Thursday, October 4, 2001

Campus messages will not be monitored
By Jordan Blum
Staff Reporter

Despite national efforts to monitor telephone and electronic communication for terrorist content, communications at TCU will not be under surveillance, said Dave Edmondson, assistant provost for Information Services.

The Senate has unanimously approved an amendment to allow the FBI and other agencies to install nationwide “traps and traces” to tap into information about telephone calls and electronic messages. Information access would need only the approval of a single judge and not a legitimate warrant, according to a Newsweek article.

Newsweek reported the Senate has also approved an expansion of the government’s power to obtain e-mail information from Internet service providers (ISPs) using FBI technology. This technology would be allowed to attach itself to ISPs and extract information about every customer’s Internet activities without warrant or subpoena.

Edmondson said he cannot examine e-mails and personal network information without authorization from the owner. However, system administrators may gain access to student user’s files when it presents a danger to the TCU systems or to ensure compliance with the university’s rules.

TCU has no plans to alter policy to monitor e-mail and telephone communication, Edmondson said.

Keith Whitworth professor of sociology, who teaches Information Technology and Society, said even with an increased powers the FBI still does not have the technology to monitor the entire Internet for terrorist communication.

“There are 28 billion images on the Internet and there are two billion Web sites,” Whitworth said. “On any one of those you can encrypt a message, and the FBI doesn’t have the resources to monitor and decrypt all those images.

“In a picture of your dog on your own personal Web site could be encrypted info on the next terrorist attack. How can the FBI be expected to intercept this?”

Journalism Professor Anantha Babbili said the government needs to proceed with caution with Internet privacy issues because people can be very paranoid.

“People say if you don’t have anything to do with terrorism then you don’t have anything to worry about,” Babbili said. “Theoretically, that sounds good. But, emotionally, human beings naturally have that nagging suspicion that someone is watching them or eavesdropping on them and that leads to some form of fear and anxiety.”

He also said racial profiling over the Internet is a concern as the government attempts to track down terrorist communication.

“Now, the immigrant and minority populations feel a fear of the government for the first time when there’s talk of slipping into e-mails and phone conversations,” Babbili said. “The large majority of them are innocent, but they do still feel a justifiable fear and it’s unfortunate in a democracy like ours.”

Jordan Blum
jdblum@student.tcu.edu