Xref: utzoo comp.admin.policy:91 comp.unix.admin:1967
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!vince
From: vince@bcsaic.UUCP (Vince Skahan)
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: E-mail Privacy
Message-ID: <47896@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 24 May 91 15:43:03 GMT
References: <15110@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace and Electronics - Seattle
Lines: 74

[...let me preface by saying the following are my personal
	opinions only and have no connection to Boeing...

    I also don't want to fan any flames, so please take a 
    Valium or something before you melt the keys down with
    an indignant response to anything below...it just an
    opinion, guys...]

It's so fun to hear the wanna-be lawyers spouting their
opinions (oh, why not...I wanna-be too :-) )

Whether the company, school, etc. has grounds to fire or
not gets determined in court maybe based on the available
evidence and should be a separate question.

It seems that the forgery-possibility issue is the big one
related to the possible court appearance in the feature.
All a lawyer has to do is say "hey...my guy never got it
so he never knew...you have a copy he signed to prove that
the contents were gone over with him?" and the co. has a 
problem related to the integrity of the e-mail message.

(speaking from company folklore and not as an employee or
representative of my employer, I hear my current employer
does everything in person on letterhead on paper for that 
reason and probably others like "ensuring the employee 
really knew their behavior was unacceptable and there were
risks...etc").

the fun part is the issue of "can a system manager go into
e-mail for info at any time?".  At a commercial company,
I believe the answer is "perhaps" with a leaning toward
"probably" if the circumstances and internal procedures make
it appropriate to do so.  

I also personally believe that snooping around anywhere
for the hell of it just because you have the system privs to
do so is both inappropriate and bordering on unethical.

[...no flame wars about "who are you to determine when the 
time is right to do so" please...each person's interpretation
is different.

also no flames about "but it doesn't matter what the 
company says, it's not right" because a company's handling 
of internal matters via procedure has an easy appeal 
procedure...sue the company for violating (insert legal 
right here) in their procedures...]

My *understanding* of the situation *here* is that everything
you create and the facilities you use to create them are
the property of the company and that they can basically do
what they wish (again, my understanding of the procedures
rather than my personal reading of them) within bounds.
There are explicit procedures related to what is an acceptable
(and unacceptable) use of company resources in general
and computing in particular with the possible penalties
for violating them spelled out. All employees have to abide
by the procedures or they won't be employees for too long.

And the answer is "no...there aren't any internal net.police
out there reading mail" or I'd have heard about it in 4+ years
of running systems and networks here.

(unless they're REAL good...  hey, maybe I should go through
 MY mail just to be safe and destroy the backup tapes...
yeah, that's the ticket...Ollie North might still be working
if he had done so, right ?)

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
                         Vince Skahan   
 vince@atc.boeing.com                  ...uw-beaver!bcsaic!vince
        	(lifelong Phillies fan...pity me)