At 1:32 PM -0400 7/25/00, x wrote:
>
> From Wired News, available online at:
>http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,37765,00.html
>
>FBI Gives a Little on Carnivore
>by Declan McCullagh
>
>9:35 a.m. Jul. 25, 2000 PDT
>WASHINGTON -- The FBI says it will conduct a privacy audit of a
>controversial surveillance system, but the agency won't release key
>information about how Carnivore works.
>
>On Monday, FBI officials told a congressional panel that they hope to
>assuage the fears of civil libertarians through "an independent
>verification and validation" of the Carnivore eavesdropping system.
There are many aspects of Carnivore which have _nothing_ to do with
the specifics of the box, the OS, the code, etc., and everything to
do with basic principles of search warrants and the First, Third,
Fourth, and other parts of the Constitution.
For example, even if a valid court-ordered intercept is gotten
against John Doe, and the court orders installation of equipment,
that installation should be removed as soon as the court order
expires.
"FBI, this is Ace Internet Service. Your John Doe no longer has an
account with us, so please get your rack of equipment out of our cage
by the end of business today."
Requiring a permanent installation is most certainly a "taking." A
taking of floor space, a taking of security, a taking of time to
manage issues arising from the installation, etc.
And it is of course no different from requiring that a video camera
or microphone be installed permanently (with the camera or whatever
"turned on only with a valid court order"). (Ignoring for the moment
the issue of whether one trusts the camera to be used thusly, or
trusts that Carnivore will only be used for court-ordered purposes.)
Why not require that all restaurants mike their tables, with the
mikes only turned on with a valid court order? How about discreet
video cameras in all hotel rooms?
This whole business of insinuating government surveillance equipment
into businesses, hotels, restaurants, etc. is everything written
about in "1984. And not to surprising that the techno-military state
America is leading the way.
(Not counting the bugging of every seat in Air France aircraft. At
least we may learn from the SDECE monitoring tapes what those German
passengers were observing and screaming about as that Concorde went
down today.)
>
>"This notion of opening up the code I think is a very good one," said
>Alan Davidson, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and
>Technology. "I think if there needs to be a preliminary step of
>getting an independent panel in here, that's not the same and it
>wouldn't be as good as opening it up to the public."
To reiterate, this is focussing on the minute details and missing the
big picture: why is a government agency being allowed to essentially
permanently install something in a piece of private property?
I'm tempted to set up my own ISP just so I can tell them to fuck off
and wave a shotgun at them as they try to install their equipment on
my property. And even if they do manage to get a court-ordered
wiretap, to tell them to get the rack of equipment off my premises as
soon as the specific reason for the wiretap has ended.
Permanent installations on private property are not part of any
reasonable court order to assist with surveillance.
--Tim May
--
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Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
