I remember when the FBI unleashed their “Carnivore” internet monitoring system in the 1990’s. Everyone was up in arms because the FBI could listen in to all email and run it through filters to store a database of all emails containing suspicious phrases, or from specific addresses. The controversy got so big, that they renamed it to the less aggressive DCS1000. Then they went to a third party snooping system (off the shelf) to do the same thing.

However, there is now a new system to watch what all potential internet miscreants are saying and viewing. Here’s a ZDNet article about it with plenty of source references. In brief, they monitor and record all traffic through a “pipe” (an internet node) for which they have a warrant to sniff for one particular suspects traffic. Unlike Carnivore, this new system stores the address information and keywords from all traffic on that pipe. This new system is like getting a warrant to monitor the trunk line from a local telephone office and record all calls because a suspect usually places calls from a phone in that area. And the press recently got upset that specific phone lines were being monitored without proper warrants!

I’m interested to see what mainstream media coverage this invasion of privacy might get.