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FBI to release Carnivore documents, but schedule draws fire

(CNN) -- The FBI will begin releasing 3,000 pages of documents describing its "Carnivore" e-mail surveillance system, the Justice Department said Wednesday, but the schedule for the disclosure immediately drew criticism from a civil liberties group.

The group says the schedule laid out by the government is too open-ended.

The Justice Department told a federal judge that the FBI had located 3,000 pages in response to a Freedom of Information request and lawsuit by the group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which asked for every document the FBI has describing the computerized system that has raised an uproar among civil libertarians and in Congress.

The government said the FBI could release the first batch of documents in about 45 days. Additional releases should follow every 45 days until all the pages have been evaluated for release. But the Justice Department and the FBI gave no commitment to either process or to release any specific number of pages in each interval.

"This is far too open ended," said David Sobel, general counsel of the group. "The process for releasing these documents could take a very long time. With no clear commitment to evaluate a specific number of pages in each interval, this process could stretch on for many months or even years."

Release date still unclear

EPIC last month filed a complaint with a federal judge arguing that the Justice Department, the FBI, and Attorney General Janet Reno hadn't responded to a request for an expedited handling of a FOIA request on Carnivore's capabilities and use. Within a day, the Justice Department granted EPIC's request for expedited FOIA processing.

The FBI's letter to Sobel was contained in a Justice Department "status report" filed Wednesday with a federal court in Washington.

The correspondence said the release of information is complicated because large amounts of the material have been supplied by outside commercial entities under FBI contracts. Those firms are required by law to weigh in on the disclosure of the information.

"We anticipate that we will be in a position to begin making interim releases to you in approximately 45 days. We plan to make a release every 45 days until all responsive material is processed," the FBI letter said.

Sobel, however, said the FBI's plan for the release of documents is unacceptable, and he plans on going back to court to force a faster release.

Sobel said he would likely seek modifications in the government's plan from the court.

"We will point out to the court that December 1 is the date their review is to be completed," Sobel said in an interview. "If they can pull these documents together for their expert panel, they can pull them together for the FOIA process. Making this material public should have the same priority as their review."

The government said it was expediting the request "without respect to the FBI's current backlog of FOIA requests." It also said that it has waived fees for the processing. The law and regulations provide that fees be waived and processing expedited when there is wide public interest in the requested documents.

But the government warned that "review of these documents will be more complex than most FBI Freedom of Information-Privacy Act requests because, among other things, a large amount of responsive material ... (was) supplied, under contract, by outside commercial entities. These outside commercial entities will, under existing laws and regulations, need to be notified and given an opportunity to weigh in on the disclosure of their information."

How Carnivore system operates

The Carnivore system has software that scans and captures "packets," the standard unit of Internet traffic, as they travel through an Internet service provider's network. The FBI installs a Carnivore unit at a provider's network station and configures it to capture only e-mail to or from someone under investigation.

FBI officials say court orders limit which e-mails they can see.

But privacy advocates say only the FBI knows what Carnivore can do, and Internet providers are not allowed access to the system. They ask why the FBI retains remote control of Carnivore equipment and doesn't just give it to Internet providers so they can comply with court orders.

List of universities contacted to review Carnivore

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is narrowing its list of major universities under consideration to lead an independent study of the Carnivore system.

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Colgate told CNN his five-member Justice Department panel has contacted "a boatload" of top educational institutions to conduct the study. "We have more A students than we can handle right now. It's a good dilemma," Colgate said of the selection process. Colgate said he expects Reno to announce the selection sometime next week.

Recent surveillance ruling said to have no effect

Colgate disputed comments made Tuesday by EPIC and others that a federal appeals court ruling on telephone surveillance issues may have an impact on the Carnivore system.

"The decision calls into question the legality of the FBI's controversial Carnivore system," Sobel said Tuesday.

But Colgate disagreed.

The ruling by a three-judge panel in Washington temporarily threw out some new telephone surveillance capabilities which the FCC had required of phone carriers.

The judges unanimously sent back to the FCC for further consideration a rule which requires carriers to provide police with all the numbers called after a targeted suspect calls a credit card number or an 800 number.

They also remanded rules involving call forwarding and conference calls. The techniques are sometimes used by criminals to thwart federal investigators.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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