E-mail Privacy

[Lee Story]

In article <7129 at cactus.org> statham at cactus.org (Perry L. Statham) writes:
   In article <15110 at ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> conca at handel.cs.colostate.edu (michael vincen conca) writes:
   >Now for the tough questions.
   >	Is this legal?  Is this ethical?  If this person still worked
   >here, I would immediately refuse.  But since they don't, do they still
   >have any rights to their E-mail?  Right now, I am leaning towards refusing
   >because I think a person's E-mail is theirs, regardless of their status
   >with the organization.  Anyone have any other opinions on this?

   It seems to come down to two parts though - does whoever owns the hardware
   have a right to read another another persons mail reqardless if that person
   still has access to the mail.

Finally someone in this long thread has chosen to comment on the ethical
issue, and has enough sense to know that the law and the economy do not
determine ethics.  People have been fired for opposing the monitoring of
email (as, I'm sure, people have been fired for refusing to monitor
paper inter-office mail).  You take your chances.  Civil liberties may
not be important to you, or you may be desperate to keep your job.
Nonetheless, if users have been given the impression, explicitly or
by implicit convention, that they are using an unmonitored channel of
communications, it seems unethical to make use of that channel's
incidental characteristics (e.g., backup copies) for any purpose other
than such communications.  Does this mean that government wiretapping,
and spying of all kinds, is unethical?  Yes, I think it does.  Here, law
(what a government will allow in the self-interest of the governors) and
ethics part company.

My opinions are my own.  It's pretty clear that no corporation or
agency, and certainly no politician, would approve this sort of thing.
--

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  Lee Story (lee at wang.com) Wang Laboratories, Inc.
     (Boston and New Hampshire AMC, and Merrimack Valley Paddlers)
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