FC: Carnivore's future is in peril, from St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

From the leading newspaper of our attorney general's home state. Thanks to 
D.S. for forwarding.

More on Carnivore:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=carnivore

-Declan

*******

http://home.post-dispatch.com/channel/pdweb.nsf/text/86256A0E0068FE5086256A6000386983

   FBI's troubles could imperil its system of e-mail surveillance
   This story was published in A-section on Sunday, June 3, 2001.

   By Jon Sawyer
   Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
   WASHINGTON - The FBI's recent troubles could imperil the e-mail
   surveillance system that the agency developed and that critics have
   blasted as a threat to individual privacy.

   The fate of the surveillance system, called Carnivore, will be
   addressed first by Attorney General John Ashcroft. He delayed
   completion of an internal review of the program when the FBI was
   rocked by controversy over its misplaced documents in the case against
   Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

   The Carnivore system had been endorsed by former Attorney General
   Janet Reno and received a qualified vote of confidence in an outside
   review last December by the Illinois Institute of Technology.

   Ashcroft, a leader on privacy issues during his term in the Senate,
   had taken a more skeptical stance even before the McVeigh disclosures.

   If Ashcroft gives the surveillance system his approval, it will
   immediately be the focus of scrutiny on Capitol Hill, especially in
   the Senate Judiciary Committee. Committee staff members said incoming
   Democratic Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont would announce Sunday
   that he plans hearings on FBI oversight as one of his first agenda
   items this summer.

   [...]




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