Under the proposal, filed this month in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the government would limit lawyers to three visits with an existing client at Guantánamo; there is now no limit. It would permit only a single visit with a detainee to have him authorize a lawyer to handle his case. And it would permit a team of intelligence officers and military lawyers not involved in a detainee’s case to read mail sent to him by his lawyer.

The proposal would also reverse existing rules to permit government officials, on their own, to deny the lawyers access to secret evidence used by military panels to determine that their clients were enemy combatants.

There has been a big debate going on within the defense lawyer community for years as to whether to participate at all in the Guantanamo cases, given the restrictions. If the Administration is successful in this new quest, I suspect many will refuse to represent them at all. As lawyers, we are obligated to provide "effective assistance of counsel" in all cases we take. That's difficult enough with the current restrictions. These new ones will make it impossible.

The Administration knows this. It's probably banking on it. They are trying to freeze civilian lawyers out of the process entirely.

If they can do it with Guantanamo detainees, which class of persons accused will be next? U.S. citizens accused of terrorism in federal courts? Undocumented residents seeking representation in deportation proceedings before immigration courts? Accused child molesters, mobsters and drug traffickers?

The attorney client privilege has been around for hundreds of years. Under Ashcroft, regulations were implemented to monitor jailhouse communications between lawyers and their clients.

Now they want to take it even further. If the Court signs off on this, will Congress then pass the McCarthyism, Korematsu and Star Chamber Renewal Act, to allow the attorney-client relationship to exist only between those citizens it deems worthy of having counsel?

Every time the rights of the detainees are diminished, the rights of all Americans are placed at risk. Habeas for one, habeas for all. Counsel for one, counsel for all. Don't sit by and do nothing. You'll have only yourself to blame. Remember Newt Gingrich's Contract on America.

Also, remember, once you give the Government new powers, even if only for a claimed emergency, it rarely gives them back.