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Testifying before the House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee, representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defended the Internet surveillance system code-named Carnivore as a rarely used but necessary law enforcement 'surgical' tool. Members of the subcommittee, however, were not convinced that Carnivore has the necessary checks and controls in place to prevent abuses of privacy of E-mail. Representative Mel Watt of North Carolina said, ''I have a generalized concern about the government's ability to invade the privacy of its citizens'', adding, ''there is a growing level of ...concern about 'Big Brotherism' fed by the increasing electronic world.'' Representative John Conyers of Michigan stressed, ''Constitutional rights don't end where cyberspace begins.''

According to documents released by the FBI to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Carnivore Internet surveillance system is able to capture more than targeted ‘filtered’ traffic.

Documents released to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on 2 October 2000 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shed some new light on the technical genesis of the Carnivore Internet collection system. The release of the documents follow a lawsuit brought against the FBI by EPIC following a refusal to release them under the Freedom of Information Act. A federal judge subsequently ruled in EPIC's favor. According to the released information, the Carnivore program began as ‘Omnivore’ in late 1997. Omnivore was officially closed out on 9 June 1999 and the documents peg its development costs at US $900 000.