NSA/CIA to snoop INSIDE the U.S.???

[Ernest Hua <hua@xenon.chromatic.com>]

What?!  What the *@#!! is wrong with the people who supposedly smart
people representing us?!

Ern

-------- From SJ Mercury:

    NET FEVER ON THE HILL
    
    Published: June 6, 1996
    
    BY RORY J. O'CONNOR
    Mercury News Washington Bureau
    
    WASHINGTON -- The White House wants a coordinated task force to fight
    terrorism on the Internet. Some senators think the CIA should be
    allowed to work hand in hand with the FBI to fight computer crime on
    U.S. soil. Meanwhile, the federal courts are deciding a major First
    Amendment case that might ban certain information from the Net.
    
    The nation's capital is in the throes of Internet fever.
    
    For the past several months, the condition has become acute, and by
    the end of the year the Internet itself may look far different as a
    result: more tightly regulated, more carefully monitored and more
    expensive.
    
    The latest symptom: a suggestion Wednesday for the elimination of laws
    that prohibit U.S.  intelligence agencies -- notably the National
>>> Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency -- from snooping   <<<
>>> on home soil. The reason: The potential for computer crime and         <<<
    terrorism is so great, and the Internet so decentralized and
    international, that police and the FBI must combine forces with spy
    agencies in order to successfully analyze the threat and investigate
    criminal activity.
    
    ''If we're going to live in this kind of world, we're going to have to
    link the intelligence world with law enforcement,'' said Sen. Sam
    Nunn, D-Ga.
    
    For many people in government who work on computer and law-enforcement
    issues, the course of the disease seems painfully slow. They often
    describe the Internet as the Wild West that's sorely in need of a good
    marshal. But for many people who use the Internet, the government's
    efforts are moving far ahead of any real knowledge of a technology
    that, two years ago, almost nobody had heard of.
    
    ''There are not dead bodies in the street,'' said Donna L. Hoffman, a
    professor at Vanderbilt University who studies the Internet. ''It just
    doesn't make sense to rush into legislation.''

    [ SNIP ]