What were Earthlink’s original concerns with Carnivore?
Seagraves: Our first concern was that we didn’t know exactly what Carnivore did. We were approached to put this on our system, but we couldn’t look at it beforehand. We had no idea about the risks involved. The second concern was from a legal standpoint. We felt that the trap-and-trace order it came under was old and applied to regular telephone conversations but maybe not to e-mail. The main thing was that we control our network, and this wasn’t under our control. What happened when you tried to install Carnivore at Earthlink? In order to test the system, we put it on a mail server, which brought it to a halt. We began to challenge Carnivore legally. Now if we get a similar court order for information, we have an agreement with the FBI that they will give us the target addresses and we will figure out a way to get only those messages. In that way, we have total control over it, and we can get what the law requires and still protect our other customers’ privacy as much as possible. Are
