Is the government reading personal emails?

Question

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021507U.shtml

I couldn't help but become ridiculously paranoid the last time when my friend and I were talking about terrorism over email. Ill be traveling out of the country this summer. My god, what have we dropped down to?

Answer 1

There are filtering systems that 'flag up' potentially 'dangerous communications' eg. if I put TNT, Bush and who knows what other words in here it might get checked. This was a really good plan we came up w. to use Answers to develop our terrorist network, nice work w. that NY subway bomb yesterday, they are still calling it a quake!
If they can start a war and kill half a million so far knowing they based it all on lies, there's not a lot left that I wouldn't put past them. See you at Guantanamo!

Answer 2

Let's do some rough math:

Approximately 300 million United States citizens...

Let's assume only 200 million people use email to make a conservative estimate...

I sent 10 emails today...

That's 2 billion emails today.

I understand some people don't send 10 emails a day, but there are also many people that send more. This is just to get an idea of the magnitude of information generated in one day.

That's 730 billion emails a year...

The NSA employs approximately 30,000 personnel.

I'd say your personal emails are pretty safe unless you repeatedly use "red-flag" words or send/receive emails to/from suspected international terrorists.

Answer 3

They are probably not monitoring your e-mail. Lets look at this from a logical standpoint. There are almost 300 million people in the U.S. right now. While numbers are not available, I feel it would be safe to assume there is less than 100 thousand people working for the government that would have any authority to read your e-mails. That means each worker would have to watch a lot of people's e-mails. Very often these people send out a lot of e-mails per day. Now it is possible they look for keywords inside your e-mails, but even then if they read them, unless they feel a there is a threat those e-mails are going to be ignored. The government is way to large and way to stupid to have any sort of consistency in a conspiracy.

Answer 4

No the government doesn't read every one's personal E-mail. There is a Supercomputer that can filter Keywords and if there is reason enough to track someone E-mail,Phone line,Cell phone etc. Then they might be interested reading.

Science fiction stuff of the government tracking every e-mail/phone call only exists in the Movies. So don't worry the F.B.I and the C.I.A are not going to get you tonight.

Answer 5

They can and the President has created an executive order allowing him to open your snail mail now (or direct a govt. agent to do it) and read it as well. However, I sincerely doubt that they read every email sent by every person every day....they would have to go through millions per hour. I'm sure there are "trigger" or "flag" words that if used, will invoke the interest of a certain govt. agency (eg: NSA).

Nevertheless our founding fathers NEVER intended for the President to have this power, thus it is completely unconstitutional and Bush should be impeached for it, if nothing else.

Answer 6

Yes they are. They have even had Yahoo, among others, turned your records over to them, including all the searches you made on net! Goggle refused to!

And they still are as far as I know!

And you should worry about it and not listen to slugs. Our freedom is sacrosanct under the constitution! People who want you to ignore their violation of it do not understand what is at stake!

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.



America : One Nation, Under Surveillance

Answer 7

EXACTLY. We're supposed to feel "protected" but the government can come in and read your emails and whatever else they do want just because they THINK you MIGHT be suspicious...

Wouldn't be surprised if the people that lead an uprising against the government "conveniently" get assassinated (by the government).

Answer 8

It depends on what emails you're talking about. If you're wanting to send one to Vice President Cheney then sure! His email address is [e-mail]

Now you can address any issue with him that you have and you will get a response. I have done this about a Federal issue I have with VA and gotten a response from his office and they keep in touch with you and give you a contact name and number.

Answer 9

I sure hope they do.!!!
And I pray they monitor telephone calls too.
And lets not forget how important it is to check eletronic transfers of money.

But don't worry, they are not after you.

All of this is being done to track down the terrorist network. It is used to alert homeland security of periods when "chatter" increases. Remember there have been times when we have been able to stop terrorist attempts before they materialize. Without these tools we would be handing the terrorist our heads on a platter... people would be dead.

When these things are stopped by the liberal Democrats then it is time to be paranoid.

Answer 10

Eh...I've thought about it before...and it's a very good possibility that the government monitors all sorts of every-day private stuff, like e-mails and phone calls.

And my feelings are, who cares? I mean, really. If some faceless goon wants to sit at a computer database and listen for keywords in my telephone conversations, that's just fine with me. Are my rights being infringed? Absolutely. Does it bother me overly much? Nah...