IP: Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

[ In keeping with protocol, I was an expert witness (pro-bono) for the 
defense and submitted several affidavits on the technical issues djf]


>         http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,49455,00.html
>
> Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing
> By Declan McCullagh
> 2:00 a.m. Jan. 4, 2002 PST              WASHINGTON -- The Justice 
> Department can legally use a controversial electronic surveillance 
> technique in its prosecution of an alleged mobster.
>
> In the first case of its kind, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey has 
> ruled that evidence surreptitiously gathered by the FBI about Nicodemo S. 
> Scarfo's reputed loan shark operation can be presented in a trial later 
> this year.
>
> U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan said last week that it was perfectly 
> acceptable for FBI agents armed with a court order to sneak into Scarfo's 
> office, plant a keystroke sniffer in his PC and monitor its output.
>
> Scarfo had been using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software to 
> encode confidential business data -- and frustrate the government's 
> attempts to monitor him.
>
>         [snip]
>
> The court order from the federal magistrate judge stated that the FBI 
> could "install and leave behind software, firmware, and/or hardware 
> equipment, which will monitor the inputted data entered on Nicodemo S. 
> Scarfo's computer in the target location so that the FBI can capture the 
> password necessary to decrypt computer files by recording the key related 
> information as they are entered."
>
> Defense attorneys had said that the PGP pass-phrase snatching was akin to 
> a telephone wiretap and pointed out that the FBI never obtained a wiretap 
> order. Scarfo's lawyers also claimed the FBI was conducting a general 
> search of the sort loathed by the colonists at the time of the American 
> Revolution and thereafter outlawed by the Fourth Amendment's prohibition 
> of "unreasonable" searches.

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