Discussion 3(18)

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 (RIPA) requires all Internet service providers in the United Kingdom to “install black boxes on their network to monitor all data as it passes and is subsequently fed to a central processing location controlled by the United Kingdom’s security service MI-5.”50 U.K. authorities do not need warrants “to monitor patterns, such as websites visited, to and from whom email was sent, which pages are downloaded, of which discussion groups a user is a member, and which chatrooms an individual visits.”51

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000—U.K. law that requires all Internet service providers in the United Kingdom to “install black boxes on their network to monitor all data as it passes and subsequently feed it to a central processing location controlled by the United Kingdom’s security service MI-5.”

A similar program, known as Carnivore, exists in the United States. When Carnivore is installed at facilities of ISPs, it can monitor all the traffic moving through them. In fact, before the USA Patriot Act was implemented, if the

FBI suspected someone of a criminal activity, it would request authorization from the court to use Carnivore. After a court order was obtained, the FBI would install Carnivore at the suspect’s ISP. Although Carnivore could collect specific data packets included and authorized by the court order, it could not collect any other individual packets in the process. Specifically, according to a statement made by the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice:

Carnivore—A U.S. government-controlled software program that, when installed at facilities of Internet service providers, can monitor all the traffic moving through them.

Carnivore is, in essence, a special filtering tool that can gather the

information authorized by court order, and only that information. It

permits law enforcement, for example, to gather only the email

addresses of those persons with whom the drug dealer is

communicating, without allowing any human being, either from law

enforcement or the service provider, to view private information

52

By contrast, the Associate Director of the American Civil Liberties Union has claimed that

Carnivore permits access to the email of every customer of an ISP and

the [email] of every person who communicates with them. Carnivore is

roughly equivalent to a wiretap capable of accessing the contents of the

conversations of all of the phone company’s customers, with the

“assurance” that the FBI will record only conversations of the specified

target.... In essence, Carnivore is a black box into which flows all of

the service provider’s communications traffic. The service provider

knows what goes in, but it has no way of knowing what the FBI takes

53

Additionally, it is feared that the USA Patriot Act also permits government and law enforcement agencies to go on fishing expeditions.

outside of the scope of the court’s order.

out.

1. What do you believe? And why? 2. How does Carnivore fit with existing laws?