitoring was on his end, and surely covered by a specific warrant. So this isn't (presumably) the kind of massive data hoovering that is the primary concern; every country does this kind of thing. (Back when I was running Despammed.com I'd get requests from various LEOs - one came with a real live subpoena for information related to an identity theft ring, and one was from Italian authorities pursuing an insult to Mary.)

Where it gets to be a concern is revoking a guy's visa because he's defending a terror suspect.

sologoub2• 13 years ago

Isn't client-lawyer communication privileged? Similar to husband-wife communication?

darxius• 13 years ago

My guess is that that only extends to american lawyers. I could be wrong though.

foobarbazqux2• 13 years ago

Governments can generally do what they want when it comes to foreign nationals, provided they aren't breaking any international treaties. And regardless of the spying involved in this case, the US is free to kick out anybody on a visa that it doesn't like at any time for any reason. It's not nice but that's how it is.

refurb• 13 years ago

Yes they are privileged, but that doesn't mean the gov't can intercept them, it just means they are inadmissible as evidence in a trial.

nostromo• 13 years ago

I'm curious; did you turn in the guy who insulted Mary?

Vivtek2• 13 years ago

No. I told them if they gave me a subpoena I'd give them what they wanted, and they promised a couple of times that they were working on it, then I never heard from them again. Which is exactly the way I handled every other request to pull back the veil of anonymity.

drrotmos• 13 years ago

I know this isn't an opinion shared by the current US administration, but having a fair trial for one's crimes is a human right. It's a right guaranteed by articles 10 and 11 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Part of having a fair trial includes having legal representation, and the ability to communicate with your legal council in confidence.

Eavesdropping on privileged lawyer-client conversations, regardless of legality is outrageously indecent and should be illegal. Revoking a lawyer's visa because he is representing a particular client is equally outrageous, especially due to the chilling effects it causes upon the legal community making it much more difficult for suspects of serious crimes to find good legal representation.

foobarbazqux2• 13 years ago

I agree with you on moral grounds, but technically human or natural rights are not the same as legal rights. In particular, they cannot be guaranteed by any document the UN produces, unless embodied as legal rights within a functioning judicial system. Instead, these rights are more like ideals.

rayiner6• 13 years ago

It's not the view of any administration. The client was Norwegian-Chilean. Foreigners not in the US don't have A right to counsel (which is the constitutional basis of attorney client privilege in the US).

And I'd argue that's the way it should be. Every time courts declare something unconstitutional, they use up limited political capital. I don't think defending the "human rights" of non Americans is a valid use of that political capital.

niekmaas• 13 years ago

In The Netherlands a case is usually dropped if evidence is provided that the conversation between a lawyer and his/her client was recorded and analysed.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

Where it gets to be a concern is revoking a guy's visa because he's defending a terror suspect.

Except that this is speculation by the lawyer. Unless the lawyer's chats included, "Yes, I will help you smuggle something into the US," I don't see why the US would bother pulling the lawyer's visa. What exactly are they getting from doing that?

This smells to me of a guy trying to get fifteen minutes of fame by riding on the public outcry. I mean... is it even worth digging to verify whether or not his visa was actually pulled?

Bishizel• 13 years ago

While that is speculation on the lawyer's part, it's also speculation on your part to assume he did something especially wrong. That's the problem with this type of monitoring(and revoking), it turns each case, as well as public opinion, towards guilty until proven innocent.

Not to mention, if I remember correctly, just being a known associate of a terrorist (i.e. talking to one) is enough to revoke or deny a foreign visa. To me, this whole situation seems more like a "he talked directly to a terrorist, revoke his visa because he's a 1st degree contact in that terrorist's social network (not looking at what his profession is or what the purpose of the contact is)" than any other possible situation. It's not about what the US is getting from this specific revocation, it's more that they likely have a specific set of guidelines in place and this guy got swept up in an inaccurate net.

zmmmmm• 13 years ago

Where it gets to be a concern is revoking a guy's visa because he's defending a terror suspect

Indeed. This is the kind of thing that punches a hole in the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument. He obviously had something to fear - getting his visa revoked. So by the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" logic he had to have something to hide, and that thing had to justify the negative consequences that befell him.

From the CIA/NSA perspective I am sure it just looks like he is someone who consorts with terrorists. They don't consider anybody has a "right" to visit the US in the first place, so removing that "right" cannot be a "harm". Thus there is zero loss from taking a conservative approach and just cancelling his visa. But it is most certainly a harm, probably a severe one to somebody like a prominent lawyer. So this kind of disconnect is exactly why we can't accept "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" kind of arguments.

marvin2• 13 years ago

This is pretty damning. I think the best thing US officials could possibly say, was that he is not a US citizen and therefore does not have the right to privacy in his electronic communication.

I'm from Norway by the way; this guy is a high-profile, nationally famous lawyer. He's not just some random criminal attorney.

nikster2• 13 years ago

Client side monitoring makes way more sense in this case, I'd have to agree.

I suppose people need to learn not to use facebook for private messages. Or Skype. Or any US based corporation.

There's plenty of end user solutions that are secure - depending on the level of surveillance on the client it's going to be relatively difficult to set up secure communications though.

Imagine a scenario where authorities have a warrant to listen in to your communications. They'll install a trojan on your computer that sends screenshots and keyboard input to their computers. So forget about using the PC (or Mac, doesn't matter; while Macs don't get attacked by trojans in the wild, a targeted attack is near impossible to prevent).

That means use a mobile phone (buy a new one in a shop if extra paranoid); use a VPN or that secure chat program, and only use public internet access, like starbucks, as your home internet might be compromised. Then, once a secure channel is established, you're pretty safe.

PS: I suppose buying a new laptop would work too but laptops / PC operating systems are a soft target compared to say an iPhone.

ttrreeww• 13 years ago

This is the generation in which freedom was lost.

hughes• 13 years ago

Or perhaps the generation in which freedom is to be reclaimed? It's too early to tell.

TillE• 13 years ago

It's extraordinarily difficult not to be pessimistic when you see the abuses initiated by one party continued and expanded by the other, after bleating on about their supposed opposition to such programs.

I'm convinced that the Democratic Party is the biggest roadblock to accomplishing meaningful change in the US. It exemplifies the mushy, frightened middle in the worst possible way, and should be reviled by anyone with principles.

For example: http://www.people-press.org/files/2013/06/6-10-13-4.png

anologwintermut3• 13 years ago

I'm shocked, shocked to find that the NSA is spying on a foreign terror suspect in a foreign country communicating with another foreign person.*

Actually, I am shocked. Why'd the lawyer use Facebook for privileged communication? Why does the NSA care about someone who posted a threatening video in Norway? Hint: they don't. If they looked, it's probably because Norwegian Intelligence asked them to.( Which might well be a huge legal problem, for Norway)

In fact, it seems there is little evidence that any of this happened. Marking messages as spam does not seem like something the NSA would do and as to denying him entry into the US: if US gov is in the habit of denying visa's to those who represent a foreign terror suspect, they didn't need Facebook to establish that.

*Note, attorney client privilege doesn't apply to cases completely out of US jurisdiction with lawyers who are not lawyers in the US

polemic• 13 years ago

It's hard to say without knowing what was said, but the fact that his visa was withdrawn on the basis of a conversation between a laywer and his client is alarming.

In other words: did the US government consider him a threat, or was it a tactic to infringe the alleged terrorist's right to a fair trial? If the latter, then it's an abuse of surveillance privileges.

anologwintermut3• 13 years ago

Unless I'm missing something, there is nothing in the article to suggest that his conversation had anything to do with his visa being withdrawn. Only a potentially spurious time correlation.

In fact, it seems unlikely that anything in his conversation that legitimately would have resulted in his visa being withdrawn. And if the government doesn't need legit reasons, why not just deny his visa outright? Or deny it because he was representing a terror suspect.

spinlock2• 13 years ago

It would be alarming if a lawyer and his client were using facebook for privileged communications. That's your first hint you need a new lawyer. If they can't understand Facebook's TOS they can't possibly defend you.

But, seriously, these are foreign nationals. We've had a longstanding distinction between foreign and domestic surveillance. Think of it this way, would you really want to need permission from Pakistan to surveil Osama bin Laden? He was an enemy of the USA and he was being harbored by Pakistan. Different rules apply in that case than in a domestic case.

contingencies• 13 years ago

it's probably because Norwegian Intelligence asked them to

I always say, "Norway dot NO"

belorn4• 13 years ago

Be you a lawyer talking privileged to a client, a priest talking privileged to a follower, a hot-line worker talking privileged to someone thinking about suicide, or a social service person talking to a child who been sexually assaulted, every ones communication is equally collected.

This is after all the result of ubiquitous surveillance. When people learn about it, the reaction is very simple. people stop talking. They do not call the lawyer. They don't call the priest. The person thinking about suicide won't call the hot-line, and the sexually assaulted child will stay quiet in fear of people finding out. After Germany introduced their ubiquitous surveillance law, this was exactly what the statistics ended up showing. I wonder, while hoping not, if the same result will happen in the US too after the current wave of news.

CurtMonash• 13 years ago

Right: "Chilling effect"

nikatwork• 13 years ago

Bizarrely, this whole scenario is very similar to the privacy issues explored in Brunner's 1975 book "The Shockwave Rider"[1].

Perhaps, as in the book, we need to setup an independent encrypted communication service where people can vent their frustrations at pervasive surveillance.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider

Zigurd• 13 years ago

Never mind PRISM. The week before the PRISM leaks, the news was full of hack attacks by state actors against US business and government targets. Why are we emailing and talking in the clear? That's just dumb.

Moreover, the toothpaste can't be put back in the tube. Short of transformative change in government, how do we know there isn't another PRISM at another TLA?

The only way to restore confidence in communications is to secure them against all attacks.

epsylon• 13 years ago

His Hugo-winning, perhaps most famous novel, "Stand On Zanzibar" also deals a bit as well with surveillance, terrorism and authoritarism (among others). A great read that manages to stay hugely relevant today. I'd definitely recommend it to any Sci-Fi lover.

aqme28• 13 years ago

Do you have a source for the bit about Germany that I could use? This is a seriously chilling argument.

belorn4• 13 years ago

After some quite heavy searching, I finally found the original source. Google is really not very good in finding articles written 4 years ago, and it is even more difficulty if you don't remember the language it was written in :).

For an English blog writing about the report (original in German, and linked in the blog post): http://www.kreativrauschen.com/blog/2008/06/04/data-retentio...

I have no idea however from which article I myself originally read/heard it from, and what additional conclusion it might have added to the report. My best guess is that it was from a key note somewhere, likely Falkvinge or Schneier.

grappler• 13 years ago

Why would you hope not? I would rather people talked less in this situation. It means they've adjusted their behavior in accordance with their new, more accurate, understanding of the world.

goblin89• 13 years ago

It probably depends on what's more likely and less desirable:

- one lets others know about one's personal problem, and for some reason becomes enough of interest for some entity to bring up corresponding records;

- one doesn't talk and eventually attempts suicide, or continues to be sexually assaulted (and abuser never gets caught, if subsequent victims are silent as well).

(I personally at this moment would agree with belorn on this.)

etchalon• 13 years ago

This story reeks. None of it makes any sense (the messages were marked as SPAM?).

I'm filing this under the same rubric mentally as all those tea party lunies who suddenly swore their legitimate, random audit was caused by their membership in the Tea Party.

Filligree3• 13 years ago

Elden is a top-flight defence lawyer. He's not any good with computers (clearly..), but I'm sure he told the truth as he understands it.

gcb0• 13 years ago

This is the same a lawyer sending private information via a post-card. Plain irresponsible.

But then again, which layer knows how to send PGP'ed emails?

XorNot2• 13 years ago

Ok can anyone who reads Norwegian actually translate this properly? Because the Google translation certainly doesn't capture the nuance, and their are some notable inconsistencies in it - namely, why is someone's lawyer "no longer in contact now that their Facebook profile has been deleted".

brown9-2• 13 years ago

Worth noting that the lawyer says he has evidence but has not presented it, and until then it's just his word.

einhverfr5• 13 years ago

Just remember, if you ever want to visit the US and you are not an American, you must be much more supportive of American foreign policies than most Americans are!

mariuolo2• 13 years ago

Just tell me what kind idiot would use Facebook for a private conversation.

vidarh4• 13 years ago

Who are you talking about? Elden or his client? The article implies Facebook was Elden's only way of reaching his client, so the "idiot" appears to have been the client. If the client is not very technical it is not unreasonable to assume the client felt Facebook was easier for him to use to communicate covertly with Elden and didn't want to give out a phone number or other details.

mariuolo2• 13 years ago

Either. Facebook retains forever anything done or written on their platform and that's a well known fact.

Why anyone would use it for anything remotely confidential, is beyond me.

woof• 13 years ago

* The lawyer John Christian Elden defends several terror suspects, including Arfan Bhatti (now arrested in Pakistan) who was charged for terror planning agains the US embassy in Norway several years ago.

* He disucussed a court meeting with another client on Facebook, it was not a attorney–client privileged discussion. Elden was briefed by the FBI on their e-surveilence in 2005 (with a group from Norwegian Justice dept.) so he probably has a good grasp on how private Facebook really is.

* His US Visa was revoked four days after the conversation, the US embassy in Norway cites "Homeland Security"

* Eldens comments gives the impression that he believes he's automaticly flagged, while still beeing a friend of the US.

More facts: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=ht...

vidarh4• 13 years ago

Here's a rough/quick manual translation:

---

Private Facebook-correspondance between John Christian Elden and a client charged with terror offenses was monitored by American security services (NSA), the lawyer claims.

Elden was discussing scheduling of the case with the Norwegian-Chilean client (20), who was charged with publishing a video where he threatened Norwegian officials and the royal family. Elden says that he has documentation that it was American authorities that were snooping on his Facebook-profile, TV2 writes.

- That we as Norwegians are under surveillance by American authorities, I am not particularly happy about. It is uncomfortable to know that someone continuously reads what you write at communicate with other persons via what one believes is a closed channel, says the lawyer.

The messages of the person in question got deleted on an ongoing basis, and in the chat-log they are now marked as "identified as offensive or marked as spam". Four days after the conversation, the well known lawyers visa was withdrawn.

Elden says his client wished to show up in court, but that he no longer is able to contact him after the Facebook-profile was deleted.

Facebook is one of the websites mentioned in The Guardian and Washington Posts revelations of NSAs surveillance of foreign citizens in the PRISM project. Ministor of Justice Grete Faremo has sent a request to the US, where the justice department requests a clarification about whether or not Norwegian citizens have been under surveillance.

---

The main thing to note is that the bit about the deleted Facebook profile was unclear in the machine translation. It appears quite clear in the original article that the reason his communication with his client ceased was that the client used Facebook as his only communications-channel with his lawyer, and so the deleted Facebook profile means Elden is unable to communicate with his client.

It is not made clear whether he suspects or claims that American authorities caused the profile to get deleted too, or if the client got spooked by the deleted messages.

werid• 13 years ago

This lawyer is a known figure in Norway and not some guy looking for his fifteen minutes of fame. He has defended people on terrorism charges in Norway before, and gotten them acquitted on those charges (while other lesser charges still stuck).

On his twitter, he claims that the US embassy doesn't know why his visa was revoked, only that "Homeland security's computers" are telling them it's revoked.

This is then connected to NSA leak by journalists. He is still waiting for a proper explanation from the US embassy.

Norwegian lawyer had visa withdrawn after private chat with client on Facebook

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