Gee, Doug, maybe we can arrange a witch hunt just for you. It's almost Halloween, and I wouldn't want you to feel left out of the festivities.;>)

I seem to recall that censorship of mail, at least mail coming from the military, is routine in wartime as a security measure. I have no problem with extraordinary measures to protect fighting troops--they're in enough danger already.

As for snooping around in my email, they're probably doing it already--certainly on this computer, since I'm at work in a national park. All NPS email goes first through a substation in Washington DC, and people get severely nailed for using it for other than official business. I am not an NPS employee, but I am using their computer. This is my coffee break time. I do have an NPS email address, and I am careful NEVER to use if for anything but business. Someday I'm probably going to get nailed for 9,000 visits to Mudcat during working hours--even if I don't post, the computer automatically records where I've been.

Here in the Bay Area, Pacifica station KPFA used to often run a recording of Bill Mandel's testimony before the House Un-American Committee in the '50's. I remember hearing some of that stuff as a small child when it was happening, and everybody was pleading "5th Amendment." Bill Mandel, who was perfectly legally entitled to his poltical views, told HUAC to go to hell, and quoted the Constitution extensively. Now Bill can certainly be a bit of a fruitcake (my husband once called him "the Bay Area's leading Soviet apologist"), but in that moment, he was a true American hero.

So I guess I'm not too worried about my civil liberties, because I have nothing to hide, and if they mess with me, I feel capable of defending myself and others. Maybe I'm being incredibly naive, but at least they'd know they'd been in a fight. I am not really capable of defending myself against exploding hijacked planes and mail-order anthrax, so I have to let the government deal with that. But I will certainly keep an eye on them while they do it.