Should the Government Be Allowed to Read Your E-Mails?

The short answer is no--not without a warrant.

In my opinion, the argument here is very similar to the NSA unwarranted wiretap scandal. Law enforcement and intelligence services should be able to listen in on calls deemed suspicious for reasons of national security--if they have a warrant. Overarching listening networks such as ECHELON seem unethical to me, but good luck telling that to the NSA.

The issue in question, however, is more along the lines of whether the government should be able to circumvent user encryption. Can the NSA throw your encrypted document in their massive server farm and crack it in a few days? Probably. Is there anything we can do to stop that? Not really, other than huge keys and secure algorithms.

What the government wants, however, is similar to what RIM provided Saudi Arabia (and what the USA wanted with its key escrow service years ago): a backdoor into an encryption scheme, or a copy of private keys.

Both from a computer security perspective and an interpreted Constitutional right to privacy, the government should need a warrant to get encrypted data. Just like they'd need a warrant to get your paper diary that you keep next to your laptop, they should (and currently do) require one to read your e-mail. And that's the way it should stay.

Which part of "no" is difficult to comprehend? I'd express it in one letter, but I've not figured out how yet.

No, period.

-- but slightly "yes" only if you like to much the idea of George Orwell

Run your own mail server and delete emails after reading them.