The character in this isn't exactly a sympathetic person but the principle is the thing here...

By bugging a keyboard or using special software, FBI agents can remotely capture a computer user's every keystroke, and intercept email from miles away. In a van parked outside, they can secretly recreate the pictures on a computer screen from its electro-magnetic energy. This is coming out of an article that is about a court case (Nicodemo S. Scarfo Jr.....what a name!) where these tools will get a test when a federal court in New Jersey examines a mob case in which agents, without a wiretap order, recorded a suspects' computer keystrokes.

Privacy experts are watching this because it could bring major changes to investigative tactics. Armed only with a search warrant, the FBI broke into Scarfo's business and put either a program on his computer or an electronic bug in his keyboard - officials will not say which - and recorded everything typed by the guy (he's the son of the jailed former boss of the Philadelphia mob). Scarfo used the software PGP to encode his records. The FBI tried to break the encryption without the password but failed. So agents bugged the computer to capture it from Scarfo himself. Scarfo's lawyer wants a federal court to supress the evidecne and make the FBI say how the bug worked.

US Attorney Robert Cleary has told the court that the surveillance device is a "highly sensitive law enforcement search and seizure technique" and should not be made public. But if the device trasmitted the captured keystrokes back to the polic via email or emitted them through radio signals, then it might be considered a wiretap. Authorities have to meet a much higher standard for a full wiretap, which includes filtering out other communications and having stronger proof that a crime is taking place.

The government argues that it only needed a search warrant for Scarfo's computer because the captured keystrokes were not immediately being transmitted on the phone line or on the Internet, and should not be considered the products of a wiretap.

I guess what bothers FA about this, is what if they come up with something like a COOKIE...you know how long that's going to stay a secret before it hits some underground software copying network.