LATimes: FBI's E-Mail Surveillance Getting Boost
Blank Frank
bf at mindspring.com
Thu Apr 19 22:17:45 PDT 2001
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.
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