Prey of the Carnivore

The FBI plans to use Carnivore for specific reasons. Particularly, the agency will request a court order to use Carnivore when a person is suspected of:
• Terrorism
• Child pornography/exploitation
• Espionage
• Information warfare
• Fraud There are some key issues that are causing a great deal of concern from various sources: • Privacy - Many folks think that Carnivore is a severe violation of privacy. While the potential for abuse is certainly there, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) provides legal protection of privacy for all types of electronic communication. Any type of electronics surveillance requires a court order and must show probable cause that the suspect is engaged in criminal activities. Therefore, use of Carnivore in any way that does not adhere to ECPA is illegal and can be considered unconstitutional.
• Regulation - There is a widespread belief that Carnivore is a huge system that can allow the U.S. government to seize control of the Internet and regulate its use. To do this would require an amazing infrastructure -- the FBI would need to place Carnivore systems at every ISP, including private, commercial and educational. While it is theoretically possible to do so for all of the ISPs operating in the United States, there is still no way to regulate those operating outside of U.S. jurisdiction. Any such move would also face serious opposition from every direction.
• Free speech - Some people think that Carnivore monitors all of the content flowing through an ISP, looking for certain keywords such as "bomb" or "assassination." Any packet sniffer can be set to look for certain patterns of characters or data. Without probable cause, though, the FBI has no justification to monitor your online activity and would be in severe violation of ECPA and your constitutional right to free speech if it did so.
• Echelon - This is a secret network rumored to be under development by the National Security Agency (NSA), supposedly designed to detect and capture packets crossing international borders that contain certain keywords, such as "bomb" or "assassination." There is no solid evidence to support the existence of Echelon. Many people have confused this rumored system with the very real Carnivore system. All of these concerns have made implementation of Carnivore an uphill battle for the FBI. The FBI has refused to disclose the source code and certain other pieces of technical information about Carnivore, which has only added to people's concerns. But, as long as it is used within the constraints and guidelines of ECPA, Carnivore has the potential to be a useful weapon in the war on crime.