Is the Government Reading Your Email?
    NOW
    t r u t h o u t | Programming Note

    PBS Airtime: Friday, February 16, 2007, at 8:30 p.m. on PBS (check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html.)

Accusations that the American government spies on private citizen emails. Next time on NOW.

    Is the government reading your email? On February 16 at 8:30 p.m. (check local listings), NOW reports on new evidence suggesting the existence of a secret government program that intercepts millions of private emails each day in the name of terrorist surveillance. News about the alleged program came to light when a former AT&T employee, Mark Klein, blew the whistle on what he believes to be a large-scale installation of secret Internet-monitoring equipment deep inside AT&T's San Francisco office. The equipment, he contends, was created at the request of the US Government to spy on email traffic across the entire Internet. Though the government and AT&T refuse to address the issue directly, Klein backs up his charges with internal company documents and personal photos.

    Criminal Defense Lawyer Nancy Hollander, who represents several Muslim-Americans, feels her confidential emails are anything but secure. "I've personally never been afraid of my government until now. And now I feel personally afraid that I could be locked up tomorrow," she told NOW.

    Who might be eyeing the hundreds of millions of emails Americans send out each day, and to what end? Next time on NOW.

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    The NOW website at www.pbs.org/now will provide additional coverage starting Friday morning, February 16, including an interview with the WIRED reporter who broke the whistleblower story and more details about these incredible allegations.