As e-mail flows, are G-men peeking?
JEFF PORTER ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE In the world of George Orwell’s 1984, an oppressive government uses technology to keep a population under surveillance, and people are constantly reminded that “Big Brother is watching you.” In the real world of 1997, could a government “Big Brother,” on the pretext of controlling Internet crime, keep an online population under surveillance? The thought is disturbing to some. Technologies exist that allow the tracking of virtually any Internet user’s activities. It’s possible to intercept and read e-mail. And federal authorities in Arkansas have said they have traced online activity to chase down criminals. But when it comes to cracking computer crimes, the FBI, the Arkansas State Police and other agencies generally aren’t using high-tech tracking methods. Instead, they tend to adapt old-fashioned police tactics more suited to the street than to a computer lab. They don’t want to discuss in detail how they’re chasing online criminals. “We would be
