FOR DRUG PARAPHERNALIA SHOPPERS, IT'S A BAD TRIP

DEA Seizure Raises Entrapment Issue

Wired burnouts take heed: Two weeks ago, after the federal government shut
down 11 Web sites that trafficked in drug paraphernalia such as bongs,
roach clips and cocaine spoons, the Internet addresses didn't simply
disappear from cyberspace. Instead, visitors to sites like PipesForYou.com
and aheadcase.com are likely to be routed to a Drug Enforcement
Administration message.

"The Web site you are attempting to visit has been restrained," the message
reads in part. The words are superimposed on an American flag.

The wares peddled by these Web sites -- as well as by neighborhood head
shops -- are illegal. But it wasn't until the advent of the Internet, the
government says, that drug paraphernalia became a billion-dollar industry
- -- one that Attorney General John Ashcroft and the DEA say they will no
longer ignore.

Web surfers heading to some of these sites will not be told that the domain
name "cannot be found," as they would if the name were wiped off the
Internet. Instead, they could end up on a DEA server, where they'll see the
message and the flag. That's raising concerns among some experts in
Internet and civil-liberties law. Is the electronic flag announcement a
cautionary message to visitors that they are being tracked?

Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of
Pennsylvania, said that new visitors are not being tracked. Still, Marc
Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center
in Washington, an advocacy group, said the DEA's actions raised intriguing
issues under the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches
and seizures.

"The courts have to look at this," he said. "I don't think it's immediately
obvious that police have the right to seize Web sites in this fashion.

"It's about investigative methods and techniques, and what police can do in
the online world that they can't really do in the off-line world," he said.
Once the government takes control of a domain, Rotenberg explained, it has
the ability to record personal information from all the visitors to the
site. "It becomes like electronic flypaper," he said. "It can effectively
continue to operate the business to attempt to entrap others in the future."

Jonathan Zittrain, a director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and
Society, said the DEA's recent action is simply part of a law-enforcement
trend. "They're realizing a big open network provides lots of opportunities
to canvass for crime, which would otherwise require a lot of sweat on the
street," he said.