In the past, if the government wanted to violate the privacy of ordinary citizens, it had to expend a certain amount of effort to intercept and steam open and read paper mail, or listen to and possibly transcribe spoken telephone conversations. This is analogous to catching fish with a hook and a line, one fish at a time. Fortunately for freedom and democracy, this kind of labor-intensive monitoring is not practical on a large scale. Today, electronic mail is gradually replacing conventional paper mail, and is soon to be the norm for everyone, not the novelty it is today. Unlike paper mail, e-mail messages are just too easy to intercept and scan for interesting keywords. This can be done easily, routinely, automatically, and undetectably on a grand scale. This is analogous to driftnet fishing – making a quantitative and qualitative Orwellian difference to the health of democracy. —The Code Book, Simon Singh Which questions improve your ability to understand the point that email security is important for personal freedom? Check all that apply. What does the word “analogous” mean? Will paper mail stop becoming available? What are the dangers of converting to electronic mail? Why is effort required to read paper mail? What is the result if the government violates privacy?