Scarfo Judge Politan lets FBI Not Tell how bugging was done.

[Bill Stewart]

Sigh.  The FBI buggers convinced Nicky Da Judge to let them slide.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/21296.html


FBI let off cyber snooping hook
By Kieren McCarthy
Posted: 28/08/2001 at 10:41 GMT

The FBI has been let of the hook in its court case against mobster Nicodemo 
Scarfo. US District Judge Nicholas Politan has now ruled that the Bureau 
will not have to reveal precisely how it managed to log evidence that Mr 
Scarfo was involved in illegal gambling and loan sharking.

Mr Scarfo's lawyers claim that the FBI bugged him without possession of a 
bugging warrant and so the evidence it gathered is inadmissible in court 
since it was obtained illegally.

Previously Judge Politan said the FBI would have to reveal how it managed 
to bug Mr Scarfo's computer after it had failed to unscramble encrypted 
files on his computer. Not unreasonably, the judge said that for him to 
decide whether it had been obtained legally or not, he would have to know 
the method that was used. This information would have had to be given to 
the defence.

But the US government has persuaded the judge that the defence should only 
get an "unclassified summary". How'd it do that? Well, would you believe it 
but there's some strange law that can be invoked at times such as this. 
This one is called the Classified Information Procedures Act - which 
amazingly allows information to be withheld if national security is at 
risk. The FBI also promised to give a secret meeting in which it would go 
into further details over how the system worked.

The FBI installed some kind of key-logging software on Mr Scarfo's machine 
after it failed to crack his encryption software. Since it didn't have a 
warrant to bug him, Mr Scarfo's lawyers say his constitutional rights have 
been infringed. The FBI says the technology it is using falls under current 
bugging legislation but many remain unconvinced and claim the FBI is going 
beyond current laws.

It doesn't inspire confidence either when the head of the FBI, Robert 
Mueller, testified to the Senate a few weeks ago that he was "not familiar" 
with key-logging technology. That seems about as likely as the Pope being a 
closet Jew, but then Robert wouldn't lie, would he?

Many observers will be concerned at the failure for the American legal 
system to bring out into the open the unnerving possibilities that the 
latest technology makes available to intelligence agencies. .

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