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From: jimb@dopey.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.motss,news.misc
Subject: Re: News and Motss
Message-ID: <300@dopey.AMD.COM>
Date: Sat, 7-Mar-87 15:52:07 EST
Article-I.D.: dopey.300
Posted: Sat Mar  7 15:52:07 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Mar-87 16:33:10 EST
References: <1180@midas.TEK.COM>
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, Ca.
Lines: 67
Xref: utgpu soc.motss:1283 news.misc:207

in article <1180@midas.TEK.COM>, hankb@midas.TEK.COM (Hank Buurman) says:
> Xref: dopey soc.motss:835 news.misc:150
> 
> In article <2990@ihlpg.ATT.COM> ejbjr@ihlpg.ATT.COM (Branagan) writes:
>>
>>Assume even private email messages might be read by anyone.
> 
> Administrators: Is this a common practice?
> 
> Regardless of the argument put forward in your article, I consider e-mail
> to have the same privacy privilidges (sp?) as snail mail.

Regardless of what you consider, it doesn't work that way. A bad address
or mailer anywhere can result in your letter being sent to any number of
system administrator/postmasters. That's the way it works. Just like a
postcard that gets misaddressed will end up in the hands of a postal
worker. And e-mail, like a postcard, has no opaque external covering to
prevent observing the contents.

The right of privacy you mention for US mail only applies to
sealed mail. Postal departments are forbidden to open a sealed letter
or parcel without a search warrant.

e-mail cannot be considered sealed.

========================================================================

In addition, as regards the right of a system administrator to read
outgoing mail if he wants:

	1. US mail has certain rights of privacy guaranteed as a result
of the laws and constitution.

	2. Any similar private postal organization (UPS, MCI) is not bound
by the same requirements, but by a different set of civil rules.

	3. Any private internal mail system set up by a company for
communication between members of the company FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE COMPANY
are bound by neither of these. A company merely has to define 
intra-company mail as non-private, for business use only, and at that point
NO rules of privacy applies to that mail. Every bit of it belongs to the
company. PERIOD.

Now most companies have something called their 'corporate culture' which
defines the way the company treates things like intra-company mail use,
intra-company phone use, and e-mail. The company can change these definitions
at a stroke of a pen.

For instance, our corporate directives don't say a word about e-mail, probably
because they don't know it exists. They do refer to phone usage, and
intra-company mail usage.

Therefore, currently, the rules concerning e-mail here are purely the sort
of 'common law' the users have defined. They *expect* the mail to be private.
They know the system administrator can read anything on the system, they
*expect* him not to *SNOOP*.

This, therefore is a somewhat binding, common law definition of their rights
to the e-mail privacy. The company can change this policy by announcing
and documenting a new one. PERIOD. After such an announcement, the users
right to privacy on this company owned intra-company communication facility
will be exactly as defined by the rules of the company.
-- 
Room for growth:
+==== Jim Budler ==== Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ==== (408) 749-5806 ====+
| Compuserve: 72415,1200; Delphi: JIMBUDLER;  Usenet: jimb@amdcad.AMD.COM  |
+=== Disclaimer: My company wouldn't let ME speak for them, would they? ===+