WASHINGTON –  Six current and former employees of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have filed a lawsuit against the agency accusing it of secretly monitoring their personal email accounts, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The six scientists and doctors said their personal Gmail accounts were monitored after they warned Congress that the FDA was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, according to government documents.

FDA computers post a warning to users who log on that they should have "no reasonable expectation of privacy." But in the lawsuit, the doctors and scientists say the FDA violated their constitutional right to privacy for gazing into personal email accounts to monitor activity they say was lawful, The Post reported.

The monitoring occurred over two years and the information gained from the personal correspondence contributed to their harassment or dismissal at the FDA's Office of Device Evaluation, the lawsuit claims.

Specifically, the six had complained that some devices approved or close to approval by the FDA had missed signs of breast cancer, falsely diagnosed osteoporosis, and used such heavy doses of radiation that it risked causing cancer in otherwise healthy people,

Copies of the emails show that the FDA intercepted communications with congressional staffers and whistleblower complaints, complete with editing notes in the margins, according to The Post.

Two of those who filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Washington last week were fired, two said they had been harassed and passed over for promotions and two have not had their contracts renewed.

An FDA spokeswoman told The Post the agency does not comment on litigation.