I imagine you would be more likely to encounter security problems from commercial interests or "hackers" than from the government. Even if a government had the capability to read everyone's e-mail, doing so would be a daunting task. Lavasoft's Ad-aware is a useful, free program for detecting commercial spyware, and www.grc.com also has some valuable information on making Windows less vulnerable to intrusions. There are several encryption schemes available for e-mail and while they're useful for sending sensitive information such as credit card numbers, financial data, medical information, etc. most people don't really need to encrypt their e-mail. If you're truly worried about computer privacy, the most important rule is to never keep anything you want to protect on a networked machine. And when you replace or discard storage devices such as HDs, it's a good idea to insure data cannot be recovered from these. Drilling a few holes through a HD works nicely for this. I've also found that the shiny "plates" from old HDs (as well as CDs) can also be used to make some nifty mobiles and artwork, too.