Spy Suit Keeps Lawyer in Dark

Government's secrecy guidelines create obstacle course
Spy Suit Keeps Lawyer in Dark
The daunting case, called Kafkaesque by some, has Eisenberg responding to top-secret documents based on hunches, and having his own briefs redacted by the government. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)   (Associated Press)

An attorney for an Islamic charity that's suing the government over  what they claim was illegal wiretapping has found himself in quite the Kafka-esque predicament. Responding to a federal filing that he wasn't allowed to read, John Eisenberg says he was made  to write out his entire legal brief in a windowless government room with no notes or law books.


A judge ruled that inadvertently released call logs allow the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation to sue. But the government, citing security constraints, isn't making things easy for the group's legal team. Eisenberg said he was even guarded by a federal agent while he wrote, and agents shredded notes he made while working on the brief—along with the peel of a banana he'd eaten. (More warrantless wiretapping stories.)

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