FBI's Carnivore Gobbles Lots of E-Mail
Recent press reports confirm the roll-out of a new
Federal Bureau of
Investigation (
FBI) system called Carnivore, which is designed to
covertly search
electronic mail messages to and from targeted
criminal
suspects, but could also compromise the
privacy of millions of
Internet users. The system, which is installed directly into an
Internet service provider's network, reportedly can
scan millions of
messages each second. The
FBI recently demonstrated the Carnivore
system to
telecommunications industry representatives, many of whom
are disturbed by the prospect of having the
invasive technology
installed on their internal systems and administered by
federal
agents.
Public details concerning Carnivore's capabilities are sketchy. The
existence of the system, a.k.a.
DCS1000 was first revealed by attorney Robert
Corn-Revere in Congressional testimony in April. He described a case
in which government agents sought to install Carnivore on the system
of an
ISP he represented. Published reports suggest that the system
could give the government the ability to intercept the
communications
of all of an ISP's customers, not just those of a targeted criminal
suspect. Even when programmed to obtain only the communications of a
suspect, Carnivore would enable government agents to intercept the
actual
content of
e-mail messages without first making a showing of
probable cause as required by the
Fourth Amendment and federal
wiretap
statutes.
Sources:
Robert Corn-Revere's testimony on Carnivore:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/corn0406.htm
EPIC newsletter: Jul 13, 2000 : http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_7.13.html
National Post, p. 1, July 13, 2000 : "Email eaten by FBI's Carnivore" www.nationalpost.com