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From: tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown)
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: E-mail Privacy
Message-ID: <7797@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: 23 May 91 10:48:25 GMT
References: <15110@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Organization: University of Southampton, UK
Lines: 25

In <15110@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> conca@handel.cs.colostate.edu (michael vincen conca) writes:

>Yesterday, this employee was terminated.  He/she was allowed to gather
>their things and purge all of their personal files from the system.  Today,
>my boss asked if it would be possible to retrieve this employee's E-mail
>off of backup, find the memo, and print it out in case it was needed as 
>evidence in a possible court case.

>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?

I believe (in the UK at least) that an e-mail message has the same
legal status as a phone call, ie. none. 

But I might be wrong.

It certainly isn't ethical and would be most miffed if I knew people
were doing this to me! 

	Tim
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