A federal judge ruled Thursday that Attorney Lynn Stuart, charged with conspiring to provide material support for a terrorist organization, is not entitled to assurances that conversations with her lawyers are not being monitored by the federal government.

The judge rejected attorney Michael Tigar's argument that even the possibility of monitoring implicates her Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

The Judge also accepted the government's argument that "... if any privileged communications were intercepted, screening devices would be used to ensure that the interceptions were not used against the defendants and, thus that their Sixth Amendment rights would not be violated."

And the check is in the mail.

The government's intrusion into the attorney-client privilege is both unacceptable and intolerable, see Sen. Leahy and ABA Protest Ashcroft's Monitoring Order.

The Justice Department's rule permitting monitoring of attorney-client jailhouse conversations went into effect in November upon the approval of Attorney General Ashcroft, supposedly on an emergency basis.

Is anybody listening?