The FBI Does Use Spyware
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There have been longstanding debates about whether the FBI and other security agencies use spyware. Some have been tempted to call it ‘fedware’, in order to distance the “good guys” from the connotations of this widely despised malware. A court case in Washington should put an end to the discussion whether the FBI or other authorities use this type of programming:
“FBI agents trying to track the source of e-mailed bomb threats against a Washington high school last month sent the suspect a secret surveillance program designed to surreptitiously monitor him and report back to a government server, according to an FBI affidavit obtained by Wired News.
The court filing offers the first public glimpse into the bureau’s long-suspected spyware capability, in which the FBI adopts techniques more common to online criminals.”
Link: FBI’s Secret Spyware Tracks Down Teen Who Made Bomb Threats
Does the FBI need a warrant to install spyware? Does this fall under previous wiretapping laws? Is this simply another aspect of the Patriot Act that is in the fine print of what is allowed under surveillance?
The FBI now has shown its capabilities in this case. However, its expertise in breaching privacy in the name of security opens a new discussion of what is legal. And now will the security companies detect and notify of ‘fedware’ on a computer?
Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster
[tags]spyware, fedware, privacy, security, law, surveillance, patriot act, malware, detection[/tags]
3 Comments
The FBI Do Use Spyware | Spyware News and Information
July 18th, 2007
at 6:08pm
[...] Original post by forsythe [...]
Steve Hobberstad
July 19th, 2007
at 6:03am
Unless the issue is whether the spyware is uploaded to a host computer and operates LOCALLY (as opposed to being operated remotely from the source) I hadn’t realized the subject was still being debated. It was widely known that the FBI used “Carnivore” (subsequently renamed, and supposedly abandoned “in favor of commercially available eavesdropping software”) for many years to inspect the contents of emails transmitted across the Internet for keywords which might indicate (what the Bureau considered) “suspicious activities.”
Between Carnivore, the current administration’s willingness to flout the Constitution, the NSA’s warrantless acquisition of the phone records of millions of private citizens and an exponential increase in technological advances, it seems there’s little doubt that more and more of us will be exposed to greater and greater scrutiny with fewer and fewer governmental restrictions…as time goes by.
leftystrat
July 20th, 2007
at 3:00pm
Does the FBI need a warrant? Yes.
Do they request them? No.
Does the administration need a warrant to eavesdrop on Americans? Yes.
Do they request them? No.
Did Nixon need a warrant to wiretap? Yes.
Did Nixon request one? No.
After Nixon got caught, there was a secret court put in place so future administrations could request warrants for illegal eavesdropping.
Did Bush (et al) forget about this court?
No, they simply don’t care.
But let’s get back to watching Americans Idle and The Game. All these political posts are making my brain hurt. Ho hum. Got any lite beer?