By Graham Hayday, 12 September 2001 16:24
NEWS The FBI has begun to take high-tech action in the fightback against the terrorists by reportedly installing new 'eavesdropping' boxes on the US internet infrastructure. Rumours emerged yesterday that the terrorist group behind the atrocities communicated using encrypted emails, sparking some senior US security and government figures to call for greater surveillance powers - something civil liberties groups may have problems with. One US newswire quotes a systems administrator from a US telco, who said that FBI agents arrived at his offices "with a couple of Carnivores [the surveillance boxes], requesting permission to place them in our core, along with offers to actually pay for circuits and costs". Other sources allege that the agents only want the boxes to be there for the next few days. Wired.com reports that the Hotmail service has also come under FBI scrutiny. One engineer who works there said: "Hotmail officials have been receiving calls from the San Francisco FBI office since mid-(Tuesday) morning and are co-operating with their expedited requests for information about a few specific accounts. "Most of the account names start with the word 'Allah' and contain messages in Arabic."
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