Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the phone calls of people put on its drug watch list. Intelligence gathered by the NSA led
to convictions for drug-related crimes.
Facing hostile congressional and press scrutiny, the NSA called an end to Operation
Shamrock in May 1975 [23].
The FBI developed the Carnivore system in the late 1990s to monitor Internet traffic, in-
cluding email messages. The system itself consisted of a Windows PC and packet-sniffing
software capable of identifying and recording packets originating from or directed to a
particular IP address. Armed with a search warrant, the FBI would set up its Carnivore
system at the suspect's Internet service provider [24].
In 2000 the Justice Department demanded that Earthlink, an Internet service
provider, allow the FBI to use Carnivore without a warrant. Earthlink filed a legal chal-
lenge questioning the FBI's authority to do this under the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act, but a US District Court ruled against Earthlink [25, 26].
Between 1998 and 2000 the FBI used the Carnivore system about 25 times. In late
2001 the FBI stopped using Carnivore, replacing it with commercial software capable of
performing the same function [27].
The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon spawned
new, secret intelligence-gathering operations within the United States. The same ques-
tion emerged after each activity became public knowledge: Is it constitutional?
NSA WIRETAPPING
Early in 2002 the Central Intelligence Agency captured several top al-Qaeda members,
along with their personal computers and cell phones. The CIA recovered telephone
numbers from these devices and provided them to the NSA. The NSA was eager to
eavesdrop on these telephone numbers, hoping to gather information that could be used
to disrupt future terrorist attacks. President Bush signed a presidential order allowing the
NSA to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and international emails initiated by
people living inside the United States, without first obtaining a search warrant [28].
The list of persons being monitored gradually expanded, as the NSA followed con-
nections from the original list of telephone numbers. At any one time, the NSA eaves-
dropped on up to 500 people inside the United States, including American citizens,
permanent residents, and foreigners. The NSA also monitored another 5,000 to 7,000
people living outside the United States at any one time [28].
Sources told the
New York Times
that the surveillance program had foiled at least
two al-Qaeda plots: Ohio truck driver Iyman Faris's plan to “bring down the Brooklyn
Bridge with blowtorches” and another scheme to bomb British pubs and train stations.
Civil libertarians and some members of Congress objected to the program, arguing that
