WASHINGTON, Monday, July 24—— At a Judiciary subcommittee hearing today, U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) said a controversial FBI e-mail surveillance technology poses a threat to Americans' privacy.
"One of the witnesses testified that we can rely on the good intentions of public servants to keep confidential information private. Despite all the assurances, we know that there are numerous examples of restricted information being used for purposes it was not intended," said Bachus, noting recent examples of missing FBI files that ended up in the hands of White House operatives and cases where rogue IRS agents used their access to tax returns to check up on ex-spouses, former boyfriends and girlfriends and potential rivals for a person's affections.
"The potential for abuse is tremendous. This is a case where advances in technology and the marketplace have outrun the law and in doing so have overtaken our legal protections," said Bachus.
Carnivore is a computer program that is attached to Internet Service Providers such as America Online that allows the FBI to intercept and collect e-mail conversations. The FBI contends Carnivore focuses only on the e-mails of criminal suspects, but the program in fact scans all e-mails going through the information stream of an Internet Service Provider.
"Carnivore gives the government the ability to eavesdrop on the entire Internet. The government can't do that to phone companies. It can't go to AT&T and say, ‘We're going to analyze all the phone calls that go through your system.' But it can go to an Internet Service Provider and say ‘Give us access to all your e-mails -- the entire information stream'," Bachus said.