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Comment by anologwintermut | Hacker News Reader

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

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It's hard to say without knowing what was said, but the fact that his visa was withdrawn on the basis of a conversation between a laywer and his client is alarming.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

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something, there is nothing in the article to suggest that his conversation had anything to do with his visa being withdrawn.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In fact, it seems unlikely that anything in his conversation that legitimately would have resulted in his visa being withdrawn.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.

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.

Horrible example. In the case of Osama the US could have broken each and every law in Pakistan and nobody would give a shit.

This is about a suspect, at best. Not the world's most wanted terrorist.

It is indicated in the article that Facebook was his only means of contact with this client - he lost contact with the client as a result of the Facebook profile being deleted. Presumably this implies that it was the client, not Elden, that chose to use Facebook as the contact medium.

it's probably because Norwegian Intelligence asked them to

I always say, "Norway dot NO"

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