Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!rayssd!galaxia!dave
From: dave@galaxia.zone1.com (David H. Brierley)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Privacy of computer files...
Message-ID: <543@galaxia.zone1.com>
Date: 17 Nov 88 21:50:16 GMT
References: <183@gloom.UUCP> <1988Nov11.180920.21736@utzoo.uucp> <4702@rayssd.ray.com> <2003@sybase.sybase.com>
Reply-To: dave@galaxia.zone1.com (David H. Brierley)
Organization: Dave's Very Own Personal System
Lines: 35

In article <2003@sybase.sybase.com> cuccia@chaos.sybase.com (Nick Cuccia) writes:
>In article <4702@rayssd.ray.com> gmp@rayssd.RAY.COM (Gregory M. Paris) writes:
>>Given that courts in the US have upheld the "right" of schools to search
>>student lockers, even without cause, I suspect that they would rule similarly
>>in the case of sysadmins searching user files and directories.  
>
>The "right" of schools to search school lockers, to the best of my knowledge,
>exists only at the K-12 level, ...
>
>But this diverges from the real issue of "Who owns files in any given account
>on a given computer?"  Some places spell this out at the time that the account
>is granted: one of the clauses in the contract that students sign for accounts

The closest analogy I can think of to both of these issues, school lockers and
computer files, is the rights of landlords to inspect their property.  This has
been hashed out in court many times and the courts are on the side of the
landlords.  Most rental property is governed by leases that usually state that
the landlord has to *attempt* to ask permission to enter the property but if
those attempts are not successfull, or if the tenant is not cooperative, the
landlord may legally enter and inspect the property.  I suspect that the
landlord does not have the right to remove or destroy any property that belongs
to the tenant but he certainly has the right to notify the authorities of any
illegal activities and I believe he also has the right to immediately deny the
tenant any further access to the property if the terms of the lease are not
being adhered to (for example: if the tenant had broken holes in all of the
walls or otherwise damaged or abused the property).  Of course, the tenant
would then have the right to be allowed access to the property for the purpose
of removing any personal belongings.

Now, take the previous paragraph and substitute "user" for "tenant" and
substitute "computer owner" for "landlord".
-- 
David H. Brierley
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