Salon.com: Send in the online spooks?

[Anonymous]

This week, the FBI issued a court order, citing the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act and demanding specific information concerning selected 
subscribers to America Online and EarthLink, the country's two largest 
Internet service providers. On Tuesday, shortly after news of the 
destruction of the World Trade Center began to spread, the operators of 
the MagusNet Public Proxy Server, an "anonymous remailer" designed to 
provide security for Internet e-mail and other online communiqués, 
voluntarily shut down to prevent the system's being abused by terrorists 
(or pranksters). Meanwhile, a congressman called for a global ban on all 
encryption software that failed to include a "backdoor" allowing 
government surveillance, and a senator tacked an amendment onto an 
appropriations bill that would make wiretapping considerably easier. 

Privacy advocates and civil libertarians are perpetually on guard, but 
after Tuesday's deadly airline hijackings, they are faced with a new and 
potent enemy -- public fear. Will a Congress desperate to do something in 
response to the horrifying carnage sweep in a slew of unprecedented 
restrictions on personal freedoms? The outcry of protest has already 
begun. 

[...]

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/09/14/privacy/index.html