E-Mail Surveillance Tool Said OK

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” The FBI's controversial e-mail surveillance tool works about the way the bureau says and generally doesn't ``overcollect'' evidence, an independent reviewer of the system

Tuesday, November 21st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” The FBI's controversial e-mail surveillance tool works about the way the bureau says and generally doesn't ``overcollect'' evidence, an independent reviewer of the system said. But his remarks failed to calm the fears of privacy advocates.

Henry H. Perritt said in an interview that he had recommended how the so-called Carnivore system could be improved, both for efficiency and privacy, but that all-in-all it performed as advertised.

``I think that it's fair to say that it does pretty much what the FBI says it did. For the most part, it does not overcollect,'' he said Monday.

Perritt, who is dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law, declined to list his recommended improvements or how Carnivore sometimes overcollected.

The Justice Department was releasing Perritt's findings Tuesday.

Alan Davidson of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology said that while Carnivore may be technically sound, wiretap law still isn't keeping up with new gadgets.

``This finding, if it's true, still doesn't change the basic argument we're having about the standards under which Carnivore should be used,'' Davidson said.

``This sort of finding is in part why we've said a purely technical review of Carnivore's functions is not sufficient,'' he said. ``Policymakers need a review that considers the law under which Carnivore operates and whether that law adequately protects privacy.''

Congress considered several privacy bills during this past legislative term, including some specifically targeted at Carnivore. None of the bills survived, and legislators vowed to take up the issue again next year.

Carnivore was designed by the FBI to collect e-mail going to or from a suspect, in cases in which a suspect may be using electronic communications. Privacy experts have worried about the breadth of Carnivore's capability and its ``black box'' nature.

Privacy advocates were alarmed by an FBI lab report last week stating that Carnivore ``could reliably capture and archive all unfiltered traffic to the internal hard drive.''

The FBI said the lab report was the result of a test to determine Carnivore's ``breaking point,'' and that laws and court orders restricted Carnivore from being used so broadly. Privacy advocates, however, said the test showed that Carnivore was more powerful than the FBI had stated.

Perritt said the FBI was ``completely open and cooperative'' during the review.

Justice spokeswoman Chris Watney said Monday that the Carnivore report was received last week in advance of Tuesday's planned release. The intervening days, she said, were needed to black out parts of the report that mention Carnivore's internal blueprints and other sensitive information.

Shortly after IIT was chosen to perform the review, ordered by Attorney General Janet Reno, critics said the review would not be independent because the reviewers were government insiders.

``This important issue deserves a truly independent review, not a whitewash,'' House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, a longtime Carnivore opponent, said in October.

Perritt advised President Clinton's transition team on information policy and performing other tasks for the Clinton administration, as well as previous Republican administrations.

Associate Dean Harold J. Krent, another member of the team, worked at the Justice Department in the 1980s, and several team members have current or former security clearances from the Defense Department, Treasury Department or the National Security Agency.

Perritt said repeatedly he was completely independent, and that his reputation would be damaged if he was anything but impartial.

Most of the nation's elite academic computer departments â€” including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue University and the San Diego Supercomputer Center â€” either declined to review Carnivore or withdrew their applications after objecting to the requirements the Justice Department placed on the review.

The bureau says Carnivore has been used about 25 times, mostly involving national security.

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On the Net: Federal Bureau of Investigation: http://www.fbi.gov

Department of Justice: http://www.usdoj.gov

Chicago-Kent College of Law: http://www.kentlaw.edu

Center for Democracy and Technology: http://www.cdt.org