Xref: utzoo comp.admin.policy:129 comp.unix.admin:2018 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!bu.edu!wang!elf!lee From: lee@wang.com (Lee Story) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: E-mail Privacy Message-ID: Date: 28 May 91 20:48:40 GMT References: <15110@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <7129@cactus.org> Sender: news@wang.com Distribution: na Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc. Lines: 37 In-Reply-To: statham@cactus.org's message of 24 May 91 16:11:53 GMT In article <7129@cactus.org> statham@cactus.org (Perry L. Statham) writes: In article <15110@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> conca@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. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lee Story (lee@wang.com) Wang Laboratories, Inc. (Boston and New Hampshire AMC, and Merrimack Valley Paddlers) ------------------------------------------------------------------------