Cisco has prepared a draft of “lawful interception” capability, to be offered as an option on “any product that a service provider is likely to purchase[.]” I’m given to understand that their Catalyst products already supply monitoring capability, but for all I know that’s an ad-hoc capability that’s been hacked together by service providers. To my mild surprise, I buy the argument that if Cisco doesn’t supply the capability, somebody else will, and it might end up casting a wider net. It just underscores that if you care about the privacy of your data, don’t send it in the clear across the wire. And if what you’re doing is likely to attract the attention of anybody serious, don’t send anything across any wires (or over the air) at all. Or at least no wires or air that can be traced to you.