The court issued its ruling in a case involving Shirley Reid, a woman who
allegedly got into an argument with her boss and from her home computer
attempted to sabotage her employer by changing the firm's shipping address
to a nonexistent location. When the matter was turned over to police,
officers got a subpoena from a municipal court judge to force Comcast to
trace the computer used in the hoax. The trail led to Reid.

Relying on the state constitution, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that
internet records are no different from those stored by banks or telephone
companies. And, as in those cases, police must get a grand jury subpoena to
obtain access to the information.

The ruling has privacy advocates cheering. No other state provides as much
protection to its residents. Police seeking internet information must follow
a well-established legal process designed to thwart abuses.

Because a grand jury subpoena is involved, police looking into minor cases
involving the internet will not have access to data such as e-mail
identities. Grand juries only consider indictable offenses.

New technologies often create new challenges for the legal system. They
force judges to apply the law to a frontier previously unexplored. Often
that can be a difficult undertaking. That's not the case here. With its
ruling, the unanimous seven-member court shows that the same legal
protections that are applied to banking and phone records also fit neatly in
cyberspace.

Federal law, experts say, hasn't kept pace, and Congress ought to heed New
Jersey's example.