The Warrantless Debate Over Wiretapping

THE WARRANTLESS DEBATE OVER WIRETAPPING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Philip Bobbitt]
[Commentary] Once linear, analog, point-to-point communication has been replaced by the disaggregated packets of the Internet, two people talking to each other in Europe could find their conversations going through American switches. It also became difficult to determine the true origin of any communication that was routed through the United States. If a terrorism suspect in Pakistan is having conversations with someone on a computer with a New York Internet protocol address via a chat room run by an Internet service provider in London, where exactly is the intelligence being collected? If the answer is the United States simply because the servers are here, of what possible relevance could that be to the protection of the rights of Americans?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/opinion/22bobbitt.html?ref=todayspaper
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