Do you think the US government is scanning or reading your email?

Question

If you do, does that bother you at all?

I heard there was some type of program that scanned emails and information for key words etc. If there is one what is its name? Is it carnivore? Any info?

Answer 1

yes they do!! I can't believe that so many people have stated that they don't mind having their right of privacy invaded.. THAT TO ME is very disturbing... You people need to ask yourselves this question... "Where will the government stop?" think about that.

Answer 2

Yes the government, the NSA to be exact is scanning my email and yours.

The US has relied more and more on electronic surveillance since the Cold War started. It has only gotten worse since the Cold War ended. This reliance on electronic intell over human intell was one of the failures that contributed to the attacks of 9/11/2001 not being discovered in time. The US intelligence network is not geared to work on people who still live in huts and caves. When the terrorists did talk over cell phones they used code words which were not in the NSA data banks and didn’t use phrases like “Death to America” or “Why don’t we fly a plane in the World Trade Center.”

There are so many electronic communications that one person, or one dozen people can’t monitor them all. In fact a dozen dozen people couldn’t do it, but computers can. So the NSA uses strong antennas to receive all communications it cans. Then it supplements those antennas with worldwide satellite coverage. It is possible for the US to listen to every single cell phone call in the entire world, as well as all long distance calls that are not transmitted through a phone trunk. During the Cold War the US used a submarine to bug the Russian undersea phone trunk. To monitor all this traffic the US uses computers to sift through the conversation looking for certain key words like “bomb,” or “attack.” Any messages that have these worlds (and that includes text messaging and email) can then be flagged so that a human can listen to the message to see if it is from a terrorist. What they don’t realize is that even a 12-year-old kid knows to use code words that won’t be detected in normal conversation. Human Intell is supposed to supply the key words that the terrorists use, but they can be found if there are no humans in the field talking with them.

Because of political infighting that dates back to the Ford Administration, Dick Cheney has beheaded and all but destroyed the CIA; simply because George Tenant was a Democrat. He has turned most intelligence operations over to the Military and the NSA has always handled the electronic intercepts.

There are several versions and sub versions of these programs. The group and the program that runs these programs are called Echelon. The US Patriot Act allowed the US to turn increase its electronic intercept program and to turn it on US citizens.

Carnivore is the packet sensing program used by the FBI and it monitors the Internet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_program

For more information read these Wikipedia Articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_communication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act%2C_Title_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_tapping

Yes the government has a machine reading this email, but I doubt if anyone in the FBI, unless they are a fan of Yahoo Answers will read this answer. Since Internet communication cannot be considered secure without using strong encryption I don't care too much. Other people could break into my email provider and read my emails. The worse they would find would be love letters to my girlfriend. So I am not that worried.

Answer 3

Almost as disturbing as the prospect of the government scanning our email is the apathy most of you seem to display about it. Just because you may not have anything to hide does not mean it is in your best intrest. If the government can read your email with no probable cause then that quickly extends into all other fascets of life. It sets a precedent. And if the government being allowed to perform random searches without probable cause doesn't bother you then you obviously have no idea of the values of which this country were founded. You can't give up a few of your civil rights without eventually giving up them all. I think Benjamin Franklin said it best:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Answer 4

Yes they're reading it, they're also forcing all search engines to give them a list of any and all searches with the IP address of the person doing the search (Google is the only engine resisting and fighting it at the moment) and that's not even all of it.

Get a load of this, ever since the Patriot Act they've been doing the same thing with EVERY phone conversation also. They have programs that scan EVERY conversation for key words and if there are any, a tape of the conversation is sent to be further analyzed.

Answer 5

Yes they have and do, but some of that legality is caught up in the courts. It is through data-mining programs as there is not enough manpower to actually read 1% of what is out there. Of course the programs don't catch every last byte of information, but a very large amount can be scanned. I cannot understand people's complacency with it. I myself have nothing to hide but I cannot believe the number of people who are so nonchalantly willing to give up their liberty and a right to privacy. Yes there are crazy muslim terrorists out there, as there has always been some crazy group of people out there. People are going to hate this country no matter what we do. And it is this fear of attack that the media and government play up to convince us to give up more and more freedom. Just remember a quote by Thomas Jefferson: "Government big enough to give you everything you need, is big enough to take everything away." We are the land of the free for a reason (well as much as is left of it), and to give up our freedom for the sake of protecting our country and what it stands for is contradictory. If you give up the very thing you fight to save, then what ware you fighting for in the end?

Answer 6

no, but Y!A is. I asked this question 22 minutes ago, still not posted:
Is bush fading into insignificance?
Bad week for the king. The supreme court says he can't dictate emissions, the senate says, sign this, or you'll hate the next bill, and Nancy Pelosi is doing shuttle diplomacy in the middle east (where is condi?). Has the king fallen? The only person behind him is dick cheney, the puppet master. My God, Has sanity and reason returned?? We can't have that, can we?

Answer 7

Nope. I could care less if the government is scanning my email, but it makes me wonder how they manage their time. I would imagine that the government would like for you to believe they are scanning your email, because the propaganda is less expensive than the equipment it would take to monitor billions of email servers.

Answer 8

With the Patriot Act I do think it's possible that the government is doing some of this. I work for a company that deals with middle eastern companies and I do believe that the government monitors our activity. I don't see what the big deal is. I have nothing to hide so what do I care if the government view or listens to my boring job related conversations.

Answer 9

I Hope so. Arrest Rep Jefferson and let the courts DECIDE
1.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/24/politics/main1649648.shtml

Answer 10

Yes, i do.
Yes, it bothers me. i don't have anything to hide either, but what i do isn't anyones business but mine. If i am supposedly living in a "FREE" country, It's most *especially* not my governments business what i do or say.

Maybe this is what you're looking for? It's a data mining program called ADVISE.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-03-07-datatools_N.htm