[thenewkid]

Perhaps your friends are not able to prioritise?

Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

What good is it to have the right to abortion, gay marriage, immigration amnesty etc. if tomorrow you can be taken away and locked up for the rest of your life, without any due process, all because of an email you wrote?

[rayiner]

The UN Declaration of Human Rights is not law in the United States and recognizes many things that are not recognized as fundamental rights in the United States: right to international travel, right to social security, right to "desirable work" and to join trade unions, right to "rest and leisure", right to education, etc.

Also, your hypothetical is disingenuous. It wraps violations of due process in with monitoring of e-mail. I'd imagine most people would consider the real outrage in your hypothetical to be the "without any due process" part, not the "because of an e-mail" part.