Recent efforts by the White House to ratify the Europe Cybercrimes Convention, along with struggles among the FCC, FBI and Justice Department over cable-TV operators' responsibilities under the Communication Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (Calea), have brought to a head issues surrounding surveillance and security that have been bubbling up since the Patriot Act was passed.

In the White House interpretation of the Cybercrime Convention, U.S. law enforcement agencies could offer European counterparts such packet-sniffing tools as Carnivore, a derivative of EtherPeek that allows more effective global monitoring of Internet traffic. Meanwhile, security agencies have been railing in private against FCC chairman Michael Powell's efforts to keep cable MSOs less regulated than phone companies, and to suggest that voice-over-Internet Protocol represents a new type of market not subject to restrictions offered in the 1994 Digital Telephony Act.

The intelligence and law-enforcement arenas want to ensure that all packet-based service providers must comply with Calea restrictions that force carriers to put packet-copying equipment directly into their networks. Given the tenor of Justice's directives since 9/11, it's no surprise that the powers that be want to monitor any packet-based service.

Any MSO or Internet service provider that complains might find itself in a position analogous to the airline industry. Northwest and JetBlue insisted they were protecting civil rights, only to admit later that they gave passenger data to NASA, which was put in charge of a new passenger security program. While those two airlines acted repentant, Justice later said it expected all airlines to work with NASA.

Few members of Congress, and far too few citizens, complained about USA Patriot when it was debated in October 2001. When citizens are frightened by terror actions into demanding security, they set themselves up for preferring a nanny-state that must behave precisely as Justice is behaving now.

Demonize John Ashcroft all you want, but until more Americans realize that a healthy democracy must carry with it an element of uncertainty and risk, the monitoring net will pull tighter every day. The president sought an expansion and extension of USA Patriot in his State of the Union. Now would be an excellent time to preserve some semblance of risky democracy by denying him that request.

Loring Wirbel is Communications editorial director for EE Times and its network publications./P>