There are a variety of ways to anonymize surfing and email besides anonymizer services and remailers. Government agencies likely use all these. Reasons for the agencies to use anonymizers and remailers is to learn how they work and to influence operators by purchases, complaints and praise, and to spit in the soup, that is, to raise doubts about the services promises of confidentiality. The same reasons apply for subscribing to this list, for cultivating informants, for spoofing identities, for creating dissension among dissenters, for panicking the populace, for promising impossible assurance. Criticism of anonymizers and remailers and this list is a healthy as criticizing any reputable, and disreputable, private or publice means of communication. Fending off criticism by saying past performance and reputation deserves trust is a hoot and is also a hackneyed reply of someone who is concealing betrayal, or to put it more politely, has not yet learned how to earn trust continuously rather than bank it for unearned profit. Untested trust is no trust at all. And those who most often promise trust are not to be trusted, whether highly reputable individual, government of the free world, or very best friend. Paranoia is no defense against being suckered any more than being a hermit, and believing you are a trusted insider of a trustworthy group is suckerdom par excellance. Dropping your guard: don't. Especially with those of impeccable reputation.