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.

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.

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

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.

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.

* 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...

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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".

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.

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?

undefined

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

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

This is the generation in which freedom was lost.