One of the most intrusive devices in our modern lives is Carnivore/DCS1000, which uses both hardware and software to read our incoming and outgoing e-mail, including who sent the message, who received it, the body of the e-mail, and also the message subject. Worse, Carnivore can also monitor everything a computer user has ever downloaded, and also their web searches.
It can even go so far as to scan all the electronic traffic from an ISP (Internet Service Provider), more commonly known as a "server".
I don't know about you, but I don't want the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency or any other Governmental body looking through what I do, or listening to my telephone conversations. But that is precisely what is going on right now,and there is furnished proof of it. It is a fact that phones are being monitored, e-mail transmissions are being red, misdirected, or "munched".
In an article entitled "Stop Carnivore Now", the author says that the FBI could, with their electronic wiretapping equipment:
* Ban any language content found to be objectionable by interception, deletion, or alteration.
* Monitor the country's communications and target any person who was found or suspected to be a "problem". The judge of who or what is "a problem"? The FBI.
* Invoke mandatory standards for web sites, such as a rating system.
* Shut down or shut off the communications of any one person, website, company, or ISP.
The same article continues: "A few years down the road when your phone company, your cable TV provider, radio stations, and cell phone company are all part of your "ISP" and Carnivore/DCS1000 is installed there, the FBI will have exclusive control of what you can and can't watch, say, or do while using these technologies."
The author concludes, "One of the great powers of the Internet is the fact that it still exists beyond the control of any person or agency."
Ask yourself this question: Shouldn't we keep it that way?