E-mail Privacy

[Kral]

In article <Nk13311w164w at bluemoon.uucp> sbrack at bluemoon.uucp (Steven S. Brack) writes:
>        And if I have personal notes or mail in my desk at the office?
>        Whose is that?

It's not that it *belongs* to the company (the paper mail or notes, in this
case), but rather that the company has a right to access them *in the course of
doing business*; and if that means you are suspected of, for instance, having
unauthorized copies of peronnel files in your desk, they can go through your
(or rather, the company's) desk looking for them; if they see your
notes/mail/whatever, well, they see them.

>	If the company feels those documents are
>        provably vital, then it can always get a court order for them,
>        just like it can for paper documents.

Yes, they can get a court order.  The point is, they don't have to.

>        Then, if the company wanted to see the manuscipt it lets you use
>        your PC or UNIX account to write, they can?

Yes.

>	 Most employees
>        expect that their employer would treat them as human beings,
>        not as slaves to be constantly monitored.

I don't see this as the latter.  You seem to feel that if I have a right to
access your files/desk, then I will be constantly monitoring you by doing so.
I say this: any company that has nothing better to do than *monitor* it's
employees is going to fail in the marketplace by the results of its economic
inefficiencies.  This does not, however, preclude the search through documents
in the course of conducting proper business.

>	 If I sent a document
>        in US Mail to someone, then needed a copy of it, if he wouldn't
>        give me one, then a court order would be my only resort.  The
>        situations are fairly analogous.

I disagree.  In the US mail example, you are not using someone else's
resources to write and save the document.  You are using a U.S. Government
service that explicitly states confidentiality.  And note this: if the
government suspects you of illegally using the U.S. Mail, they will check out
the contents of your mail.  (Illegally or otherwise; I don't know off hand what
the legality of government snooping on mail is, but if you are sending drugs
through the mail, for example, and yell foul when you get caught, well... I
think I consider that "evolution in action").

-- 
kral * 408/647-6112 *               ...!uunet!drivax!braun * braun at dri.com
"Talking trash, touching on truth"	-- Micheal Hedges "1-900-I-LUV-YOU"