I’m reading up about the FBI’s electronic surveillance tool, Carnivore. They actually have the nerve to call it a “diagnostic tool” on their site. Here’s a cute little diagram of how it all works - along with an explanation. Some key phrases from their info about it:

The Carnivore device provides the FBI with a “surgical” ability to intercept and collect the communications which are the subject of the lawful order while ignoring those communications which they are not authorized to intercept.

…Carnivore serves to limit the messages viewable by human eyes to those which are strictly included within the court order. ISP knowledge and assistance, as directed by court order, is required to install the device.

…There are significant penalties for misuse of the tool, including exclusion of evidence, as well as criminal and civil penalties. The system is not susceptible to abuse because it requires expertise to install and operate, and such operations are conducted, as required in the court orders, with close cooperation with the ISPs.

…This is a matter of employing new technology to lawfully obtain important information while providing enhanced privacy protection.

Basically, what does this all REALLY boil down to? If they have some kind of probable cause, they can get a court order to look into a specific subset of your overall data transmission and usage - say your email. They are then authorized to store all your email, but nothing else. According to what I’ve read though, if they “accidentally” collect other information, they can’t store it. But presumably, all they would need is another court review to modify their permission, and then they could incorporate any other new data sets which may be suspect, and store these as well.

This is a crock of shit that they are saying it is “not susceptible to abuse”. First of all, they say that right after explaining severe penalties for misuse - thereby invalidating the claim that it is in fact impervious to abuse. Why would you need penalties otherwise? And just because its in close cooperation with your ISP, that doesn’t mean anything. They have absolutely zero mandate to protect your privacy. They don’t give a shit, as all these RIAA suits are showing us. I wonder if the RIAA suits worked off Carnivore, or off some other simpler system?

That line about this providing “enhanced privacy protection” is pure doublespeak. It actually destroys your privacy protection. Its a tool for INVADING PRIVACY. What do they think we are, stupid?

(Link to Google group directory for privacy rights)