FBI Seeking to Wiretap Internet WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking to broaden considerably its ability to tap into Internet traffic in its quest to root out terrorists, going beyond even the new measures afforded in anti-terror legislation signed by President Bush Friday, according to lawyers familiar with the FBI’s plans. Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Steptoe & Johnson and a former general consul to National Security Agency, said the FBI has plans to change the architecture of the Internet and route traffic through central servers that it would be able to monitor e-mail more easily. The plans goes well beyond the Carnivore e-mail-sniffing system which allows the FBI to search for and extract specific e-mails off the Internet and generated so much controversy among privacy advocates and civil libertarians before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "From the work I’ve been doing, I’ve seen the efforts the FBI has been making and it suggests that they are going to unveil this in the next few months," Baker said of the plan. click link for more....
It's called the "USA Patriot Act" and it has passed a House and Senate vote, and the President has signed it : http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7671240.html?tag=tp_pr
