-Caveat Lector- http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ct/20011001/cr/every_link_you_take _every_click_you_make_the_fbi_could_be_watching_you_1.html
Every link you take, every click you make: The FBI could be watching you Monday October 01 04:27 PM EDT By Matt Bean Court TV Warning: The government could be watching your computer-right now. Depending on your Internet service provider, a special piece of technology called Carnivore could, in fact, be recording the URL of each Web site you visit (including this one) and even the terms you enter into popular search engines. The laws governing when the FBI can use their controversial Internet monitoring system are designed to make sure that criminals, not law-abiding citizens, are targeted. But with the fight against terrorism moving into the digital realm, proposed legislation called for by President Bush could make the technology even easier to use and, say rights groups, even easier to abuse. Though the anti-terrorism proposals may be aimed at suspected saboteurs now, they could act like a Trojan horse for rights abuses in the future, says Jay Stanley, the ACLU's privacy public education coordinator. "Americans have to be careful here," said Stanley. "That's the way rights are lost. We have to be sure that it's not just a foot in the door to a much broader expansion of powers." New laws passed the week of the attack and sponsored by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have already expanded Carnivore's reach, giving U.S. and state attorneys the power to order installation of Carnivore on a temporary, limited basis. The current proposed legislation Congress is now considering would give the FBI even more power to install and use the system. How It Works The Carnivore system is part of a class of electronic surveillance devices called "packet sniffers." Packet sniffers, which are also used by companies to monitor employee Internet use, filter all of the internet traffic that passes through a network, looking for key phrases in e-mails, for the visitation of earmarked URLs, and more. To monitor a user's traffic, agents must connect a box containing the system to the network, or internet service provider, that individual uses. Say, for example, that a mob boss was suspected of making drug deals through his Earthlink internet account. If the FBI did not already have a Carnivore system installed there, the agency would obtain a court order to install one, and then an agent would head out to the Earthlink offices to install a box. The box would filter the communications passing through Earthlink's network, paying special attention to those coming from, and heading to, the mob boss's account. Later, an agent would return to Earthlink to retrieve a hard drive from the box, which could be scanned back at the FBI offices. The FBI has been careful not to explain everything about how Carnivore works, but FOIA documents indicate that the system is capable of doing a lot more than just sifting for highlighted key words and web addresses -- it is capable of capturing and archiving not only the specific communications it's targeted at, but "all unfiltered traffic" on the network as well. This voracious appetite for data may be one reason the system, which the FBI renamed last year as DCS1000, has never been able to shake its prehistoric moniker. Trap and Trace Gets an Update The loosening of restriction on Carnivore are only part of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), a set of proposals which would grant law enforcement new powers in everything from immigration law to collecting the DNA of suspected terrorists. And though a current version of the proposal does not specifically mention the system (neither did the law passed the week of the attacks) computer experts agree that it would grant the FBI more leeway to perform surveillance activities that would require the use of Carnivore. The crucial part of the current anti-terrorism laws that has electronic privacy groups worried is a clause that would allow FBI agents to use Carnivore to expand something called the "trap and trace" authority of the government. "Trap and trace" is a term that once referred to obtaining phone records from an individual under surveillance, detailing who called whom and when. That information was considered less serious than recording the content of a phone call, and therefore two levels of warrants were established. To do a "trap and trace," agents merely needed to assert to a judge that the warrant would be "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." To do a wiretap, however, agents would have to get a Title III wiretap warrant by convincing a judge that the surveillance would be likely to turn up dirt from, say a suspected terrorist. The crucial difference, says Stanley, is that a "trap and trace" warrant is much easier to obtain. "You don't even need to be suspected of a crime for that," he says. Fast forward to the digital age: The proposed anti-terrorism laws would extend the definition of trap and trace to include the tracking of web sites a user visits. This is where Carnivore comes in. Under the proposal, agents could use Carnivore to track the web surfing of anyone they wanted to, Stanley says, without even having to convince a judge of the need to do so. This ignores the fundamental difference between phone conversations and web surfing, Stanley says. "A list of the URLs that you are visiting is more than that-it's really a list of the URLs you're reading. That tells them what you're thinking about, what you're interested in, and who you are as a person." Caution in Washington, D.C. Though anti-terrorist sentiment still runs high in Washington, D.C., some politicians have proceeded with caution into debates over the proposed legislation. In committee hearings over the bill that was passed the week of the attacks, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, urged lawmakers not to lose sight of civil liberties in their zeal to catch terrorists. That bill passed anyway, but offering the civil liberties perspective is still one of his primary goals with the current proposal. Said a spokesperson with Leahy's office, the Senator still "wants to do what the administration has called for in ways that will protect Americans' civil liberties." Leahy has even drafted an alternative proposal to Attorney General John Ashcroft's that he hopes will demonstrate how terrorism in the digital age can be fought without hampering individual rights. With President Bush and Ashcroft backing more wide-ranging forms of the proposal than his, however, Leahy is facing an uphill battle. Ashcroft told Leahy's committee this Tuesday "we are today sending our troops into the modern field of battle with antique weapons. Technology has dramatically outpaced our statutes. Law enforcement tools created decades ago were crafted for rotary telephones-not email, the internet, mobile communications and voice mail." Carnivore: All Bark and No Bite? In the end, Carnivore might not even be capable of snaring its intended targets, says Shari Steele, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The problem, Steele says, is that "if someone is encrypting a message, it would be very difficult for [agents] to break it." Encryption allows internet users to encode their messages so that only the recipient, who has a special electronic key, can unlock them. Terrorists have long been thought to harness privacy programs to conceal their electronic communications, and some are thought to have found even more complicated methods of concealment. The safeguard might not work for long, as Steele says she expects legislation soon that could give the government special access to the keys unlocking encryption schemes. This would be a victory for the FBI, which since the late 1990s, has made concerted efforts to force privacy companies to install special back-door access systems. Rights groups and the manufacturers of encryption tools, however, have successfully fought this effort, noting that hackers could possibly break in through back doors as well. Encryption, however, is the next frontier. Until any such legislation is proposed, groups such as Steele's will be focused on the current anti-terrorism act. Said Steele, "overall, the entire act could shift the balance of power between law enforcement and the other branches of government. Law enforcement is going to be able to get a whole lot more information about Americans without anyone looking over their shoulder." _____________________ Copyright 2001 Yahoo! and http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/*http://www.courttv.com/ Courtroom Television Network LLC. All Rights Reserved. ================================================================ Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ================================================================ <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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