Carnivore

What's disturbing about this technology? If placed in key locations, it could record a majority of Internet traffic travelling through the United States. Although it does filter the traffic it saves "based on a series of options,"¹ the system makes no attempt to filter traffic based on active search warrants. An innocuous email - from someone committing no crime - that contains suspicious words or phrases might be intercepted by this technology. This seems like a warrantless search to me.

An argument can be made that the Internet is a public network, and that users have no reasonable expectation of privacy for any transmitted traffic. Comparing an email message to a conversation with another person in a public place fits this argument. Eventually, evidence obtained from electronic eavesdropping will be used in court, and a judge will determine which argument is correct.

Irrespective of their legality, Carnivore systems have been deployed. A list dated late 1999 shows that the system has been deployed in at least 24 locations,² which are presumably large Internet Service Providers that switch a significant portion of Internet traffic.

¹EPIC Carnivore FOIA Documents. Electronic Privacy Information Center. 10 Dec 2001 <http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/purpose.html>.

²EPIC Carnivore FOIA Documents. Electronic Privacy Information Center. 10 Dec 2001 <http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/deployments.html>.