Reno Plans FBI E-Mail Probe
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN Associated Press Writer
August 10, 2000
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Justice Department plans to hire a
major university to analyze the FBI's "Carnivore" e-mail
surveillance system, but civil libertarians said such a
review can't answer all the questions about the system.
"The university review team will have total access to any
information they need to conduct their review," Attorney
General Janet Reno told her weekly news conference Thursday.
The report will be made public, and a team of department
officials will ask privacy and law enforcement experts to
comment before making final recommendations to Reno about
the system that has caused an uproar among civil
libertarians and in Congress.
"I would hope we could do it quickly," Reno said.
Assistant Attorney General Steve Colgate, a career official
who will chair the department review committee, said Reno
might be able to choose a university in 10 days. The
department panel will analyze public comment on the
university's recommendations and forward a final report to
Reno by Dec. 1.
"This is not a truly independent review," said Barry
Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil
Liberties Union. "The fox doesn't get to choose who guards
the henhouse."
David L. Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy
Information Center, said he doubted such a review could
satisfy concerns that the system might be abused. "The
technical community believes widespread testing is the only
way to fully understand the capabilities and vulnerabilities
of a system," he said.
Sobel and Steinhardt said outsiders, like judges and
Congress, should decide whether Carnivore complies with the
Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable
searches.
Their groups have filed Freedom of Information lawsuits to
obtain records of the system, including its computer source
code. A judge gave the FBI until Wednesday to provide a
timetable for turning over documents.
The Carnivore system has software that scans and captures
"packets," the standard unit of Internet traffic, as they
travel through an internet service provider's network. The
FBI installs a Carnivore unit at a provider's network
station and configures it to capture only e-mail to or from
someone under investigation.
FBI officials say court orders limit which e-mails they can
see.
But privacy advocates say only the FBI knows what Carnivore
can do, and Internet providers are not allowed access to the
system. They ask why the FBI retains remote control of
Carnivore equipment and doesn't just give it to Internet
providers so they can comply with court orders.
Last month, FBI officials told Congress that Carnivore has
been used 25 times, including 10 national security and six
domestic criminal cases this year. None of the cases has
gone to trial, so the FBI has not disclosed details. Colgate
said the system is still in operation and criminal division
attorneys monitor its use.
"It seems backward to still be using it, while arranging to
answer the questions about it," Sobel said.
Describing the review, Colgate said Thursday, "As much as
possible will be made public, and we will get as much input
from outside as possible."
Reno and Colgate said the FBI, state and local law enforcers
and privacy and civil liberties groups will be consulted on
the choice of a university, the scope of its review and for
reactions to any recommendations.
The university team will have complete access to all
hardware and software involved, including the computer
source code for Carnivore, Colgate said.
The source code, however, is likely to be withheld from the
public because it is a trade secret of the company that
produced the software, which has been modified by the FBI,
Colgate said.
Steinhardt and Sobel said the source code should be released
to enable widespread examination of its capabilities.
The department's chief science officer, Donald Prosnitz, a
physicist from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
has contacted three major universities and will probably
contact six more before recommending one to Reno, Colgate
said.
Among those Prosnitz will contact is the University of
California at San Diego, which Colgate said had preliminary
talks with the FBI before Reno expanded the review to
include officials outside the FBI.
Colgate's review panel will include Prosnitz; FBI Assistant
Director Donald Kerr, a nuclear physicist who heads the FBI
laboratory; Ed Dumont, the department's chief privacy
officer; and a criminal division representative.