As an example, if an American person generates an electronic record on a laptop or computer and creates a “last may and testament” on that file, and, then, locks the file in the pc so that no-one can access it, that particular electronic record is tantamount to a “last may and testament” published in printer, on paper, and guaranteed in a steel record cabinet with secure and key.
The same applies to any electric file produced by an National citizen and kept digitally in a computer. For the us government claim usually, would be to reject what is therefore clearly apparent in an age of pc technology. The NSA, FBI, and the CIA have basically responded to prudent logic and common sense by absurdly saying that most electronic e-mail communications, and the linked papers that they include, of U.S. citizens, should be available to monitoring to be able to discover ongoing terrorist plots.
This is as silly an assertion as declaring that most puppy pets must certanly be digitally surveilled in order to determine which dogs have the outward indications of rabies. More over, in case a U.S. person employs an email meaning to electronically connect a rent a killer for the e-mail’s intended individual to see, that email provides the person’s electronic documents, the content of which can be protected by the 4th Amendment. Those digital papers, delivered by e-mail, are secured in exactly the same fashion, by the 4th Amendment, as are personal documents that are put in a stamped package and shipped using the U.S. Mail.
Since digital processing and record-making is almost replacing the paper-and-ink method in the public and private industries, the monitoring, by the NSA, of e-mail messages delivered between U.S. people, and the connection documents which they include (as effectively as hard-drive and disk-drive files contained on online personal computers), is actually number different from government agents breaking right into a person’s home business office and confiscating locked files of paper records.