Editing Carnivore (software) (section)

==Controversy==
Several groups and scholars expressed concern regarding the implementation, usage, and possible abuses of Carnivore. In July 2000, the [[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] submitted a statement to the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the [[United States House Committee on the Judiciary|Committee on the Judiciary in the United States House of Representatives]] detailing the dangers of such a system.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Carnivore |access-date=August 15, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012043558/http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Carnivore/ |archive-date=October 12, 2007 |title=EFF "Surveillance: Carnivore & Internet Surveillance" Archive}}<!-- not in Internet Archive --></ref> The [[Electronic Privacy Information Center]] also made several releases dealing with it.<ref>[http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/foia_documents.html Electronic Privacy Information Center: Carnivore FOIA Documents]</ref> Criminologists also argued that Carnivore represents a diffusion of disciplinary power by a state agency.<ref>Ventura, Holly E., Miller, J. Mitchell, and Mathieu Deflem. 2005. [https://deflem.blogspot.com/2009/08/governmentality-and-war-on-terror-fbi.html “Governmentality and the War on Terror: FBI Project Carnivore and the Diffusion of Disciplinary Power.”] Critical Criminology, 13(1), 55-70.</ref>

The FBI countered these concerns with statements highlighting the target-able nature of Carnivore. Assistant FBI Director [[Donald Kerr]] was quoted as saying:
<blockquote>The Carnivore device works much like commercial "sniffers" and other network diagnostic tools used by ISPs every day, except that it provides the FBI with a unique ability to distinguish between communications which may be lawfully intercepted and those which may not. For example, if a court order provides for the lawful interception of one type of communication (e.g., e-mail), but excludes all other communications (e.g., online shopping) the Carnivore tool can be configured to intercept only those e-mails being transmitted either to or from the named subject.

... [it] is a very specialized network analyzer or "sniffer" which runs as an application program on a normal personal computer under the Microsoft Windows operating system. It works by "sniffing" the proper portions of network packets and copying and storing only those packets which match a finely defined filter set programmed in conformity with the court order. This filter set can be extremely complex, and this provides the FBI with an ability to collect transmissions which comply with pen register court orders, trap & trace court orders, Title III interception orders, etc....

...It is important to distinguish now what is meant by "sniffing." The problem of discriminating between users' messages on the Internet is a complex one. However, this is exactly what Carnivore does. It does NOT search through the contents of every message and collect those that contain certain key words like "bomb" or "drugs." It selects messages based on criteria expressly set out in the court order, for example, messages transmitted to or from a particular account or to or from a particular user.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cdt.org/files/security/000724fbi.shtml |title=Internet and Data Interception Capabilities Developed by the FBI, Statement for the Record, U.S. House of Representatives, the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, 07/24/2000, Laboratory Division Assistant Director Dr. Donald M. Kerr}}</ref>
</blockquote>

After prolonged negative coverage in the press, the FBI changed the name of its system from "Carnivore" to the more benign-sounding "'''DCS1000'''."  DCS is reported to stand for "Digital Collection System"; the system has the same functions as before.