IP: FBI using high-tech gadgets: InfoBeat News - Morning Coffee Edition - 7/30/2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> *** FBI using high-tech gadgets
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) - By bugging a keyboard or using special software,
> FBI agents can remotely capture a computer user's every keystroke.
> With a black box, they can intercept e-mail from miles away. In a
> van parked outside, they secretly can recreate the pictures on a
> computer screen from its electromagnetic energy. The legal limits
> for these new investigative tools will get a test Monday when a
> federal court in New Jersey examines a mob case in which agents,
> without a wiretap order, recorded a suspect's computer keystrokes.
> Privacy experts are watching the case of Nicodemo S. Scarfo Jr. with
> great interest because it could bring major changes to investigative
> tactics in the online age. "It's the idea of secret government
> surveillance technology being installed with very little oversight
> or accountability," David Sobel of the Washington-based Electronic
> Privacy Information Center said. "It gets about as close to the
> common perception of Big Brother as anything I could really
> imagine." Armed only with a search warrant, the FBI broke into
> Scarfo's business and put either a program on his computer or an
> electronic bug in his keyboard - officials will not say which - and
> recorded everything typed by the son of the jailed former boss of
> the Philadelphia mob.
>
> Full article at: http://www.infobeat.com/fullArticle?article=410564742



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