] IMAGINE THAT your friendly local mail carrier, before ] delivering a letter for you, decides to steam it open and ] read its contents. An outrageous and illegal infringement ] on your privacy, obviously. But a federal appeals court ] in Boston has just permitted an Internet service provider ] to engage in exactly this kind of snooping when the ] message is sent in cyberspace rather than by snail mail. ] This ruling is an unnecessarily cramped parsing of a law ] that Congress meant to guard, not eviscerate, the privacy ] of communications. The Post doesn't think highly of this ruling either.. ] E-mail has become too ubiquitous, too central a facet ] of modern life, for this ruling to stand. |