The following is taken from a recent issue of Government Computer Week: The House Judiciary Committee is considering a proposal that the Federal Bureau of investigation and Secret Service report regularly to Congress on the extent to which the two law-enforcement agencies monitor computer bulletin boards. A committee spokesman said law makers are considering ways to increase oversight of the agencies' computer surveillance activities in proposed amendments to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute of 1984. "We're not so much interested in the privacy issue that such investigations raise; we're bothered more by the lack of checks and balances that keep [the FBI and Secret Service] from doing sting operations," said a spokesman for the committee. "The staff has considered proposing that the FBI and Secret Service report to Congress on a regular basis as to what they're doing in the area." The committee is particularly concerned with the amount of electronic bulletin board monitoring conducted by the Secret Service. "The FBI monitors, but not that much because it's not cost-effective," the spokesman said. "But the Secret Service is doing a hell of a lot of monitoring." The Secret Service "has primary jurisdiction in those cases which are initiated outside a bank and do not involve organized crime, terrorism or foreign counterintelligence," according to Secret Service Director John Simpson in a letter responding to Judiciary Committee inquiries on the range of the agency's computer investigations. Top Secret Service officials and the rank and file deny they conduct widespread or indiscriminate bulletin board surveillance, saying that they do not have the time or the resources to do so. "If someone thinks we have the resources to monitor all the bulletin boards on the area, they're wrong." said Rich Adams, a special agent. "We have better things to do with our 4,300 employees." The Service said its investigations are usually a direct response to tips from informants or are started from other sources, such as a telephone company. "In the investigations we do select, it is not our intention to attempt to supplant local or state law enforcement," said Simpson in his letter to the committee. Much of the computer work done by the Secret Service is in investigating access-device frauds that are discussed in pirate bulletin boards., Simpson said in his letter. Access device frauds are those crimes in which an "authorized" user gains illegal access to automatic teller machines, personal identification numbers, long distance telephone access codes or computer passwords. This information is often placed on underground bulletin boards for other computer users to exploit. "I've seen everything from smut to a recipe for making a bomb," said Mike Focke, a private citizen who compiles and publishes a list of IBM bulletin boards monthly. He added that he "would not be able to penetrate that illegal network [but] would dial onto the board, and a message would be posted that I suspected they were up to no good." Earl Devany, special agent in charge of the Fraud Division of the Secret Service, said the Service is not in the business of eavesdropping on computer buffs. But he added that the Service does conduct surveillance on those suspected of illegal activity. The Secret Service said it reviews computer crimes much the same way it does other crimes: by proceeding through the proper authorization channels. "First, some probable cause must be proved before we can get a federal search warrant and then a wire tap," Devany said. But the Service had to adjust its methods to match the high-tech nature of the crimes. "The primary difference is we had to develop resource to assist in the collection and review of computer evidence," Simpson said. An effort to cultivate such resources has been made by the Computer Diagnostics Center, which is staffed by special agents and computer professionals who review evidence submitted by informants or victims of computer crime. Investigators at the center use "a variety of computers to review software seized in cases." Devany said. "Say we have a criminal investigation of trafficing credit card numbers. We get a federal search warrant and seize software and hardware that we find in a person's house". Agents at the center then manually review the disks and "download resonant evidence in the hardware and software, looking for evidence of criminality," he said. Painfully typed at a late hour. As for the comment on the availability of smut and bomb recipes, I only post the best smut I can find, and I never could bake a proper bomb from those recipes. I must have needed to use the high altitide instructions. I typed this entire article because I saw a message posted on Fidonet where a sysop was worried about the activities of the CIA, NSA and FBI. He was worried about the wrong people. If the CIA or NSA were caught monitoring you, somebody could be prosecuted for illegally monitoring you (they are restricted to foreign collection). Is seems the ones to worry about are the Secret Service and the FBI. I also worry about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as they want my Second Amendment rights too ("...the right to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed.")