This one slipped under my radar...

[blufive]

Apparently, John Ashcroft has granted the US Department Of Justice the right to eavesdrop on conversations between people in custody and their lawyers. It appears that this means that defence lawyers will be placed in a situation where they can't talk to their client in confidence, which means that, under their professional code of conduct, they can't talk to them at all. Whoops, there goes the sixth amendment.

[link: Kuro5hin]