Touching Data Bases.

• Author: Taylor, Jeff A.
• Position: FBI surveillance of e-mail - Brief Article

The Federal Trade Commission has gone to war to ensure Web site operators don't pass along consumer information to mass marketers. But when fellow feds start stockpiling citizen data, the FTC is MIA.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to have as many data collection points in place as possible before the zero-oversight Reno years come to an end. First up is the bureau's brazen, bitsniffing Carnivore system, which the FBI installs directly on Internet service providers' servers to trap "suspect" communications. The system then sifts through the data looking for hackers, drug dealers, and terrorists.

Such a system is quite different from old-style analog phone taps, which require investigators to identify their targets. You couldn't ask a judge for permission to wiretap a city block. Carnivore, by contrast, munches indiscriminately through gigabytes of data. This is more or less total government surveillance of electronic communication, and how it squares with constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures is hard to see.

Then again, a federal court just handed the FBI the right to maintain a national registry of firearm owners, even though Congress specifically outlawed any such thing. A provision of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act mandates "instant background checks" of gun buyers. Gun dealers...