Carnivore was actually protective of privacy?
According to Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy, the FBI’s retired Carnivore electronic surveillance tool was actually a privacy-protective alternative to less precise commercially available options. It was dubbed “Carnivore” because it only got the meat sought by the court order and not the extra, irrelevant data. Once commercial options caught up, about two years ago, the FBI retired Carnivore.