[Peace-discuss] Fwd: FBI to Broaden Web Wiretapping

[Al Kagan]

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:50:06 +0400
>From: Fiona Hunt <Fiona.Hunt at zu.ac.ae>
>Subject: FBI to Broaden Web Wiretapping
>To: "<" <mai-list at moon.bcpl.gov.bc.ca>
>Sender: owner-mai-list at moon.bcpl.gov.bc.ca
>Status:  
>
>Fox News					  Wednesday, October 24,
>2001
>
>FBI to Broaden Web Wiretapping
>
>      By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
>
>Washington - The Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking to broaden
>considerably its ability to tap into Internet traffic in its quest to root
>out terrorists, going beyond even the new measures afforded in anti-terror
>legislation passed by the House today, according to lawyers familiar with
>the FBI's plans.
>
>Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Steptoe & Johnson
>and a former general consul to National Security Agency, said the FBI has
>plans to change the architecture of the Internet and route traffic through
>central servers that it would be able to monitor e-mail more easily.
>
>The plans goes well beyond the Carnivore e-mail-sniffing system which allows
>the FBI to search for and extract specific e-mails off the Internet and
>generated so much controversy among privacy advocates and civil libertarians
>before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
>
>"From the work I've been doing, I've seen the efforts the FBI has been
>making and it suggests that they are going to unveil this in the next few
>months," Baker said of the plan.
>
>FBI Spokesman Paul Bresson said he was unaware of any development in the
>e-mail surveillance arena that would require major architectural changes in
>the Internet, but acknowledged that such a plan is possible.
>
>Any new efforts "would be in compliance with wiretapping statutes," Bresson
>said. "We would be remiss if we didn't."
>
>Such a move might have been unthinkable before Sept. 11.
>
>Last year, privacy groups and civil libertarians howled in protest when the
>FBI trotted out plans to start using the Carnivore system. The Electronic
>Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington was ready to go full rounds
>with the government in court over Carnivore, and House Majority Leader Dick
>Armey, R-Texas, asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to take another look at
>its constitutionality.
>
>Now, though, the country is asking for more, not less, law enforcement on
>the Internet, and even those who once complained are coming around.
>
>"I have two minds on this," says Fred Peterson, vice president of government
>affairs for the Xybernaut Corporation, which manufactures computer
>technology for military and law enforcement. The past six weeks have left
>little doubt in most peoples' mind, he said, that new measures must be
>taken.
>
>"I think that the threat has increased and while (FBI) demands were
>unreasonable at a time when the threat was less immediate and less fatal -
>it's just not the same story anymore," he said.
>
>Others are still skeptical, though not as much.
>
>"I don't think (FBI) motives are bad, but I do think they're using people's
>current state of mind - they're using it to their advantage," said Mikal
>Condon, staff attorney for EPIC.
>
>The new FBI plans would give the agency a technical backdoor to the networks
>of Internet service providers' like AOL and Earthlink and Web hosting
>companies, Baker said. It would concentrate Internet traffic in several
>central locations where e-mail and other web activity could be wiretapped.
>
>Baker said he expects the agency will approach the Internet companies on an
>individual basis to ask for their help in the endeavor.
>
>But Jim Harper, staff counsel for privacy advocate Pricilla.org said the FBI
>may have a hard time convincing some companies to redesign the Internet on
>its behalf. "It's not really surprising, but I would be shocked to see if it
>gets done," he said. "Restructuring the Internet? I don't think so."
>
>Others say the Internet companies will not put up much of a fight.
>
>Sue Ashdown, executive director of the Washington-based American ISP
>Association, an Internet company trade group, said most Internet companies
>aren't healthy enough financially to take on the government in court to
>protect their subscribers' privacy rights. And no one, she says, wants to
>appear hostile to law enforcement right now.
>
>"I know there are a lot of members in the association with feelings on both
>sides," said Ashdown.
>
>"In the current patriotic climate, enterprises of all types will likely play
>along with the FBI in order to avoid a public relations disaster," said Gene
>Riccoboni, an Internet attorney with the Stamford, Connecticut-based Grimes
>& Battersby.

-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu