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The United States was capable of eavesdropping on what were thought to be private conversations in court between the suspected plotters of 9/11 and their lawyers, a witness testified Tuesday.
Maurice Elkins, director of courtroom technology at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay on the southeastern tip of Cuba, said 32 microphones had monitored such legal hearings, until changes were made on Monday.
Even whispered conversations, spoken in "a very, very low tone," could be picked up on an unfiltered audio feed being handled by a government agency, he said, confirming defense lawyers' worst fears.
Their contention that client-attorney privilege could have been breached by such arrangements dominated the second day of the latest pre-trial hearing.
Elkins's admission came during questioning from James Connell, the attorney for one of the five men accused of orchestrating the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and led to US-backed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The unfiltered circuit was controlled by computer software that recorded everything said in court, Elkins said, unlike the "filtered circuit" relied on by journalists who cover the proceedings from behind a glass screen.
