[jmdickens]

I think it is awful what the FBI did. If they can do that to him, they can destroy anyone...

[thepostman]

The CIA does worse on a day to day basis, but I get your point.

[ALUmnus]

So, should nobody be watching the head of the CIA? It's not like he's just some run-of-the-mill citizen joe. He has this sort of real big important non-private job thing. I don't think he can expect to have any kind of privacy while in the role he was in.

[El Scorcho]

I'm normally against government snooping (see my other post), but this wasn't exactly the FBI just being nosey.

Petraeus' mistress was emailing anonymous threats to another woman from the secret Gmail account that the mistress and Petraeus used to communicate with each other. (They wrote drafts and saved them, rather than sending the messages.) That was a big mistake. When the FBI went to investigate the threats (some of which mentioned Petraeus), they had probable cause to get access to the account.

In this case, it appears to have been legit police work that just happened to unravel a much bigger ball of string than they were expecting.

In summary: Women.