If anyone every tell you that if you don't remember your past you will repeat it,

[Lady Creffield]

blues clues,

With all due respect, your paranoia is both misplaced and rather late in coming.

E-mail/Internet activity---Monitored ANYWAY. You are mistaken if you believe that there is much privacy there in the first place; I could find out your real name and (depending on where you've been) SS number in a few minutes or so. Nor do you even need to be an experienced hacker---fussing with security is common practice among over half of the people out there online. Any privacy you can attain on the Internet is infinitesimal---you're somewhat late in mourning the loss of that.

Credit card transactions---again, monitored by corporations (legally or no, I don't no details) anyway. It's done to gain a sense of what stores you frequent and what types of sales pitches would be best aimed at you through junk mail and spam.

Attorney-client conversations---This scares me, but I highly doubt that it really happens except with cases that make the top 10 in national security concerns.

As for bugging telephones, this can be done anyway without obtaining a warrant. Law enforcement officers only need to ask permission from a judge--which is almost always very freely given--and they have license to do so. You are told about the tap afterwards.

Let's say that communism is what's being ferreted out rather than ties to terrorists. Under today's laws, you cannot be prosecuted for merely frequenting a pro-Communism website. You will, however, attract the attention of the government---again, you may not even be prosecuted, only watched for a while until they determine whether you are a threat or not---if you're making daily visits to a website that champions violent, riotous overthrow of the current government.

The amount of things that escape attention are frightening as well. Someone could plot the assassination of President Bush through e-mail----on some giant network like Hotmail, for example----and probably not be detected. This is because of the sheer lack of ability to scan through every message sent.

Paranoia is good to have, in small doses. It keeps you alert and cautious---but the scale and reach of the Internet is such that it cannot be watched over in every aspect at every minute of the day.

~Lady Creffield

[SuperScout]

I couldn't, and obviously didn't say it any better than you just explained it! Thanks for your logical, eloquent, and timely comments. I might add that any cellular phone conversation is also subject to being monitored, taped and tapped very easily; this was one of the ways we were able to track down some of the terrorists in Afghanistan.

[Jerry D]

That dear Lady is very true. Thanks for your very eloquent examples.