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The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed. Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.
Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. It raises concerns similar to those stirred by widespread Internet monitoring that the National Security Agency is said to have done, according to documents that have surfaced in one federal lawsuit, and may stretch the bounds of what's legally permissible.
Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.)
That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at the junction point of a router or network switch.
The technique came to light at the Search & Seizure in the Digital Age symposium held at Stanford University's law school on Friday. Ohm, who is now a law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Richard Downing, a CCIPS assistant deputy chief, discussed it during the symposium.
In a telephone conversation afterward, Ohm said that full-pipe recording has become federal agents' default method for Internet surveillance. "You collect wherever you can on the (network) segment," he said. "If it happens to be the segment that has a lot of IP addresses, you don't throw away the other IP addresses. You do that after the fact."
DOJ takes issue with wiretapping story
spokesman responds
to CNET News.com report.
"You intercept first and you use whatever filtering, data mining to get at the information about the person you're trying to monitor," he added.
On Monday, a Justice Department representative would not immediately answer questions about this kind of surveillance technique. (Late Tuesday, the Justice Department responded with a statement taking issue with this description of the FBI's surveillance practices.)
"What they're doing is even worse than Carnivore," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who attended the Stanford event. "What they're doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets."
When the FBI announced two years ago it had abandoned Carnivore, news reports said that the bureau would increasingly rely on Internet providers to conduct the surveillance and reimburse them for costs. While Carnivore was the subject of congressional scrutiny and outside audits, the FBI's current Internet eavesdropping techniques have received little attention.
Carnivore apparently did not perform full-pipe recording. A technical report (PDF: "Independent Technical Review of the Carnivore System") from December 2000 prepared for the Justice Department said that Carnivore "accumulates no data other than that which passes its filters" and that it saves packets "for later analysis only after they are positively linked by the filter settings to a target."
See more CNET content tagged:
Carnivore, surveillance, Internet provider, IP, IP address
- FBI MONITORING
- by RobinSzcz January 30, 2007 6:13 PM PST
- Whether this is all for the good, or bad, only time will tell. I can say that, for any that have been paying attention, the Administration has spent the last six years moving towards a totalitarian regime. The Iraq War, many believe, was for the sole purpose of increasing the President's powers as a War-Time President. They say it didn't matter who we went to war with but a war was the only way for him to utilize powers reserved for war-time. Since then the Administration has done everything possible to move towards a dictatorial form of government. They have knowledge of every gun in America, every National Guard is now in their control (instead of the State's), they have put their people in place in the DHS, Supreme Court, and Attorney General's Office (to name a few). It will take a long time to figure out if this is a good or bad thing. One thing is undeniable, though, and that is that this Administration, one way or another, will not step out of office in 2008. They are only just beginning. It is more than a little scary because it brings to mind governments which have monitored, through fear, the communications of their citizens; Communist Russia, China, Iraq, and Cuba (to name a few). There is a saying that states that Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. It is a difficult task for a person to assume complete power over a nation (where 2/3 of the people don't like him) and make it work. It would take a horrendous act to give him the total control and to that end I am horrified at the possibilities they might employ to not only stay in office, but to eliminate those who might stop them.<br />With this new revelation we all need to remember that America is a land OF THE PEOPLE, and if we allow fear to control us we will, in fact, be putting our Democracy away forever.<br />We must stand up for our rights or we will no longer have any.<br />Robin Szczepaniak
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- Well, apparently
- by b_baggins January 31, 2007 7:33 AM PST
- he isn't doing a very good job of making himself dictator of the <br />United States considering the Democrats now have control of both <br />the house and senate.<br /><br />But then again, fools will be fools. Let me give you a tip. Go spend <br />a month in a country that really is a totalitarian regime. If you <br />survive, you may gain some wisdom.
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