Slashdot Mirror
Why Did The FBI Retire Carnivore?
We posted earlier this week that the FBI has officially dropped Carnivore, its "privacy respecting" eavesdropping program. Now reader Throtex writes "Professor Orin Kerr at the George Washington University Law School, a member of the Volokh Conspiracy discusses why Carnivore came to be in the first place and why it really was terminated (about two years ago). Essentially, the media (as usual) got a bit carried away with a non-story: Carnivore was designed to protect your rights from being invaded while sniffing only suspect data. Carnivore was dropped because, as of two years ago, the available tools met the necessary privacy standards, as Prof. Kerr noted in his article about the PATRIOT Act published at the time."
You presume a lot! Essentially you presume that everyone is willing to give up freedom in exchange for safety.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Creating false leads" as you put it, is a simple act of civil disobedience to a system that is overstepping its bounds. Of course a government has to have some secrets, but when did it become OK for them to pry into those of its citizens? No we haven't caught Osama (of course his family that was escorted out of the country immediately post-911 might have been able to shed some light) but we did go take down Saddam (for some inexplicable reason contrary to the wishes of the average american) but do you really think spying on the american people helped in either situation?
Bah! Damned fools!
*Wanders off to become a hermit*
Send whiskey and fresh horses!