Fox News24/10/2001: "FBI to Broaden Web Wiretapping"

[Caspar Bowden]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,37203,00.html
Fox News					  Wednesday, October 24,
2001
 
FBI to Broaden Web Wiretapping
 
     By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
	
Washington - The Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking to broaden
considerably its ability to tap into Internet traffic in its quest to
root out terrorists, going beyond even the new measures afforded in
anti-terror legislation passed by the House today, according to lawyers
familiar with the FBI's plans.

Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Steptoe &
Johnson and a former general consul to National Security Agency, said
the FBI has plans to change the architecture of the Internet and route
traffic through central servers that it would be able to monitor e-mail
more easily.

The plans goes well beyond the Carnivore e-mail-sniffing system which
allows the FBI to search for and extract specific e-mails off the
Internet and generated so much controversy among privacy advocates and
civil libertarians before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"From the work I've been doing, I've seen the efforts the FBI has been
making and it suggests that they are going to unveil this in the next
few months," Baker said of the plan.

FBI Spokesman Paul Bresson said he was unaware of any development in the
e-mail surveillance arena that would require major architectural changes
in the Internet, but acknowledged that such a plan is possible.

Any new efforts "would be in compliance with wiretapping statutes,"
Bresson said. "We would be remiss if we didn't." 

Such a move might have been unthinkable before Sept. 11.

Last year, privacy groups and civil libertarians howled in protest when
the FBI trotted out plans to start using the Carnivore system. The
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington was ready to
go full rounds with the government in court over Carnivore, and House
Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, asked Attorney General John
Ashcroft to take another look at its constitutionality.

Now, though, the country is asking for more, not less, law enforcement
on the Internet, and even those who once complained are coming around. 

"I have two minds on this," says Fred Peterson, vice president of
government affairs for the Xybernaut Corporation, which manufactures
computer technology for military and law enforcement. The past six weeks
have left little doubt in most peoples' mind, he said, that new measures
must be taken. 

"I think that the threat has increased and while (FBI) demands were
unreasonable at a time when the threat was less immediate and less fatal
- it's just not the same story anymore," he said.

Others are still skeptical, though not as much.

"I don't think (FBI) motives are bad, but I do think they're using
people's current state of mind - they're using it to their advantage,"
said Mikal Condon, staff attorney for EPIC.

The new FBI plans would give the agency a technical backdoor to the
networks of Internet service providers' like AOL and Earthlink and Web
hosting companies, Baker said. It would concentrate Internet traffic in
several central locations where e-mail and other web activity could be
wiretapped.

Baker said he expects the agency will approach the Internet companies on
an individual basis to ask for their help in the endeavor. 

But Jim Harper, staff counsel for privacy advocate Pricilla.org said the
FBI may have a hard time convincing some companies to redesign the
Internet on its behalf. "It's not really surprising, but I would be
shocked to see if it gets done," he said. "Restructuring the Internet? I
don't think so."

Others say the Internet companies will not put up much of a fight.

Sue Ashdown, executive director of the Washington-based American ISP
Association, an Internet company trade group, said most Internet
companies aren't healthy enough financially to take on the government in
court to protect their subscribers' privacy rights. And no one, she
says, wants to appear hostile to law enforcement right now.

"I know there are a lot of members in the association with feelings on
both sides," said Ashdown. 

"In the current patriotic climate, enterprises of all types will likely
play along with the FBI in order to avoid a public relations disaster,"
said Gene Riccoboni, an Internet attorney with the Stamford,
Connecticut-based Grimes & Battersby.  






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