If you have nothing to hide you should have nothing to worry about.

Leading national security hawks Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., likely agree. The duo admit they don’t use email.

"I don't email at all," McCain told the National Journal last week. "I have other people and I tell them to email because I am just always worried I might say something. I am not the most calm and reserved person you know.”

Graham, on the other hand, appears never to have caught up with the Internet revolution. “You can have every email I've ever sent. I've never sent one,” Graham told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program Sunday.



The two senators work closely to push for a more muscular foreign policy. They vigorously denounced whistleblower Edward Snowden and resisted proposed reforms to the National Security Agency’s dragnet phone and Internet spy programs.

Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists says willful ignorance of technology may make it difficult for lawmakers to grasp privacy concerns and the need for reforms.

“It's surprising to hear that any national political figure would be unfamiliar with email,” he says, "to be unfamiliar with email suggests a lack of competence or a lack of curiosity about one of the features of contemporary life."

Aftergood says "it might also make it harder for such officials to appreciate public concerns about email privacy, bulk surveillance, spam and other such things.”



Pending legislation in Congress would require police to get warrants for emails older than 180 days and prohibit the NSA and other agencies from "backdoor" access to U.S. Internet records. The measures appear to have majority support in the lower chamber but Senate interest is cool.

Not all congressional fans of the NSA’s activities proudly resist using electronic mail technology.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the oldest member of the Senate at 81 and former chair of the Senate intelligence committee, does use email, spokesman Tom Mentzer says.

Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., who last year strongly denounced legislation that would have ended the NSA’s mass collection of U.S. phone records, also uses email, spokesman Matt Lahr says.



Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who scolded state lawmakers seeking to cut off the NSA headquarters' water and electricity, does too, spokeswoman Rachel MacKnight says.

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, the only Democrat to vote against cloture for the NSA-reforming USA Freedom Act in November, “uses email sparingly,” spokesman Dan McLaughlin says. “For work he prefers hard copies in his read file or phone calls from senior staff.”



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Spokespeople for other leading defenders of the spy agency’s practices, such as Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.