97:607(2003) Internet Surveillance Law After the Usa Patriot Act This gobbledygook is a mail header that was generated from an email sent to my George Washington University email account on October 25, 2001 from theemailaddresseck@panix.com.Eachofthelinesinthemailheaderhas d together, tells a story about the how it was processed, and how and when the network directed it from its ori- to the routing information in other communication network acs tain a in to its destination 22 notice that the mail header above does not contain a subject line: although subject lines appear in the mail header, they are gener ally recognized as content. 23 Viewed as a whole, the email header subject line) provides information about the email that is roughly analogous However there is much more to Internet surveillance than email. In fact, only a small fraction of the Internets traffic involves human-to-human communications such as email messages. most Internet communications are communications between humans and computers, such as World-Wide-Web pages in transit, commands sent to remote servers, and file transfers. 24 Many others are computer-to-computer communications, such as network adminis- trative traffic that keeps the Internet running smoothly. These communica tions can provide evidence of crime in the same manner as email. For example, the government may wish to monitor a computer hacker by watch- ng and recording the commands he sends to the computers he has hacked These commands do not involve email. but instead consist of commands sent directly to the victim computer. A complete understanding of Internet sur- veillance must go beyond email surveillance to encompass the surveillance of human-to-computer and computer-to-computer communications To understand how the envelope-content distinction applies to human- to-computer and computer-to-computer communications, it helps to under stand a few details about how the Internet works. The Internet is a"packet switched"network, which means that every communication sent over the Internet is broken down into individual packets. These packets are the cy ber equivalent of letters between two computers, each containing about one page of information and are sent across the Internet to their destination. of information across the Internet, 2g other by sending and receiving packets For example, the email was sent at 8: 51 p. m and was received at 8: 56 p. m. For more on how to reademailheaderssee,forexampleReadingEmailHeadersathttp://www.stopspam.org/emai headers/headers. html (last visited Feb. 4, 2003). 23 See CCIPS MANUAL, supra note 15, at 148 See PRESTON GRALLA, How THE INTERNET WORks( Greg Wiegand et al. eds, 1999) See id. at 13 device can be used to monitor commands entered by a computer hacker unauthorized to use a network). See GRALLA, supra note 24, at 13 See id at 14-15(explaining the packet-based nature of Internet communications). Consider web surfing. When an Internet user types in a website address into a browser, the computer sends out pack- 61397:607 (2003) Internet Surveillance Law After the USA Patriot Act 613 This gobbledygook is a mail header that was generated from an email sent to my George Washington University email account on October 25, 2001 from the email address “eck@panix.com.” Each of the lines in the mail header has specific meaning, and when read together, tells a story about the message, how it was processed, and how and when the network directed it from its ori￾gin to its destination.22 Notice that the mail header above does not contain a subject line: although subject lines appear in the mail header, they are gener￾ally recognized as content.23 Viewed as a whole, the email header (minus the subject line) provides information about the email that is roughly analogous to the routing information in other communication networks. However, there is much more to Internet surveillance than email. In fact, only a small fraction of the Internet’s traffic involves human-to-human communications such as email messages. Most Internet communications are communications between humans and computers, such as World-Wide-Web pages in transit, commands sent to remote servers, and file transfers.24 Many others are computer-to-computer communications, such as network adminis￾trative traffic that keeps the Internet running smoothly.25 These communica￾tions can provide evidence of crime in the same manner as email. For example, the government may wish to monitor a computer hacker by watch￾ing and recording the commands he sends to the computers he has hacked. These commands do not involve email, but instead consist of commands sent directly to the victim computer.26 A complete understanding of Internet sur￾veillance must go beyond email surveillance to encompass the surveillance of human-to-computer and computer-to-computer communications. To understand how the envelope-content distinction applies to human￾to-computer and computer-to-computer communications, it helps to under￾stand a few details about how the Internet works. The Internet is a “packet switched” network, which means that every communication sent over the Internet is broken down into individual packets.27 These packets are the cy￾ber equivalent of letters between two computers, each containing about one page of information and are sent across the Internet to their destination.28 Computers communicate with each other by sending and receiving packets of information across the Internet.29 22 For example, the email was sent at 8:51 p.m. and was received at 8:56 p.m. For more on how to read email headers, see, for example, Reading Email Headers, at http://www.stopspam.org/email/ headers/headers.html (last visited Feb. 4, 2003). 23 See CCIPS MANUAL, supra note 15, at 148. 24 See PRESTON GRALLA, HOW THE INTERNET WORKS (Greg Wiegand et al. eds., 1999). 25 See id. at 13. 26 See, e.g., United States v. Seidlitz, 589 F.2d 152, 154–55 (4th Cir. 1978) (explaining how a recording device can be used to monitor commands entered by a computer hacker unauthorized to use a network). 27 See GRALLA, supra note 24, at 13. 28 See id. 29 See id. at 14–15 (explaining the packet-based nature of Internet communications). Consider web surfing. When an Internet user types in a website address into a browser, the computer sends out pack-