How to encrypt your email with Thunderbird

First, I would just like to share this quote with you: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That is, if you hadn't guessed, the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. That is the way that our country is supposed to run. Unfortunately, Darth Bush has approved articles such as the Patriot Act, and given nearly unlimited powers to the DHS and NSA, as well as himself, to conveniently circumvent that which makes us American. The DHS has wiretapped most of the internet, and frequently break those laws set down by our forefathers so many years ago. They can read your email, and if they decide that you might be a terrorist, then you get shipped off to Syria to have every one of your secrets tortured out of you. Fortunately, there is an easy way around this. Email encryption. If you encrypt your email, then all that the DHS can see is this: rKvvW6DsQKPJRoK4RuigwLPfXpIalmlQff4XvvVxtieZSaow620fuPAAHXtvQwL8
yJWFPgha09vxuGyQSTpO0XsQx2Taz6zcfnqEeLffS/0ntOiR37vFcjP3S9xV8dIg
iri15GWgm+VPlOW6dtGR+jusguivLMxLrFMIWxUJoY5+/ftUOW0ZS8Q1RUhfZhXa.
This Instructable can keep you safe, in a few easy steps.

Step 1 Email

Obviously, if you want to encrypt your email, you will first have to have an email account. I recommend Gmail. It is absolutely amazing. All of its services are free, you have over 7 gigabytes of storage, and it is really easy to use. I have at least four accounts. If you already have a gmail account, you can skip this step. If not, go to here to make one. Google should walk you through the process, if you have any trouble.

Comments

[chazwr]

First (to address the authors introduction), keeping communication between the author and intended recipient(s) private is more the "right of the people" in accordance with the Bill of Rights, Amendment IV (Privacy of the Person and Possessions) "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." So ask yourself two questions. 1. Where does ANY entity get off randomly searching ANY intended private communication (or in this context, "paper") "just in case they find "something" of interest". 2. Would you want our law enforcement authorities to know about the car full of explosives planning to be delivered to you child's elementary school some particular morning? I may be wrong, but, I don't think our Forefathers wrestled with these questions. I do wish we had their wisdom to work through them. Second, as for the USA PATRIOT Act, think what you will of President "Darth Bush" and his presidency, but, if you feel blame is due, place it where it belongs. 98/100 Senators voted for the Act in 2001, 89/100 voted for its, albeit revised, renewal in 06, including his majesty Obama. (Here is the role call if your interested. And you should be very interested.) http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml) Does a US citizen have the right to expect "reasonable privacy"? According to numerous high court rulings, yes. (look 'em yourself) Should you encrypt "sensitive" information in a message that will go half way around the world and remain resident in an unimaginably number of locations? Duh! Are these applications a effective way to maintain a "reasonable expectation of personal privacy"? Careful scrutiny will decide and I will be glad to post the results, if allowed.

[amemait]

You can download with Firefox. Simply right-click on the download link (Enigmail 0.93.0 in the example screenshot above), and choose "Save Link As...". You can then drag-and-drop the XPI file onto a Thunderbird window to install it.

[ceramiceye]

If you are so worried about privacy of your emails, why would you use a GMail account? From my understanding, GMail stores everything you do on it's server's forever

[brothertuck]

If you encrypt before sending it, no matter which email account you use will just be gibberish. The only problem with gmail is that the email is there so that once they do find an encryption key, they have free reign to use it on all of your previously encrypted email.<br/>This is a good start, but if you are serious about encryption then there are many places online you can search. You can go to web sights like 2600 (not sure of the url as I am not totally paranoid, but probably have it in my favorites somewhere).<br/>Never just take the advice of one source. Especially in privacy and personal issues. Read and learn why you should use encryption or not. Learn the best tips to make it safer from both a common sense and a technical point of view.<br/>One good source i have found is <a rel="nofollow" href="http://askbobrankin.com">http://askbobrankin.com</a> , a good source of info and links.<br/>