In an interesting twist, a Bethesda, MD firm has filed a suit in Federal court claiming that law firms who outsourcing their legal support services overseas could be jeopardizing their client confidentiality. This story was picked up by several news sources, including Law.com.
The main point of contention is that once the data leaves the US, the privacy privileges we enjoy go out the water and even claims the US Government might go out of its way to run surveillance on the data:
"It seeks this declaration knowing that foreign nationals who reside overseas lack Fourth Amendment protections," says the firm's complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. "It seeks this declaration having been informed ... that the United States government engages in pervasive surveillance of electronically transmitted data."
To add more fuel to the fire, the lawsuit names President George W. Bush as a co-defendant along with Acumen Legal Services of India and its U.S. subsidiary, Acumen Solutions of Houston, Texas.
I'm not an attorney, so I certainly don't have a legal opinion on this, but it certainly is something I hadn't considered before and is worth following.
