The government shouldn't be reading anybody's emails. Or anybody's mail. Or listening in on anybody's phones. Or watching anybody's houses. Or following anybody's cars. Or registering anybody's guns. Or over-riding anybody's doctor's orders.
Somehow, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights have been pushed completely aside and there is no branch of government still loyal enough to return this country to The People.
The 4th amendment grants the govt. the power to read your email, listen on your phone, watch your house, etc.
If you are on the highway and speeding, a cop can drive the same speed as you (follow you) to determine your speed and then pull you over and give you a ticket.
If you are out in public, anyone can follow you, including the police. Just like with "reading" emails, they simply don't have enough people to follow everyone everywhere, or read more than a tiny fraction of all the emails sent.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/08/news/la-mobile-scotus-gps
GPS tracking concerns Supreme Court
The Supreme Court justices, both conservative and liberal, voiced alarm on Tuesday at the idea of giving the government unlimited power to monitor people in public through the use of GPS devices or other tracking technology.
The comments came during an argument over whether FBI agents need a search warrant before they secretly install a GPS tracker on a suspect's car.
A government lawyer insisted that because no one has a right to privacy when they move on the public streets, the Constitution puts no limits on such high-tech surveillance.
It would "not be a search if you put a GPS device on all of our cars, monitored out movements for a month?" asked Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
"The justices of this court?" said deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben.
Yes, Roberts said.
"Under our theory and under this court's case, the justices of this court when driving on public roadways have no greater expectation ... "
"So your answer is yes," Roberts interjected.
The chief justice said he understood the notion that agents could follow a person on foot or in a car, but "this seems dramatically different."
The new technology allows an agent to sit at in an office and monitor the movements of many persons, he said.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said he had the same concern. The "heart of the problem," he said, is that computers now permit the government to gather huge amounts of information on people and their activities. "Isn't there a real change" because of computers and surveillance technology, he asked.
Dreeben said no. It's "not a dramatic change," he said, in part because the government has no interest in tracking large numbers of citizens. He said the FBI uses GPS devices sparingly to monitor suspicious persons, including in terrorism cases.
But the justices kept returning to the same point. "Under the government's theory, any of us could be monitored whenever we leave home," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
"If you win," said Justice Stephen G. Breyer, " it sounds like '1984,' " a reference to George Orwell's novel of a futuristic state with total surveillance of the populace by the government.
Despite the justices' worries over unlimited surveillance, the argument did not offer a strong clue as to how the court will rule.
