MentalFloss has spent some time looking at different ways that might tell you if your email is being read by the government. The information is based on the public statements of the former director of the National Security Agency, Justice Department attorneys, and others involved in NSA operations. They also cite confidential and verified anonymous sources.

Obviously we don’t want to steal their thunder as I am willing to bet that they spent a lot of time on this so we will just go over some of the ones that might affect you and send you to MentalFloss for more.

I know a few people will hate me for this but to be honest, most of this seems geared so that if you are not a criminal or terrorist, odds are you won’t be affected. I know that this is a broad statement as we get nervous about how this is handled, but that was my overall impression. They are understaffed and a typical government organization so the odds of them wasting time to listen to Joe Citizens conversations, for no good reason, seems rare.

One that stood out for me is if you sent emails many years ago to regions associated with terrorism. The odd thing here is that back in 2001 it was still pretty cool to have contact with people all over the world, something we take for granted today.

For example:
Before 2007, if you, as an American citizen, worked overseas in or near a war zone, there is a small chance that you were “collected on”.

If you, from September 2001 to roughly April 2004, called or sent e-mail to or from regions associated with terrorism and used American Internet companies to do so.

Another interesting one:
Your data might have been intercepted or collected by Russia, China, or Israel if you traveled to those countries. The FBI has quietly found and removed transmitters from several Washington, D.C.–area cell phone towers that fed all data to wire rooms at foreign embassies.

MentalFloss goes on to discuss the safeguards today and more.