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Of course you meant to, but did you ever actually dash off that e-mail to thank Gary for the lovely bondage cum piss-play party he threw last month at his summer digs in Provinctown? You may not remember whether you sent the message, but chances are the FBI does. Under a massive Internet surveillance system, dubbed "Carnivore," the Federal Bureau of Investigation-- America's federales-- aims to record the addresses of sender and recipient of every e-mail sent to and from the US, along with every subject header, and, if they want to, the message. The snooping is done with a "black box" that the FBI installs at Internet service providers (ISPs) and controls remotely.

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In theory, messages are only be read if the government has secured a court order allowing the surveillance against a particular individual or organization. But since the FBI controls the system and collects all the e-mail, it's up to them to play by the rules-- or, more likely, not. If Gary were arrested on account of his sadomasochistic party-- as two men in Attleboro, Massachusetts were this month-- his e-mails would help prosecutors establish who should be indicted.

Privacy advocates have condemned the surveillance system. "Carnivore is roughly equivalent to a wiretap capable of accessing the contents of the conversations of all of the phone company's customers, with the 'assurance' that the FBI will record the conversation of the specified target," said the American Civil Liberties Union in a letter to members of Congress. "This 'trust us, we are the government' approach is the antithesis of the procedures required under our wiretapping laws."

But the Clinton administration disagrees and said it will forge ahead with Carnivore.

The system came to light when a large ISP, Mindspring, went to court to block installation of the device. After the FBI installed the surveillance equi pment on its system, apparently, it crashed the network, depriving some Mindspring customers of service altogether. Mindspring won-- after a fashion. The court agreed to let them take the machine out-- so long as Mindspring recorded all the data the FBI demanded.

The super-secret system has been in use since 1999-- presumably first at large ISPs. Barring successful court challenges, it can be expected to be installed and snoop at all US ISPs.

With "telescreens" installed in every room in George Orwell's dystopic novel 1984, you never knew when Big Brother was watching. On the Internet in America, 1984 is now.