Is it possible to query on Production items using Deep See?

My group needs to be able to monitor items / tasks, and let a non-management-portal user see the monitoring.  Is it possible to run DeepSee queries on Production items?  I feel like I should not be recreating the production environment or the task manager just so that I can query on the items that are running, and on their states (like "successful" or "send email").

Also, I need to log custom events for each task, and I'm running into difficulties with the task manager in this regard; hence the question about using the Production instead, but querying it.

Thanks,

Laura