On Secure Email
Honestly, I don’t care who snoops through my private emails. I just ask that they snoop like professionals, secretly, in a way I can ignore. I mean, I have principles, and if some amateur leaves dirty thumbprints all over my mail, or tears open the letters instead of steaming away the glue, like an experienced snoop, then I’d have to act on my principles. That’s an uncomfortable outcome for all parties involved. And moral outrage has a way of burning on in me well through the night, leaving me jittery in the morning and dry-eyed and vengeful. I’d rather rest; so would my principles, and, besides, the bulk of my emails just won’t excite anyone. And so I use Gmail. And the snoops—algorithms, app developers, the NSA, I don’t know them all—though, like roaches, I have faith in their presence, they have so far done their prying professionally, kept out of the light, and not left any tatters of envelopes, so to speak, where I can find them. So if Gmail suits me and my principles ha