Uncle Sam may not monitor e-mails.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: Up front: news, trends & analysis

Uncle Sam may not be monitoring your online purchases and e-mail messages anytime soon. The Bush administration's proposed plans for an Internet-wide network operations and monitoring center to detect and defend against major cyber attacks have been scaled back.

The White House wanted Internet service providers (ISPs) to help create a system to monitor Internet use. As part of the government's Homeland Defense strategy, President Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board began work last year on the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.

Part of the effort was aimed at getting ISPs to work together to share information quickly during cyber attacks and virus outbreaks. Currently, each ISP acts independently and has its own network operations center (NOC) that allows security specialists to constantly monitor network traffic and catch outages, viruses, and attacks before they can wreak havoc.

The administration wanted to formalize such data sharing by creating a cyberspace NOC that would serve as a central clearinghouse for such information. But many, including ISPs, were not convinced the potential security benefits would outweigh the privacy risks. Under current federal wiretap laws, privately operated centers can, in some circumstances, analyze e-mails and other data flowing across parts of the Internet without a judge's approval.

Some Internet-industry executives and lawyers said they would raise serious civil-liberties concerns if the U.S. government, not an industry consortium, were to operate an Internet monitoring center. But Richard Clarke, Bush's former cyberspace advisor, said the government would not eavesdrop on individuals' e-mails and that its plan articulated a strong policy of protecting citizens' cyberspace privacy.

The final draft of the document, released in mid-February, proposes a limited role for the federal government and suggests that industry should take...