FBI's CAPABILITY OF SNOOPING FOR E-MAILS SOUNDS TOO MUCH LIKE BIG BROTHER IN ACTION

When it comes to privacy, there is good reason to wonder if it really exists anymore. Tapping telephone lines, intercepting mail, recording conversations with eavesdropping devices and using surveillance cameras to record the activities of virtually everyone who steps foot inside a retail establishment have become a way of life.

Now the FBI says it has a super-snooping device that collects enormous quantities of data from the Internet.

Computer geeks who know anything about hacking also know that e-mails are, for the most part, easily traced and reproduced. Anyone who sends an e-mail has to assume that more readers than just the intended recipient are likely to see its contents.

But the FBI's ability to record all the e-mails that go into and out of an Internet provider's system sounds dangerously like a government agency set up to keep tabs on the comings and goings of Americans who very likely have no involvement in illegal activities.

Official snooping usually requires some sort of legal sanction, such as a court order to tap someone's telephone line. The FBI's e-mail snooping capability appears to go far beyond the ordinary limits that would be associated with messages going to and from just one e-mail address. In fact, the FBI can track and record every e-mail handled by an Internet service provider.

A committee of the U.S. House that deals with search-and-seizure issues has been asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to look into the FBI's system, called Carnivore.

Just the name of the system makes it sound like something the bad guys might use rather than the white hats at the FBI.