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Cybersleuths Seek Increased Authority
Wednesday, November 7, 2001
(11:36 AM PT)
By Bernhard Warner / Reuters

To stay ahead of the changing face of crime, law enforcement officials and politicians are seeking greater powers to conduct online surveillance.

LONDON -- Reuters
It has become a familiar tactic in a criminal investigator's arsenal: the seizure of a suspect's personal computer for the purpose of dissecting the hard drive for possible clues or motives.

FBI agents did just that in the days after the September 11 plane hijack attacks on America, when they confiscated two computers from a Delray Beach, Florida public library that were allegedly used by suspects.

A subsequent computer search revealed a host of clues from the electronic footprints left behind by hijacking suspects that pointed to a worldwide web of conspirators that stretched to Germany, Saudi Arabia and ultimately, Afghanistan.

The suspects had downloaded a “significant amount of information” about crop dusting, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told a Congressional committee in September. The discovery prompted U.S. officials to temporarily ground all crop-dusting planes.
(More: ZDNet.com News Source)
2001 © Reuters.

Dan