[gyardley]

Use the information against your own country and the people in it, which likely includes the people you're closest to?

Since you're not a citizen of that country, use the information in your email in far less scrupulous ways? Perhaps they could blackmail you into being a foreign intelligence asset. Perhaps a corrupt employee could slip your information to a criminal organization who will then steal your identity.

All of these things seem rather unlikely, and chances are you're equally boring to both governments. But your assumption that the government of a country you're not a citizen of will treat you better than the government of a country you are a citizen of seems pretty odd to me.

[CapitalistCartr]

Seriously? Whatever you do for a living, it ain't what most of us do. The fact is, almost all of us ARE boring to foreign governments. Almost all foreign governments WILL treat our correspondences better because of this. If I were designing fighter jets, it'd be different, but I'm making luxury yachts. Russia doesn't care. In fact, a few rich Russians own some of our boats.

[jbattle]

unless you make a yacht for someone the russians would like to track or listen in on

[anonymous]

I'd be much more comfortable having the Russian mafia targeting me than I'd be with the NSA spying on me. You can pay the mafia.

[akiselev]

I think you're conflating television with reality. You don't give or pay the Russian mafia, they take what they want. The Russian government (Russia is a "virtual mafia state" [1] so gov't == mafia) is responsible for some of the most visible politically motivated assassinations and scams in the world. I.e., look at the use of polonium to assassinate Litvinenko in London (the assassin suspected by the British gov't is now in the Russian parliament) [2] or the use of police and official stationary to steal $230 million by quietly signing over companies owned by Hermitage Capital Management [3].

The NSA, as secretive and as evil as it may become, is still a US government agency run by Americans with a moral code. The same cannot be said for the KGB (colloquial for FSB), Russian government, or Russian organized crime (all three of which are pretty much inseparable).

It's far less likely that they'll care about you but if they do notice something that they want, you're fucked.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinen...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky

[Ellahn]

Of course the NSA would do nothing against anyone, and it only gives access to this data to the people that need and deserve it, and it would never fall in the hands of someone who would betray our trust, or their trust, like this Snowden guy, and...

Oh, wait-.

[akiselev]

Of course the Russian mafia state would do nothing against anyone, and it only gives access to this data to the people that need and deserve it, and it would never fall in the hands of someone who would betray our trust, or their trust, like, for example, any bum from the military, intelligence, or business community that offers enough of a bribe for it.

Oh, wait-.

[espadrine]

> All of these things seem rather unlikely

More generally, anything that nobody has ever seen happen is unlikely.

I have heard of many occurrences of a government profiling, targeting or even suing their citizens over national security. I have never heard of anyone having their identity stolen by a criminal organization who got it from a foreign nation's government.

If you are in danger from a foreign government reading your email, you are an employee of your own government.

[fleitz]

This assumes that you give a shit about the collection of papers with ink that is your 'state'. I don't. I give a shit about not being locked in a cage.

Dulce et...