If this isn't a Civil Rights issue, I don't know what is.
I'm not against Law Enforcement reading the e-mails of criminal suspects,
if they have a warrant. The whole idea that they could go on a fishing expedition and surreptitiously read e-mails without judicial over sight is abhorrent. This is still the USA, or what is left of it. No excuse of terrorism, etc is good enough. We, don't need a secret police in the USA. It may be too late though. Things like the Patriot Act and the recent NDAA amendments may have already put us across the threshold.
A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.
Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants
Its like the newspeak from 1984, the bill thats supposed to
protect our rights, actually takes them away.