-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.leitl.org 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 13:46:30 -0500 From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> Reply-To: farber@cis.upenn.edu To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing [ In keeping with protocol, I was an expert witness (pro-bono) for the defense and submitted several affidavits on the technical issues djf]

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,49455,00.html

Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing By Declan McCullagh 2:00 a.m. Jan. 4, 2002 PST WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department can legally use a controversial electronic surveillance technique in its prosecution of an alleged mobster.

In the first case of its kind, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey has ruled that evidence surreptitiously gathered by the FBI about Nicodemo S. Scarfo's reputed loan shark operation can be presented in a trial later this year.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan said last week that it was perfectly acceptable for FBI agents armed with a court order to sneak into Scarfo's office, plant a keystroke sniffer in his PC and monitor its output.

Scarfo had been using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software to encode confidential business data -- and frustrate the government's attempts to monitor him.

[snip]

The court order from the federal magistrate judge stated that the FBI could "install and leave behind software, firmware, and/or hardware equipment, which will monitor the inputted data entered on Nicodemo S. Scarfo's computer in the target location so that the FBI can capture the password necessary to decrypt computer files by recording the key related information as they are entered."

Defense attorneys had said that the PGP pass-phrase snatching was akin to a telephone wiretap and pointed out that the FBI never obtained a wiretap order. Scarfo's lawyers also claimed the FBI was conducting a general search of the sort loathed by the colonists at the time of the American Revolution and thereafter outlawed by the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of "unreasonable" searches.

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