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From: pdb@sei.cmu.edu (Patrick Barron)
Newsgroups: news.misc,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Foothead, Foothead, on the net/Who's the biggest liar yet?
Message-ID: <1059@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 20-Apr-87 13:45:14 EST
Article-I.D.: aw.1059
Posted: Mon Apr 20 13:45:14 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Apr-87 01:01:43 EST
References: <1128@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> <1065@epimass.UUCP> <5553@eddie.MIT.EDU> <4510@utah-cs.UUCP> <493@gouldsd.UUCP>
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Reply-To: pdb@sei.cmu.edu.UUCP (Pat Barron)
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In article <493@gouldsd.UUCP> mjranum@gouldsd.UUCP (Marcus J Ranum) writes:
>	What you are talking about here is a violation of Federal Law. Electronic
>mail is protected under the same protection as the US Mail, despite the speed
>difference !  It is legal for root to read a user's files, delete them, trash
>an account, or even edit a user's files, but electronic mail is protected.

Haven't we been through this before?  No, electronic mail is NOT protected
the same way US Mail is.  It's not even really "mail" as such.

If I own the disk it's written on, then I have a perfect right to read any-
thing on that disk, even electronic mail.  Whether or not it's the "right"
thing to do is an entirely different question - I think, in the situation Ed
cited, it was certainly a reasonable thing to do.

--Pat.