The FBI has reportedly sought the go-ahead to use a custom spyware package to bug terrorists and other national security suspects. Indirect evidence suggests that the request was likely to have been approved.

An application to use the Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier (CIPAV) spyware program was sought from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2005, according to papers obtained by Wired after filling a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rubber-stamps surveillance orders and covert entries in cases involving national security or terrorism. The court, established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is based at the Justice Department's headquarters. FISC hearings are closed.

Among the reams of papers released in response to Wired's request (largely composed of internal emails and technical documents) are affidavits submitted by the FBI to the FISC star chamber to use the CIPAV package. The software is designed to log a target's internet use, recording every IP address a suspect computer communicates with. It also performs an inventory of operating systems, installed and running applications and logs open ports, IP addresses and Mac addresses of targeted PCs.

The existence of CIPAV came to light in July when it emerged in affidavits that feds used the package to trace the perpetrators of high school bomb hoaxes. The FBI declined to answer Wired's follow-up questions on its use of the surveillance tool.