Stored Email Not Protected by Law

dbrower writes: "A recent decision reported by law.com shows your email isn't protected hardly at all by the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA). In this case, an employer was free to root around archives of old mail to nail an employee. The court ruled that the protections of the ECPA may apply to the mail spool and the transmission, but not backup copies of your 'Sent' mail. Well, maybe not all that astonishing -- relying on law to protect you from the BOFH at work was never going to work, was it? The message seems to be: send potentially incriminating mail from accounts not under your boss's control." Other courts have come to much the same conclusion. Once your email stops moving, it isn't a violation of Federal law to read it (although other laws could be violated in the process of gaining access to it).

At every job I've had

[Zachary Kessin]

They have made it very clear that they have the right to read the email I get on my work email account and that that account is to be used for work related things.

Now if I send a few personal mails from it they don't care but for example if I break my leg and am out for 2 weeks they would have a real reason to login to my account and read any mail that is there. As far as I know no one has ever gone into my email for this or any other reason but they have the right to do so.

So if you have something you don't want your boss to see send it via your home email! You do not nessarily have a right to privacy at the office.

Court confirms old news

[tag]

A simple Google search [google.com] turned up a story [itworld.com] from four years ago. It doesn't address this issue directly, but the gist is the same.

Wait a second...

[PimpBot]

...where does this end?

AOL isn't my employer, but can they read my email? I'm using their services, and if I'm reading this right, they are w/in their right to read this...(I know they are technically capable of reading it anytime, but legally?)
--------------------------

Re:Right to Ownership

[radja]

And THEIR toilets, and THEIR webcams... ownership does NOT give you permission to spy on the people using it.

//rdj

Re:Right to Ownership

[www.sorehands.com]

You are wrong on both parts.

1) It pretty much renders irrelevant the limited protections we did have against reading other peoples' e-mail -- you can't "intercept" it, but you can read it from the hard drive after it has been sent on. And while this decision applies to a company reading e-mail sent from its own computers, I don't see what will keep ISP's from reading your mail...

The statute is there to keep people from reading the mail on the ISP's system (unless you use the ISP's system to read the mail after receipt -- hotmail). Or on the systems that relay the mail to the receiving ISP. If the employer is the ISP, it may confuse the issue.

2) The guy was basically fired for reporting his employer for possible violations of the law. If the court considered that at all, it's not in the news report -- but it should NEVER be legal to retaliate because someone called the cops...

Actually it is statutorily illegal to retaliate for a person asserting many of their rights. There is also a public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine. Under the NLRB rules, an employee is protected from retaliating when trying to unionize or other actions in improving workplace rules.

The write-up does not contain the courts ruling on the entire case, but only addresses the email issue. The court may still the email is not admissible because the checking of the email could have been an illegal act of retaliation. And, the checking of the email could be a seperate act of retaliation in itself.

he got screwed by Dubya's agenda

[Thu Anon Coward]

I think this decision was borderline. the judge is obviously a Republican like Dubya (in favor of big business). on the face of it, it looks to like Nationwide may have had the right to read the email but they most certainly did NOT have the right to tell him to stop his "inappropriate communications" with the state regulatory agency. at the very least, I believe he was being illegally persecuted by Nwide for having gone against their will. whistleblowers are apparently still not being protected by the full force of the law

PGP anyone?

[jariv]

an employer was free to root around archives of old mail to nail an employee.

Why people don't use encryptation? Is it really that hard to use?

Besides article says "Wiretap laws are violated, Brody said, only when an e-mail is intercepted from "intermediate storage" or "back-up protection storage" -- both of which automatically occur during the course of transmission -- or if the e-mail is viewed before the intended recipient has a chance to open it." like if you throw away opened letter it's not protected like unopened one, right? Where's the problem?

--

Don't use company's equipment for personal at all

[satch89450]

It may sound stupid, but the trend through four different Administrations (of the US Presidency) has been that employers have a right to anything on their networks, their equipment, and their building. So remember that anything on the company-purchased Palm, laptop, or desktop is (at least in a legal perspective) open to the boss.

DON'T use the company hardware/network/infrastructure for anything personal. DON'T accept a notebook or Palm from the company -- buy your own, and transfer your company stuff to company equipment on a regular basis.

That way, you avoid getting burned by workplace snooping.

Re:Don't use company's equipment for personal at a

[agentZ]

But this wasn't for personal use! The guy was trying to communicate information about the companies' business practices to other people because they might have been breaking the law. While we could argue whether or not that's an official 'business' use, it's certainly not something completely unrelated.

And let's think here. If I was going to call the federal regulators to report my company, I probably wouldn't do it from my office because somebody might overhear me, the same way I wouldn't send e-mail from my office for the same reason. Yes, it takes more effort for somebody to 'overhear' an e-mail, but it's the same principle.

Nothing to do with Dubya, puh-leez

[JohnTheFisherman]

Yeah, I know, Dunya's the root of all evil and all that, but this really has nothing to do with him, despite what Al Gore may tell you. Did you even read the decision or the article?

From Yahoo: Nationwide's retrieval of Fraser's e-mail from the Nationwide file server may in fact be ethically 'questionable' ... but it is not legally actionable under the ECPA...

So it's some big evil Republican conspiracy to allow companies to use their logs of their employees use of their email system that they stored on their servers. How dare they. It's their damned system, their email, they own it, they own the messages, they have the liability for it... what's the problem, and how on earth does this have anything to do with Dubya? Oh yeah, this idiot was a 'whistleblower,' or someone who basically hated the company he worked for and used their assets to try and fight them and pass legislation to give him 'tenure.' What a noble cause.

Re:Right to Ownership

[markmoss]

There are two scary aspects to this decision:

1) It pretty much renders irrelevant the limited protections we did have against reading other peoples' e-mail -- you can't "intercept" it, but you can read it from the hard drive after it has been sent on. And while this decision applies to a company reading e-mail sent from its own computers, I don't see what will keep ISP's from reading your mail...

2) The guy was basically fired for reporting his employer for possible violations of the law. If the court considered that at all, it's not in the news report -- but it should NEVER be legal to retaliate because someone called the cops...

Right to Ownership

[Vess V.]

Employers are people, too. They have the right to snoop however much they please through THEIR computers, on THEIR networks. If someone who works there doesn't want want the e-mail he writes read, then he shouldn't be using that e-mail system.