Carnivore - ACLU : Block FBI e-snoops

ACLU : Block FBI E-Snoops

IDG News

July 17, 2000

(IDG) -- The American Civil Liberties Union on July 11
appealed to Congress to protect Americans from unreasonable
searches and seizures on the Internet in light of recent
revelations that a new monitoring tool could enable the FBI
to intercept the e-mail of law-abiding citizens.

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee's Constitution
Subcommitte, ACLU director Laura Murphy argued that the
FBI's new Carnivore e-mail surveillance system gives federal
law enforcement officers access to the e-mail of every
customer of an Internet service provider and the e-mail of
every person who communicates with them.

"The Carnivore system gives law enforcement e-mail
interception capabilities that were never contemplated when
Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act"
in 1986, Murphy stated in the letter. "The ACLU urges the
subcommittee to accelerate its consideration of the
application of the Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age."

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution specifically
provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures."

Robert Corn-Revere, an Internet and communications lawyer
with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Hogan & Harston
LLP, first divulged evidence of the Carnivore system's
abilities during a Congressional hearing in April. The FBI
must have a court order to use Carnivore to intercept the
communications of alleged criminals.

Carnivore is attached directly to an ISP's network and gives
the FBI access to all e-mail traffic flowing across an ISP's
network, according to the ACLU. The ACLU and others have
raised concerns that Carnivore intercepts information from
the header of e-mail messages and may divulge information
about the contents of the messages.

"The FBI and the law enforcement and national security
communities in general are offering a trade: less privacy
due to increased use of technology in surveillance in return
for greater safety for the public," said Daniel Ryan, a
lawyer and former director of Information Systems Security
at the Pentagon.

"Carnivore works fine. It is just a "sniffer,'" Ryan said.
"Used under judicial supervision.it represents no greater
threat than we faced before, except perhaps with regard to
the sheer amount of information that could be reviewed."