How to Stop the FBI from Reading Your Email

Marketwatch says:

[W]hat can Americans do to protect themselves from warrantless email searches? Authorities will probably always be able to access messages if they have reason to believe someone is breaking the law, says Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser for Sophos, an information technology security and data protection company. But those hoping to avoid unnecessary snooping through emails sent to a spouse (or regrettable messages sent during one’s college years) can take a few steps to protect themselves.


One option is to encrypt messages before sending them, which can make them indecipherable as they are transmitted across servers. Such messages can only be read after the recipient unlocks the message with an encryption key. The process may be too cumbersome for most emails, says Wisniewski, since it requires people to exchange keys. And the option isn’t offered by all email providers, he says.

Given that authorities can only access emails that have been stored on a server for more than six months, privacy experts say another option is to delete older emails or store them directly on a hard drive (which is protected by the Fourth Amendment). Common email platforms like Microsoft Outlook will typically offer an option for archiving emails on a hard drive, says Wisniewski but such messages could no longer be accessed remotely. And if the hard drive fails, the data could be lost entirely.

One final option is an “offshore email account.” Servers operated in other countries would not be subjected to the same rules as those based in the U.S., says Wisniewski. The tradeoff: Connections might be slower than with American email providers, he adds. And people who decide to store their emails abroad also need to be conscious of the privacy rules of the country hosting their server