LATimes: FBI's E-Mail Surveillance Getting Boost

[Blank Frank]

http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/20010419/t000033196.html

FBI's E-Mail Surveillance Getting Boost 

                                              Policy: Justice officials likely to call for continuing
                                            'Carnivore,' with privacy protections added. 

                                            By ERIC LICHTBLAU, Times Staff Writer


                                                 WASHINGTON--Senior Justice Department officials are
                                            recommending that the FBI be allowed to continue using a
                                            controversial e-mail snooping tool against suspected
                                            criminals--with some new safeguards aimed at answering
                                            privacy concerns, law enforcement sources said Wednesday. 
                                                 Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft met privately with FBI Director
                                            Louis J. Freeh on Wednesday for a briefing on the "Carnivore"
                                            surveillance program, and he is expected to announce a
                                            decision within the next few weeks on a thorny issue that pits
                                            law enforcement demands against privacy interests. 
                                                 Ashcroft, regarded as a strong defender of privacy rights
                                            from his days in the Senate, inherited the controversy from
                                            former Atty. Gen. Janet Reno after it was disclosed last year
                                            that the FBI had begun using the electronic surveillance
                                            program to track the computer activities of suspects in a small
                                            number of criminal and national security investigations. 
                                                 The FBI program, dubbed "Carnivore" because it can
                                            quickly get to "the meat" of a database, is capable of searching
                                            millions of e-mails per second under federal wiretap authority.
                                            But privacy advocates, civil libertarians and congressional
                                            critics say that, because the program is installed directly into a
                                            service provider's network, authorities can abuse it by
                                            eavesdropping on the activities of all the system users. 
                                                 Reno brought in an outside group last year to do a technical
                                            review of the program and also created an in-house review
                                            committee made up of senior personnel from the Justice
                                            Department and the FBI to assess the findings. 
                                                 The Justice Department review team, in a report delivered
                                            to Ashcroft several weeks ago but not yet made public,
                                            concluded that Carnivore has several shortcomings but,
                                            overall, plays a vital role in helping investigators track the
                                            activities of criminal suspects, sources said. 
                                                 "It's quite clear that it's a critical tool, and the FBI has to
                                            stay on top of changing technology," said one official familiar
                                            with the report, who asked not to be identified. "All you have
                                            to do is tell the drug dealers that law enforcement won't be able
                                            to do electronic surveillance on e-mail, and they'll all drop
                                            their phones and e-mail will be the tool du jour." 
                                                 In delivering its report to Ashcroft, the task force
                                            unanimously affirmed all the recommendations of the outside
                                            review, which was completed by the Illinois Institute of
                                            Technology's Research Institute. Several bigger-name
                                            institutions turned down the job, complaining it would not be a
                                            truly independent review because of restrictions on how it
                                            could be conducted. 
                                                 Among the key proposals before Ashcroft, the official said,
                                            are: tightening the audit trail to determine which FBI personnel
                                            are using the surveillance program "so people don't get sloppy
                                            and slip into unauthorized use"; more clearly defining what
                                            e-mail material and computer data can legitimately be
                                            reviewed by investigators; and developing a more up-to-date
                                            legal framework to match the rapid advance of technological
                                            law enforcement tools. 
                                                 "This tightens up the safeguards and the ability to audit the
                                            system to really try to protect legitimate privacy concerns," the
                                            official said. "I would view it as a tweaking." 
                                                 The findings will likely disappoint privacy advocates, who
                                            have been anxiously awaiting the final Justice Department
                                            report on the issue. 
                                                 "I think it's unlikely that the attorney general would flatly
                                            repudiate or banish Carnivore from the tools available to the
                                            FBI," said Jim Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for
                                            Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group in Washington.

                                                 "On the other hand, I think some serious concerns have been
                                            raised about it," Dempsey said. "This represents a departure
                                            from normal wiretap procedure in that it's something inserted
                                            directly into the network of the service provider which the
                                            service provider doesn't control. The fundamental problem is
                                            that it's controlled by the government." 
                                                 Carnivore has become so notorious that the FBI is planning
                                            to change the name of the program, using a blander, numeric
                                            designation because the old flesh-eating moniker has taken on
                                            such a negative connotation. 
                                                 Justice Department officials said Ashcroft is expected to
                                            meet this week with privacy advocates regarding their
                                            concerns about Carnivore and other issues.