Why Did The FBI Retire Carnivore?

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 19, 2005 @04:01AM from the because-the-bugs-are-working-now dept.

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."

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Re:RTFA...this is not a good thing by NetCynicism · 2005-01-19 07:55 · Score: 0, Redundant

They retired it because USA PATRIOT allows them to just collect it the good old fashioned way...no encryption, no court order

That is not only factually incorrect, but you would know it was factually incorrect if you'd read the article on the Patriot Act linked in the parent.

The Patriot Act doesn't allow the government to do anything without a court order that required a court order before. Nothing. Zilch. Bupkis. Your comment is a compendium of urban legend, FUD, and paranoia. Thank you for it - I was entertained to see how fast the Slashbots modded it up.