E-mail Privacy

[Kral]

In article <50318 at muvms3.bitnet> rcbi12 at muvms3.bitnet (Michael J. McCarthy) 
makes an excellent point against companies constantly monitoring, or giving the
impression that they are monitoring, employee's email.

>	The French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, in his book
>DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH:  THE BIRTH OF THE PRISON explains the prison model
>called a panopticon... [which allows the gaurds to see in but the prisoners 
>cannot see the guards, so never know if/when they are being watched].  
>	In THE AGE OF THE SMART MACHINE:  THE FUTURE OF WORK AND POWER, 
>Shoshana Zuboff shows that a computer network can easily create an electronic
>panopticon...
>	For this reason, in my opinion, the maitenance of personal privacy for 
>employees is so important.  Not only did Zuboff show that such an electronic
>panopticon can develop, but also that when it does, performance and
>productivity suffer...

Agreed.  It is important that the company not even give the impression that
mail, etc, will be constantly monitored, or even casually monitored.  In fact,
I think it is essential that company policy state (as my organizational policy
states), that prying into someone else's files or otherwise monitoring data
transmission without sufficient cause, is grounds for termination.  This is
based on ethics as well as economics (I would hope the former more so than the
latter).

However, a distinction must, I think, be made.  Employees must be aware that
files kept on company resources (ie, the company computer(s)), are subject to
perusal by authorized personnel if and when (and only if and when) it is
necessary in the course of business.  Michael says:

>	For this reason, in my opinion, the maitenance of personal privacy for 
>employees is so important.

Yes, absolutely, but not by using company resources.

[I might add, that somewhere on my side of this argument, is a phrase that has
something to do with "reasonable use" of company resources for personal use,
but I admit here that I have not yet made the time to think this through yet.
So we try to make the lines of distinction narrower yet, knowing all the while
that they are miles across].


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