Putting a Leash on Carnivore
Wes Vernon
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, eagerly awaited House passage Monday night of a measure to "bring accountability to the Internet cybersnooping system formerly known as Carnivore.”
This is a method of invading Internet privacy that the FBI had created it to combat terrorism.
The amendment by Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., would require the attorney general and the FBI to provide Congress with a detailed report on all uses of Carnivore. The report must document the exact circumstances of the system’s use, including the statutory authority upon which the Department of Justice relied.
Attorney General John Ashcroft recently appointed a senior department official to examine legal problems with the system.
Last month, Armey wrote a letter to Ashcroft in which he cited a Supreme Court decision saying that the government’s use of "a device that is not in general use to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion” is a surveillance that is a Fourth Amendment "search,” and is "presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.”
Thus, Armey concluded, Internet surveillance can undermine "the minimum expectation that individuals have that their personal electronic communications will not be examined by law enforcement devices unless a specific court warrant has been issued.”
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