Attorney General Looks Into 'Carnivore'
July 14 -- The FBI’s high-tech snooping system, dubbed “Carnivore,” is giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “take a bite out of crime.”
Some are wondering, however, just who is being bitten. Privacy advocates and civil libertarians are crying foul, claiming that non-criminals’ Fourth Amendment rights could easily be compromised, and Attorney General Janet Reno is listening.
“When we develop new technology, when we apply theConstitution, I want to make sure that we apply it in a consistentand balanced way,” Reno told reporters at her weekly newsbriefing Thursday.
Akin to a wire tap, the “Carnivore” is installed at an Internet service provider to scan all e-mails related to the target of a criminal investigation. Unlike a traditional phone tap, though, the system is placed and controlled not by the telephone company but solely by law enforcement.
Crime-Fighting Tool or Big Brother?
The American Civil Liberties Union argues that the system encroaches on the rights of both the ISP and its customers by reading sender, receiver and subject lines of e-mails, to decide whether to make a copy of the entire message. Cyberliberties expert Ann Brick, of the ACLU, says private information is nobody’s business but the individual’s, and the government is applying the wrong test.
“The test should not be, ‘why are you worried? You have nothing to hide.’ The test is, ‘it’s none of your business, government. Stay out of my e-mail.’”
Reno, who stressed that the system can only be activated and aimed at a particular target under court order, said she is looking into it now, and if any additional regulations are needed, they will be pursued.
“It can be a wonderful tool and I don’t want it to be a toolthat is, in any way, a cause of concern for privacy interests,”Reno said.
But the spectre of Big Brother has been raised. In Oakland, California resident Sereri Theirry says she doesn’t care for the government snooping around in her e-mail.
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