A Times Editorial

'Cookie' monster

The federal government too often is tempted to use computer technology to snoop on citizens. Officials should be reminded of the constitutional limits on such activity.

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 17, 2000

Computers are making life easier. From the comfort of our home or office, we can conduct research, shop, do our banking and keep up with far-flung relatives. But as more of life's activity is conducted through this window on the world, so, too, is the government using it to peep in.

The Big Brother to watch is not the one on television but the one in Washington.

You might have heard about the nasty practice of commercial Web sites attaching "cookies" to computer hard drives. Cookies are tracking devices that allow Web site operators to follow the Internet travels of former customers. If you merely log on to a site, cookies may be automatically dropped into your computer without your permission or knowledge.

As obnoxious as this practice is for the private sector, it's a serious breach of privacy when done by the government. Yet, the nation's drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, testified before Congress Tuesday that he supports the use of cookies. The White House drug office had been attaching cookies to every visitor of its anti-drug Web sites to see what kinds of drug-related messages interest young people. When the practice was discovered and reported by the press, the cookie crumbled. Last month, White House chief of staff John Podesta ordered an end to cookies' use by government. An incredulous McCaffrey couldn't understand what was wrong with such a useful information-gathering technique. Someone should hand him a copy of the Constitution and point to the Fourth Amendment.

Adding a cookie to a computer is the equivalent of the government's sewing a tracking device into your clothes. The Constitution tells government to get a warrant first. McCaffrey, a former general, may need to be schooled on the niceties of the constitutional limitations on his power. He seems to have mistaken the euphemism of a "drug war" as license to use militaristic tactics.

The FBI also is trying to take a bite out of Americans' privacy on the Internet. It has started using a rapacious computer program known as "Carnivore" to do cyberspace snooping on investigative targets. The program is attached to the target's Internet service provider. There, it absorbs and analyzes all the traffic or "packets" traveling through the ISP, not just the communications of the suspect. The FBI claims Carnivore can be programmed to spit out as little information as the addresses of those receiving the suspect's e-mails. The problem is, Carnivore also could be used to retain much more, and no one but the government would know.

To be constitutionally valid, wiretapping must be a limited tool. After gaining a court order to intercept the electronic communications of a suspect, law enforcement should have access to those messages only, not those of the rest of the ISP's client base.

The FBI says, "Trust us: We'll only collect what we should." But there is little reassuring about the way Carnivore may snack on our electronic conversations. The agency might sound like a protective parent, but its newest snooping tool is all Big Brother.

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