FBI E-Mail Trap Far More Powerful Than Advertised

The FBI’s controversial e-mail surveillance tool, known as Carnivore, can retrieve all communication that goes through an Internet service--far more than FBI officials have said it does--a recent test of its potential sweep found, according to bureau documents.

An FBI official involved with the test stressed Friday that, although Carnivore has the ability to grab a large quantity of e-mails and Web communication, current law and specific court orders restrict its use.

Nevertheless, privacy experts said they are worried about the breadth of Carnivore’s capability and questioned why the FBI even conducted such a test in June if it intends to use the tool only for narrow purposes.

“That really contradicts the explanation that the FBI has provided as to the purpose of the system and how it works,” said David Sobel, general counsel for the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. “We’ve been led to believe that the purpose of Carnivore is to filter and pinpoint the particular communications that the FBI is authorized to obtain. If that’s true, then why are they testing the system’s ability to store and archive everything?”

Sobel’s group recently obtained the FBI documents providing the test results as part of litigation it brought under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the lab report, FBI officials said Carnivore “could reliably capture and archive all unfiltered traffic to the internal hard drive” and could save the information on removable high-capacity disks as well.

Marcus Thomas, head of the FBI’s cybertechnology section, said the test was only done to check Carnivore’s “breaking point.” He said the tool wouldn’t be used to capture broad swaths of Internet communication in a real-world situation.

Thomas is one of the FBI agents who approved the lab report.

The difference of opinion is the latest in what has become a debate between Carnivore’s capabilities and its actual use.

Although law enforcement officials have admitted that Carnivore can capture much more than e-mail, including Internet chats and Web browsing, FBI officials insist it is only used to copy e-mail to or from a criminal suspect in accordance with a court order.

Opponents say the “black box” nature of the system keeps the public from knowing what it can really do, and its installation at an Internet provider may cause network problems.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center started receiving batches of Carnivore-related material in October, after a court ordered the FBI to release the information.

EPIC representatives said they have received about 550 pages so far and expect to get only about 30% of the 3,000 documents related to Carnivore.