FBI Sought Approval To Use Spyware Through FISC

An anonymous reader writes "Wired is reporting that the FBI sought approval to use its custom spyware program, CIPAV, from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in terrorism or spying investigations. Affidavits prepared for the court are among 3,000 pages of documents gathered, but not yet released, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Wired. The FBI hasn't answered any questions about its use of the CIPAV since the program's existence became widely known in July. The FISC is generally regarded as a rubber stamp; it approved over 4,000 surveillance requests in 2005 and 2006[PDF], rejecting none."

Comments

Not surprising

[insanechemist]

Reading up a bit: "The FISA Court did not reject a single warrant application from its beginning in 1979 through 2002. In 2003 it rejected four applications. In 2004, the number was again zero."

Re:Government Spyware

[BitterOak]

I would just like to know, what could the FBI do to make it's spy ware different from anything else out there in the wild? It would seem to me they would limited to the same techniques anyone can use on a computer, so really wouldn't it be just one more obnoxious program out there? The difference is it is not viral and therefore doesn't escape "into the wild" and reproduce to the point where it eventually falls into the hands of the anti-virus software makers. As a result, their software won't detect it. This is a fundamental weakness with signature-based anti-virus systems. They work great on viruses, which spread indiscriminently, but are useless against a targeted attack by an adversary with the resources to create and deploy their own malware.