It has been a full year since federal agents snooped through the private emails of my husband and me, setting in motion a series of events that ultimately led to the resignations of Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. The anniversary is a somber reminder of the unintended consequences and harsh realities that can result from unrestrained government probing into Americans' personal communications.

More recent revelations of National Security Agency spying suggest that the government's invasion of citizens' privacy is increasingly common. Millions of innocent Americans should be very concerned about Washington's massive surveillance apparatus, which seems to know no bounds.

My family's ordeal began when my husband, Scott, and I were haunted by multiple, threatening email messages from an apparent Internet stalker. Fearing for the safety of our family, as well as the safety of U.S. officials named in the threatening emails, we took the advice of military leaders and reported the messages to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

We authorized the FBI to look at one threatening email we received, and only that email, so that the FBI could identify the stalker. However, the FBI ignored our request and violated our trust by unlawfully searching our private emails and turning us into the targets of an intrusive investigation without any just cause—all the while without informing us that they had identified the email stalker as Paula Broadwell, who was having an affair with Mr. Petraeus. (I have never understood why she was stalking me and my family. In any event, she was not charged with a crime.)

Adding insult to injury, the FBI then leaked our identities to the media and distorted the contents of the emails it had illegally obtained, throwing my family into a destructive media vortex.