http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Network-Associates-mired-in-security-debate-FBI-2848849.php
Yet another article about Magic Lantern, this one from November 2001.
“Government Control Over the Anti-Virus Industry?
In November, it became known that the FBI had developed a Trojan program for the tracking of suspects. This “classic” Trojan, christened Magic Lantern, intercepts all keystrokes a suspect makes, copying them to a secret file. Later, the received data can be used to decode and decrypt sent e-mail and provide evidence against said suspect or suspects.
On December 3, Paul Bresson, spokesman for the FBI, during an interview with the magazine Information Security, confirmed the development of the Magic Lantern Trojan. However, at the behest of the US government (or at least the strong “suggestion”), will anti-virus developers not include means for detecting such a Trojan in their software? McAfee and Symantec have already confirmed that they won’t include detection measures for Magic Lantern - is this the beginning of a user exodus to other anti-virus products?
This type of move by the US government could be precedent setting. Theoretically, should this happen, other countries’ governments could make similar demands of other anti-virus companies to not include means for detecting similar governmental spying Trojans. In this case, anti-virus security could completely get out of control. And sooner or later, as always happens, the original Magic Lantern could fall into the hands of malefactors, whose goal would be to use this program for their own ends. As a result, the world economy, heavily dependent on IT, could be paralyzed by a worldwide virus epidemic. “
http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2001/2001_The_Year_in_Review
http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2001/The_FBI_s_Magic_Lantern_Shines_Bright