Ever since the investigation of the Saudi charity al-Haramain Islamic Foundation on allegations that it supported terrorist activity, defense lawyers for clients who are suspected of terrorism have feared that they are under government surveillance, reports The New York Times.

In August 2004, the government mistakenly gave the charity’s defense lawyers a logbook of intercepted phone calls between the charity’s lawyers in Washington and clients in Saudi Arabia. This month, the charity’s lawyers went to federal court in Portland, Ore., to ask a judge to make sure that the confidentiality of communications between lawyers and clients are protected.

Sean M. Maher, a co-chairman of the national security committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said that the case of the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation compels defense lawyers not to take cases in which people are accused of terrorism for fear of having their privacy invaded. He said, “People just aren’t going to get involved in this process. I find it unfathomable that in our adversarial system, we’ve created a process to weed out qualified defense counsel.”

The Department of Justice does not deny that the government has monitored phone calls and e-mail messages between lawyers and their clients as part of terrorism investigations, but it says that such actions are legal and done prudently. Anthony J. Coppolino, a Justice Department lawyer, said to the federal judge in Portland, “We do conduct ourselves ethically and adhere to our responsibilities under the rules of ethics.”

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