Comment 16 for bug 317761

for source format 3.0 (quilt), the --help switch shows you which -I options are set by default:

  -I[<pattern>] filter out files when building tarballs
                             (defaults to: -I*.a -I*.la -I*.o -I*.so -I.*.sw? -I*/*~ -I,,* -I.[#~]* -I.arch-ids -I.arch-inventory -I.be -I.bzr -I.bzr.backup -I.bzr.tags -I.bzrignore -I.cvsignore -I.deps -I.git -I.gitattributes -I.gitignore -I.gitmodules -I.hg -I.hgignore -I.hgsigs -I.hgtags -I.shelf -I.svn -ICVS -IDEADJOE -IRCS -I_MTN -I_darcs -I{arch}).

I believe indeed this is a bug in dpkg-dev, since we are explicitely requesting those files to be included. The default set of excludes should not remove this file from the source package. which is why I reported a debian bug:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=718984