The technology, named “Carnivore”, allows the interception and
analysis of vast quantities of e-mail by scanning all e-mails
passing through an ISP to identify messages that may help with
criminal investigations.
The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed its belief that
Carnivore infringes ISP and user privacy rights, and it claims that
Carnivore should be subject to similar regulations as those imposed
on wiretaps.
It bases its argument on the 4th Amendment of the US
Constitution which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures of
an individual's papers and effects without probable cause.
A fundamental concern appears to be that the government has
exclusive control of the Carnivore system unlike wiretapping
technology which is maintained by independent telephone companies.
This is compounded by the amount of information that Carnivore can
pick up on.
However, the main concern according to James Dempsey of the
Centre of Democracy and Technology, is that the true nature of
Carnivore remains unknown. He commented that “the FBI is placing a
black box inside the computer network of an ISP...not even the ISP
knows exactly what that gizmo is doing”.
