Legal question

["Crumrine, Gary L" <CrumrineGL () state gov>]

After wearing out my fingers during a heated conversation with another
colleague over legalities of certain actions, a question came up in my mind
concerning sniffers and their usage.

If a sniffer was placed on the outside of a given network, and was
configured to sniff packets coming from that network only, does this
constitute an illegal wire tap?  And do the same rules apply to data as they
do voice?  In some cases it transits the same copper wire... ouch I am
getting a headache..