THE WAR ON FREEDOM
CARNIVORE, THE DOMESTIC ECHELON: The Electronic Privacy Information Center has asked a federal judge to order the immediate public disclosure of information concerning the FBI's controversial "Carnivore" surveillance system. In an application submitted to US District Judge James Robertson, EPIC charges that the Department of Justice and the FBI have violated the law by failing to act on a request to expedite the processing of a Freedom of Information Act request EPIC submitted to the FBI on July 12 . . . . In response to the public uproar over Carnivore, Attorney General Janet Reno announced on July 27 that the technical specifications of the system would be disclosed to a "group of experts" to allay public concerns. But according to EPIC General Counsel David L. Sobel, "There is no substitute for a full and open public review of the Carnivore system. The only way that the privacy questions can be resolved is for the FBI to release all relevant information, both legal and technical." EPIC's FOIA request, which is the subject of today's legal action, seeks the disclosure of "all records" concerning Carnivore, including the underlying software and legal analyses addressing the limitations, if any, that have been placed on the use of the system. A similar request for access to Carnivore material was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. --LEGAL MEMO: <www.epic.org/privacy/litigation/carnivore_TRO.pdf>
The Carnivore system gives law enforcement email interception capabilities that were never contemplated when Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The existence of Carnivore first came to light in [congressional] testimony of Attorney Robert Corn-Revere. Its operation was further detailed in a report that appeared in today's Wall Street Journal. According to these reports, the Carnivore system--essentially a computer running specialized software--is attached directly to an Internet service provider's network either when law enforcement has an order from a court permitting it to intercept in real time the contents of the electronic communications of a specific individual, or a trap-and-trace or pen register order allowing it to obtain the "numbers" related to communications from or to a specified target.
But unlike a traditional pen register, trap-and-trace device, or wiretap of a conventional phone line, Carnivore gives the FBI access to all traffic over the ISP's network. Carnivore, which is capable of analyzing millions of messages per second, purportedly retains only the messages of the specified target, although this process takes place without scrutiny of either the ISP or a court.
Carnivore permits access to the e-mail of every customer of an ISP and the e-mail 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. This "trust us, we are the government" approach is the antithesis of procedures required under our wiretapping laws.--BARRY STEINHARDT, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ACLU <Barrys@aclu.org>
The FBI has been quietly monitoring e-mail for about a year. Two weeks ago, the feds went public and explained the high-tech snooping operation to what the Wall Street Journal called "a roomful of astonished industry specialists." . . . Carnivore is nothing but a store-bought personal computer with special software that the FBI installs in the offices of Internet service providers. The computer is kept in a locked cage for about a month and a half. Every day, an agent comes by and retrieves the previous day's e-mail sent to or by someone suspected of a crime . . . .
Carnivore could conceivably monitor all the e-mail that moves through an ISP--not merely messages sent to or from the subject allegedly being monitored. Critics compare it to eavesdropping on all the phones in a neighborhood simply to zero in on just one phone.
Disturbingly, the FBI has prevailed in challenges against forcing ISPs to allow Carnivore to be installed in their offices. According to the Wall Street Journal, one unidentified ISP put up a legal fight against Carnivore early this year and lost. --NEWSMAX: <http://newsmax.com>
Los Angeles police have been accused of targeting journalists when they clear crowds of protesters from the streets, and at least a few reporters have ended up in jail or in hospitals as a result. Journalists have been arrested and assaulted in a number of episodes during the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles this week, in what seems to be a growing trend during protests at large political events. The Los Angeles incidents come on the heels of two reporters' arrests during the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia two weeks ago.
Journalists covering protests in Los Angeles on Monday night, the first night of the Democratic convention, suddenly found themselves being hit by rubber bullets and charged by officers on horseback. The Associated Press reported that when police started moving in on protesters leaving a free concert, the journalists started "separating themselves from the main body of fleeing concert goers and waving credentials."
A Houston Chronicle reporter was knocked over a barricade by a mounted police officer. According to a Chronicle editor who was on the phone with her at the time, she was waving credentials and begging police to let her inside the security fence when an officer on horseback collided with a group of people she was with. . . . . A reporter for Hearst Newspapers wearing a press ID and DNC credentials was reportedly clubbed by a police officer during the same incident. The Chronicle and Hearst have also sent written protests to the city over the police behavior. A number of reporters and photographers were hit with rubber bullets fired by police, which left large welts on their skin.
Reporters for the Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press were arrested Tuesday night while covering a bicycle-based protest designed to "promote bicycling as a way to relieve traffic congestion and pollution." Tribune reporter Flynn McRoberts was arrested with protesters in the bicycling event who were traveling through downtown streets with police escorts. He was held for eight hours before being released. . . . McRoberts was cited for "reckless driving" of a bicycle, although the charge was modified to "obstructing a public way" after prosecutors found that the recklessness charge cannot apply to bicycles. His rented bicycle is still being held by police as evidence. Associated Press broadcast reporter Brian Bland also was arrested, and his reporting equipment and bicycle were confiscated. The AP is protesting the arrest. Police spokesman Commander David Kalish said that the two reporters were arrested because they were doing the same things that the protesters were doing. . . .
At a protest against police brutality, a Cable News Network sound technician was hospitalized after being struck in the chest by a police baton during a scuffle between police officers and protesters.
According to a broadcast report and a story on CNN.com, a CNN photographer had dropped his cellular telephone during the standoff. After a police officer retrieved the phone, the unnamed CNN sound technician leaned forward to take the phone from the officer. When leaning forward, she reportedly was "jabbed" in the stomach with a baton by another police officer. After being struck by the officer, she was taken to Glendale Memorial Hospital, where she was diagnosed with bruised and contused ribs and then released, according to CNN.com. Interviewed later on CNN's "Larry King Live," police spokesman Kalish said, "We apologize for [the incident] but, unfortunately, that's what happens in these types of situations when journalists are integrated in a violent situation."
Although there were no known reports of journalists being assaulted two weeks earlier in Philadelphia, at least two reporters were arrested while covering protests or interviewing protesters. --REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS <www.rcfp.org>
The Los Angeles Police Department calls them "scouts," and they are so good at their job that, during this week's protests, some were shot at and others were arrested--by their own colleagues. The LAPD undercover officers assigned to join the crowds of demonstrators drawn by the Democratic National Convention are a young, purposefully ragtag group that has blended easily and invisibly into the sea of young faces protesting downtown. Throughout the week, they have provided a key element in the Police Department's intelligence-gathering network, as they circulated unnoticed within crowds across the city. They mingle with different groups of protesters, relaying information back to intelligence officers working at several LAPD command posts. . . . LAPD officials deny that undercover officers provoke incidents . . . The LAPD has a particularly long and pungent history of spying on political dissenters dating to the "Red Squad" of the 1930s that regularly broke up union and leftist meetings, hustling protesters to jail. Then, in the late 1970s and 1980s, it was learned that officers from the department's Public Disorder Intelligence Division had infiltrated left-wing groups and that others had spied on local politicians and critics of the Police Department. Shortly after the controversial revelations about the division in the 1980s, the department replaced it with the Anti-Terrorist Division and settled a lawsuit by agreeing to strict limits on its activities. Four years ago, however, the civilian Police Commission, which oversees the department's management, relaxed many of the rules governing undercover operations. --LA TIMES, <www.latimes.com/communities/news/los_angeles_metro/20000818/t00007756 6.html>
Reversing an earlier denial, the Philadelphia Police Department admitted yesterday that its officers conducted surveillance at private meetings of activists planning protests at the Republican convention. The department earlier this month flatly denied that police were watching and photographing activists. Lt. Susan Slawson, the force's spokeswoman, said in an interview published July 6 that any such activity would violate formal curbs on police intelligence-gathering "and we are in no way violating it." Yesterday, the department acknowledged plainclothes Philadelphia police officers had been photographing protesters. "It is our people," Slawson said. She made the admission after The Inquirer informed department officials that car-registration records showed that a car used during one surveillance was owned by the force. --PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
--Sam Smith is editor of THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, 1739 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009, Tel: (202) 232-5544, Fax: (202) 234-6222. For a free trial subscription to the bi-monthly hard copy edition and regular e-mail updates, send e-mail and terrestrial address to <ssmith@igc.org>.