A report is due out shortly about a proposal by the Bush Administration for a system to monitor internet use.

"Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer who represents some of the nation's largest Internet providers, said, "Internet service providers are concerned about the privacy implications of this as well as liability," since providing access to live feeds of network activity could be interpreted as a wiretap or as the "pen register" and "trap and trace" systems used on phones without a judicial order. Mr. Baker said the issue would need to be resolved before the proposal could move forward."

Internet service providers argue that its data-monitoring functions could be used to track the activities of individuals using the network.

An official with a major data services company who has been briefed on several aspects of the government's plans said it was hard to see how such capabilities could be provided to government without the potential for real-time monitoring, even of individuals.

"Part of monitoring the Internet and doing real-time analysis is to be able to track incidents while they are occurring," the official said.

The official compared the system to Carnivore, the Internet wiretap system used by the F.B.I., saying: "Am I analogizing this to Carnivore? Absolutely. But in fact, it's 10 times worse. Carnivore was working on much smaller feeds and could not scale. This is looking at the whole Internet."

The proposal is part of a final version of a report, "The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," set for release early next year.