On 6/10/13, Rob McEwen <rob@invaluement.com> wrote:
On 6/9/2013 2:26 PM, Rob McEwen wrote: I should mention... there also "exceptions to the exceptions". While it is totally legal and ethical for a boss to snoop on his employee's e-mails (in a business), I would think it would be very unethical and
The organization as a legal entity has the legal and moral right, but that right does not necessarily flow to any individual responsible for the daily activities in that organization, or to any individual manager or officer. Only if done in a manner that is consistent with the organization's policies and internal controls: and employees have to be informed if their private email might be discovered and shared, and under what conditions, so they can understand that e-mail has a reduced expectation of privacy. If it wasn't explained to employees, and employees are allowed to use e-mail for personal purposes or very sensitive purposes; then under some circumstances, it is questionable if it is ethical. In the most extreme case; some organization could require a vote of the board to approve administrative snooping on a mailbox. Then a "boss" snooping without the proper authorization, where the org has such rules, could be subject to being sued by the organization. In some organization, there may be employees whose 1st line manager or "boss" has no right whatsoever to snoop on mail; the organization may have internal procedures that have to be followed, for an investigation or discovery of content from email, which might require a CEO signature, not just a request from some boss to "see what's in bob's inbox". In some organizations, there might be signatures from a legal department and a security department required. There might be highly sensitive information in some employee's mailbox that is legally privileged or subject to NDA, that could place the organization at risk, if improperly disclosed to a "boss" or "manager" that did not have the need to know or security clearance for the technical details, when the boss' role is administrative. There might be encrypted mailbox content requiring multiple departments to be involved to provide the backup keys to get the decrypted version.
illegal, for example, for the executive branch to snoop on a congressional aide's e-mail, to gain "intel" on political opponents....
Hopefully, the federal government had the foresight to require senior congressional reviews, before a request to discover a congressional aide's e-mail could be performed by a member of the executive branch... The government itself has a right to any employee's e-mail. That doesn't mean that right flows to individual people, or that senior members of the executive have a right to circumvent whatever procedures are established to ensure proper use.
even if that congressional aide were a government employee and the e-mail was a ".gov" address. But I'm not sure where those lines are drawn with regards to the US Federal Government.
-- Rob McEwen -- -JH