Last month, the FBI unveiled a new surveillance system called Carnivore.
Carnivore is a black box, a closed system so you can't know what exactly 
it's doing, which sits on internet routers, the machines which connect 
networks together, to spy on email traffic between networks.
  Since it is impossible to determine exactly what data Carnivore is
monitoring for, everyone is potentially at risk. The FBI promises to "only
use Carnivore when they've gotten approval to monitor someone" and that
"only the person under investigation will be monitored". At a minimum, the
FBI will have to scan through every email passing through it's system to
check if it's connected to their suspect so they can collect their evidence.
However, there's no guarantee they won't store the information they gather
on non-suspects for future use and there's no guarantee they're not spying
on other activities such as online shopping, paying bills or chatting with
a relative or business partner.
  Basically, the FBI will have the ability to track all of your internet
transactions and search through all of them for incriminating evidence
whether or not you're their targetted suspect and whether or not you're
doing anything wrong. It's equivalent to putting a tap on all of your phones
and giving you a thorough search every time you step out onto a sidewalk.
Further, the FBI isn't required to give notification that they have a 
warrant to "tap your internet identity". It'll only become easier as the 
FBI begins to use electronic authorization for search warrants.
  The FBI's justification for such a system is to "catch online pedophiles
and terrorists." Despite the media hoopla, there are very few online
pedophiles in comparison to non-pedophiles - less than one in a million.
The chances of catching a terrorist is quite minimal as well since they
would most likely use encrypted communications to prevent prying eyes
from finding out ahead of time and to protect their identities. More than
likely, Carnivore will either be used for nothing - thus a great waste of
taxpayer money, or will be used to fish for suspects without warrants to
justify it's existence.
  Carnivore possesses a tremendous threshold for abuse. It provides the
FBI with the unchecked ability to spy on anyone without their knowledge
and even if they didn't commit a crime. Because it examines communications,
it's also possible to use it to spy on corporate secrets that get sent
out over the internet if they're not entirely kept on the corporate wide
intranet only. Chances are the FBI as an organization wouldn't abuse the
power like this but every organization is made up of people... who may
be more inclined to abuse such power. Even if you trust the FBI will
always do the right thing, do you trust all of it's agents?

Ken Witherow
This article is Copyright 2000, Ken Witherow. All rights reserved.
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