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FBI seek to expand the system formerly known as Carnivore
Posted by Tara Swaminatha on Saturday, March 13 @ 14:31:25 EST News
Yesterday the FBI made a request to the FCC to essentially expand DCS1000 (formerly known as Carnivore) .

The proposal would require cable Internet and broadband providers to facilitate FBI wiretap surveillance (telephone companies already do under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994). Louis Freeh (former FBI director) urged Congress to pass CALEA about ten years ago because of "emerging technologies" such as call forwarding, call waiting and cellular phones that had frustrated surveillance efforts.

Under the FBI's proposal, all broadband Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, would be required to rewire their networks to facilitate police wiretapping. Companies would bear "sole financial responsibility for development and implementation of CALEA solutions" but would be authorized to raise prices to cover their costs.

James X. Dempsey (of CDT) describes as a "breathtaking" expansion of government surveillance requirements that would "bring the economy to a halt". According to a CNet article describing the proposal, "legal experts" said the proposal could be interpreted as forcing companies to leave back doors in a wide range of services including instant messaging prgorams, VoIP programs, videoconferencing capabilities and possibly even Microsoft's Xbox Live game service.

Furthermore, the proposal would outlaw introducing new services without a back door for police. CNet maintains "if approved as drafted, the proposal could dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers, raise costs for cable broadband companies and complicate Internet product development."

More on Carnivore here and here. More on CALEA here and here.

UPDATED 2004-03-17 1:00PM (JTLG): I changed "system-formerly-known-as-Carnivore" to "system formerly known as Carnivore" (deleting the hyphens). Some RSS aggregators (Slash-powered ones, it appears) have trouble with words with multiple hypphens in item titles.

 
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Re: FBI seek to expand the system-formerly-known-as-Carnivore (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 16 @ 17:50:53 EST
Expand carnivore? I thought this was an effort to make sure carnivore never had to be used.


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