Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson is fighting allegations that she used her personal email address to hide agency business from public view. Jackson will appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a hearing on "preventing violations of federal transparency laws" on Tuesday. She is accused by Republicans of using a personal email account to do official business. "The principle reason I wanted to come here today is to make it perfectly clear that it was my practice to ensure that any official business conducted by me or through my email accounts was appropriately captured …

Girls creator Lena Dunham shared a sexy photo of herself in an email as part of Miranda July's ongoing digital art exhibit called We Think Alone. Every week, July forwards a collection of emails sent by ten famous people based on a specific theme. This week's theme: "An email that includes a picture of yourself." Dunham's email was sent to "E" and she explained the photo as a p.s.s. which read, "i used my macbook to take a photo of me in my costume which is pretty offensive and i thought you might appreciate it, being my lover and all. …

Half of all email marketing messages are opened on the mobile phone, according to a new report from Experian. The Q2 Email Benchmark Study released by Experian Marketing Services last week also revealed that iOS devices are leading the pack when it comes to mobile email. iPhone users made up 68 percent of mobile unique opens and 57 percent of clicks. The iPhone also accounted for 40 percent of mobile email transactions. The iPad garnered 48 percent of transactions, but only 19 percent of emails were opened on the iPad.

A spam email is making the rounds claiming that the United States has already begun bombing Syria. According to Kaspersky Lab, the email first started hitting inboxes on Friday morning in the morning East Coast time. The email contains malware and if a recipient clicks on the links within the email, they will inadvertently download a Trojan onto their computers. Email users are advised to flag the email as spam and avoid opening or clicking any links in the malicious message.

Chinese journalist Shi Tao who was jailed for eight years because of incriminating email records has been freed by the Chinese police. He was released a year and a half before completing his 10 year sentence.Tao was arrested in 2004 for sending an email that revealed Chinese government restrictions on the local media for the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. He sent the email with his Yahoo account and was then posted on a website based in New York that promotes democracy in China.

The Obama administration has legally been allowed to read the emails and listen in on phone calls of Americans since 2011. A surveillance court granted the NSA permission to search Americans' communications in order to spy on citizens two years ago. The Washington Post broke the news that the high court lifted a 2008 ban on such surveillance activities which was imposed in 2008. The court also extended the length of time the NSA can keep intercepted communications from five to six years.

The Georgia Department of Labor has accidentally compromised the personal information of 4,457 people who filed for unemployment claims in the state, including their email addresses. The organization mistakenly sent out a spreadsheet with the names, Social Security numbers, telephone numbers and email addresses of these unemployed folks to about 1,000 people via email. The organization said an employee error caused the leak, and is encouraging recipients not to open the email.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed the the NSA has cracked many online security encryptions. According to new slides released by Snowden, the NSA has control over setting international encryption standards and uses supercomputers to crack encryption codes. The NSA also installs secret backdoors to encryption programs of the Internet companies that they collaborate with.

A new iOS app called Ping has just launched. The tool turns your inbox into a to-do list and solicits replies IM style. The user is given a list of items to reply to and a list of items to take action on based on the messages delivered to the inbox. The app currently works for Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and iCloud accounts. The app processes emails into two feeds -- one for messages addressed directly to the recipient and another for marketing and transactional emails.

Parse, a mobile technology platform, has unveiled a few new products including an email and an analytics tool. The tool called "Background Jobs" allows developers to schedule recurring tasks such as batch emailing inactive users. In addition, the platform also revealed a new analytics toolset.