[Newspoetry] ethical question

[Bill Wendling]

Also sprach William Gillespie:
} i think my boss read my email while i was out of town. i'm going to
} confront her about it tomorrow. what do you guys think? i'm happy to
} provide more detail, but i'm wondering whether i have a right to be
} angry.
} 
I, personally, would be very upset. The issue is still open to a lot of
debate, however. If this occurred on a University machine (i.e., your
e-mail was on that machine and you weren't telenetted into some other
machine), then your boss can semi-legitimately lay claim to acting
ethically. It's their machine, they should be able to do whatever.
However, they don't normally tap phone lines (it's illegal to do so
unless there's an indication that it's being tapped to the person calling
in. I.e., police have a beeping sound on the phone to indicate that, yes,
it is being taped).

Beyond the legality of it, I think that it's a gross invasion of privacy.
You may have a lot of personal e-mail in that account (and I don't think
the Uni prohibits e-mail for personal use). It would be similar to
someone reading your diary or looking through your checkbook if you just
happened to leave it at work one day, IMHO.

Perhaps asking why she did it, stating that you are rather upset with
what you find to be an invasion of privacy, reguardless of current laws,
would be a good way to confront her.

I believe that http://www.slashdot.org/ had a discussion on this very
point, though I didn't read all of the posts on it.

This sucks...:-( Big brother is watching, apparently...

-- 
|| Bill Wendling			wendling at ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu