FBI email tapper hampers Al-Qaeda probe

The FBI has conceded that glitches in its controversial Carnivore email tapping device two years ago interrupted investigations into the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

According to memos released yesterday by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic), the FBI rejected findings from a March 2000 probe into suspected terrorist activity because Carnivore was also picking up the emails of regular internet users.

David Sobel, the Epic lawyer who obtained the memos under the Freedom of Information Act, told Reuters that, although the target was blacked out in the memo, the FBI unit behind Carnivore was charged only with monitoring the Al Qaeda network.

"The FBI software not only picked up the emails under the electronic surveillance of the FBI's target, but picked up emails on non-covered targets. The FBI technical person was apparently so upset that he destroyed all the email take," part of the memo reads.

Sobel suggested that the FBI had been misleading Congress as to the ability of Carnivore to intrude into innocent web users' email, a power which some civil liberties groups have also questioned.

Carnivore is required by court order not to intrude beyond its specific target.