As We Go to Press: FBI to release files on e-mail surveillance system

Sep 1, 2000 12:00 PM, AC&SSI STAFF

The U.S. Justice Department announced on August 16 that the FBI could begin releasing 3,000 pages of documents describing its "Carnivore" e-mail surveillance system within 45 days. The Justice Department told a federal judge that the FBI would release the 3,000 pages in response to a Freedom of Information request and lawsuit by a group, Electronic Privacy Information Center, which had asked for every document detailing the system. Privacy advocates are alarmed by the system, which has software that scans and captures "packets," the standard unit of Internet traffic, as they travel through Internet service provider's network. The FBI says it would install a Carnivore unit at a provider's network station and configure it to capture only e-mail to and from someone under investigation. But privacy advocates say only the FBI knows what the system can do, and Internet providers are not allowed access to the system.

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