"Steven M. Bellovin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> In this situation, everyone's email has to be scanned in order to
>> isolate the desired traffic.
I've seen this claim before, and I don't think it's true. It's like
saying to wiretap my phone calls, you need to tap an entire fiber, and
do voiceprint ID to find my calls. It's much easier and more
effective only to tap my line.
In the case of monitoring an individual's email, it would be
sufficient to monitor their spool file on whatever ISP mail server
stores their mail. The spool file only contains one person's email,
and only the ISP needs to know. This does not put the privacy of any
other user's email at risk.
There are exceptions. Large companies maintain their own email
servers, so there is no independent ISP to cooperate with the FBI.
However, the same problem exists with large company's phone lines. A
company with 1000 phones does not have an individual phone line
dedicated to each phone, in fact there is no direct correlation
between phones and incoming or outgoing lines. Wiretaps must have run
into this issue, and this would seem to be good precedent for the
leased lines which carry a large company's email (and web, IM, and
all other) traffic.
Finally, there are sophisticated individuals which also run their own
email systems. In these cases, I suspect wiretapping the entire
connection for that individual would fall within the scope of a
wiretap, since only a single individual would be targetted. (It might
take a few overturned cases before they learn to write the warrants
correctly.)
In general, I can't see why the FBI needs tools like Carnivore to tap
email. The store-and-forward nature of email means there's a place
you can go to find the email, and the structure of most email systems
means there's a place which contains only the email for that user.
>> This precedent isn't binding on the FBI, but Federal courts do
>> refer to state court opinions when appropriate. It might be an
>> interesting case.
Given that the Federal courts seem to permit pen registers with less
review than wiretaps, I'm not sure that the New York court's arguments
will have much effect.
Marc
