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Imagine a world in which the government could watch your every move on the Internet. Well, get ready, because that may soon come to pass. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, legislation authorizing widespread Net surveillance has passed both houses of Congress and is on a fast track to enactment. The bill would do everything from allowing secret searches of homes to following suspicious movements of money. The feds also want to take a closer look at people's computer habits.
Critics say the bill would invade civil liberties in a way that would have been unthinkable weeks ago. But that's a small price to pay for ensuring a safer country, insist the bill's advocates, including Attorney General John Ashcroft. Current surveillance laws, he argues, were written in the era of the rotary-dial phone and are inadequate to keep up with modern terrorist organizations that use digital telephony, e-mail, and other ways of communicating.
Who's right? Both sides have valid points. Here's a guide to some of the new measures, the issues they raise, and their likelihood of success.
Q: What new powers would the bill give the police and FBI?
A: It would allow law-enforcement officials to monitor your visits to every site on the Internet and every word you enter on a search engine to get there. It would also let them see who you correspond with by e-mail. None of this would require a warrant, merely a declaration to a judge that such monitoring was "relevant" to an ongoing investigation.
Q: How different is this from current practice?
A: Considerably. The U.S. legal system makes a critical distinction between observing who you communicate with and listening to what you say. It's relatively easy, for example, for authorities to obtain your phone records or view the outside of your letters. Tapping your phone or opening your letters, however, requires a warrant and a showing of "probable cause" for taking such a legal action.
The Internet blurs the distinction between address and content. The information you enter to surf the Web provides a much richer profile of your interests and associations than a list of addresses and phone numbers. "It's really more like watching you go into a bookstore and seeing what books you pull off the shelf," says Shari Steele, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.
Q: Would the proposed law allow someone to read my e-mail without a warrant as well?
A: In theory, no. The legislation makes a distinction between "routing and addressing" information and e-mail "content." These terms, however, are legally vague and untested. What's more, "the contours are going to be hammered out in court in the context of criminal litigation," says a Senate staffer who helped write the bill.
The FBI has yet to demonstrate that it can intercept e-mail addresses without seeing the messages themselves. If the law means that we have to trust the FBI not to peek at content, courts are likely to strike down the measure, legal experts say.
Q: So does the legislation threaten individual privacy and civil liberties?
A: Yes, it does. Your every cybermove could be tracked without a warrant. You could find yourself under suspicion just because you browsed Web sites on, say, Islamic fundamentalism, piloting instruction, or atom bomb secrets. Previously, authorities would have to convince a judge that there was some good reason why they should monitor your interest in these kinds of things.
Q: Will this loss of privacy make it easier to track down terrorists?
A: It depends. If authorities are closing in on a suspect, the new monitoring powers might help locate accomplices. The September 11 terrorists used e-mail. Had the feds been on the heels of one, they might have gleaned that something big was in the works.
Applied more broadly, the new powers could actually hurt. One of the FBI's biggest challenges is managing a glut of information. For every wiretap or investigation that pans out, hundreds more are dead ends. Sometimes an intense probe can create an information overload. Remember the Timothy McVeigh trial and those boxes of lost files?
Q: Why haven't civil libertarian groups tried to fight the bill?
A: They have. In fact, given the heinous nature of the September 11 attacks, the surprise is how much opposition the proposal has engendered. "Normally, at times like these, it's your patriotic duty to give blood, give money, and give your civil liberties," says David Kairys, a Temple University law professor. But this time, groups ranging from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union to the conservative Eagle Forum are vociferously opposing the bill. They just haven't had much effect. While they've succeeded in preventing indefinite detention of suspect foreigners, they haven't blunted the new electronic-surveillance powers.
Q: Will this be the only antiterrorism law for some time?
A: After this bill is enacted, Congress is likely to debate more exotic measures, such as requiring facial-scanning systems, national identity cards, or other ways of tracking people as they enter and exit the country. As long as a threat of terrorism exists, new laws will be written.
By Dan Carney in Washington Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
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