Can the Government Really View Your Emails?

By Keith Auerbach

Internet and email users expect their information and interaction with others is inherently private. That is not the case. The FBI routinely conducts scans and screens on a regular basis. The Freedom of Information Act has opened the door to a new dawn of internet scrutiny. What does that mean for the average person who is using email to correspond with family, friends and business contacts?

Some basic security precautions are to think before acting. Never open attachments from unknown or unauthorized sources. Hackers use these to infect computers with viruses, to steal information and even bank accounts.

Anyone who uses their employer's internet service to send personal emails can expect that information to be read on a regular basis. Most companies now require new associates or employees to sign a waiver allowing the employer to do so. Since many new hires sign anything placed before them, you may have done this and never even knew it.

All email and internet contact leaves an indelible record. Just clicking the Delete button does not erase the message. People trained and skilled in retrieval can recover this information and bring it back to haunt the person who wrote it.
These can be used in court, in custody disputes and divorce cases.

What does that mean for the right of speech and reasonable privacy? The public has a right to privacy as long as that right is not used outside the bounds of the law. If the police, FBI or any other law enforcement agency feels the need to inspect a person's email and internet usage, all rights are immediately forfeited. There are ways to ensure security and privacy for someone who is honest and ethical, one who just desires a bit of privacy.

Email and internet security can be found through Remailers. These are networks that receive coded messages with instructions on where to send them without revealing where they originated. More and more email servers are emerging that do not require the user to provide their actual name, telephone number or other information. These can be had for a monthly or yearly fee.

While once the domain of radicals or people who have something to hide, these remailers and email servers are becoming more popular as privacy concerns arise. A sharp increase in identity theft, banking hacks and other issues that create a sense of violation, make these a haven for honest people.

Cookies are collected by almost every place a user visits. These can be seen by anyone monitoring that website and allow an innocent user to be located if the government, FBI or any other agency chooses to do so.

Email privacy and security essentials are serious matters, one that is individual to every person. Some people just don't care if their communications are read because they have nothing to hide; others have nothing to hide but demand privacy because it should be expected. Whatever one's decision, research shows this is an issue that will only become more prevalent as internet use continues to increase.