Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: IZZYAS1@mvs.oac.ucla.edu (Andy Jacobson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Is Employer Monitoring of Operators Legal? Message-ID: <16246@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 22 Jan 91 05:14:00 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 45 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 43, Message 5 of 12 It seems that GTE California Inc., in their infinite wisdom, have decided to give notice of sorts about monitoring of conversations between the public and their customer reps. On page 1A (that is the first page folks) of their phone books can be found a peculiar small print type notice at the bottom of the page that reads as follows: NOTICE CONCERNING MONITORING For training and quality control purposes, a small number of telephone calls between company employees and customers are monitored without notice to the customer or the employee, by supervisory personnel. No recording of the call is made. CALLS BETWEEN CUSTOMERS ARE NOT MONITORED FOR THIS PURPOSE, or for any purpose without the use of an automatic tone warning, except when required by law enforcement and national defense agencies, pursuant to law and under legal safeguards. If you have any questions concerning monitoring, please contact your business office. ---------- I don't know if this constitutes legal notice about monitoring of some sort, but I assume that if GTE can do so in California, than anyone else can too. The weird thing is that the grammar used implies that their could be some "training or quality control (purpose)" to monitoring customers private conversations. What, I might carry on lousy phone conversations? Is that what they're implying? Huh?! Aside from the legal issues, I feel that this notice may have some chilling effect on telephone use, as it indicates that not only can the police monitor (I assume for criminal investigations), but also national defense agencies. I had no idea that national defense could be used as a justification to bug someone's phone outside of the scope of simple law enforcement. As we all well know, "National Defense" is a common justification for all sorts of investigations into constitutionally protected legal activities, political and otherwise. I get the impression that GTE California Inc. considers that by this notice they have given fair warning that your conversation may not be your own if some national security type agency has an interest in you. And if you are reading this who might you be? A computer or telecommunications user, expert or manager? Perhaps. Andy Jacobson or