Email encryption is a simple way to give yourself a shield that can protect you and your community from the giant surveillance system we all face. If you need any proof of the effectiveness of these tools, remember that Snowden used them to leak his precious information safely. Many effective shields, wielded well and held together in solidarity, make a strong wall. The Email Self-Defense Guide will lead you all the way through the process of sending and receiving your first encrypted mail.

Check out the guide, and get started encrypting your email!

It comes with a gorgeous infographic, which you can share with the hashtags #EmailSelfDefense and #ResetTheNet.

"Encryption matters, and it is not just for spies and philanderers. [Encryption] is a critically-necessary security measure for anyone who wishes to communicate with you." -- Edward Snowden

Encrypting your email can not only protect you and your loved ones from the NSA, it also keeps big Internet corporations from collecting your data as well. Gmail, for example, mines your email to serve you ads. If that email is encrypted on your desktop, Google's servers will never see the contents of your messages (even if you don't use Gmail yourself, every email you send to someone who does ends up on their servers). And even if you think that you personally have nothing to hide, remember: if the only people who encrypt their email DO have something to hide, then the NSA can easily target those emails and use their massive resources to break the encryption. The more people encrypt all their email, even the trivial stuff, the harder it becomes for the NSA to target whistleblowers, journalists, and others with legitimate, legal reasons to keep information private.

If you already use email encryption, we encourage you to check out the guide and give us feedback on it. You can also make a big difference by sending it to your friends and offering to help them use it to get started.

Self-protection is essential for your privacy, but the real solution is to make digital systems stop collecting data about everyone. Today thousands of people -- and some of the most popular websites -- are taking concrete steps to secure their part of the Internet. With free software tools and principles, we can make suspicionless, dragnet-style surveillance exponentially more difficult and expensive for governments to conduct.

Learn how to practice email self defense, then head over the Free Software Directory to download our free software privacy pack.

If you like Email Self-Defense, please consider making a donation. We have big plans to get it in the hands of people under bulk surveillance all over the world, and make more tools like it.