ethics and gov't never seem to work out

Interesting situation.

I just got a call about something going on in the local gov't here from a reporter.

In a small county in South GA the branches of local government are in a situation. One branch has an IT office and the others do not. So, the one branch setup email for the other two.

Now it is come to light that this branch has been spying on the others and reading through the incoming email. The reporter called me to ask about the legality of the situation. While certainly it's ethically reprehensible, I still think it's perfectly legal.

Does anyone have thoughts or resources regarding net legality???

H.

 

That's a pretty grey area. If it was one company, and IT/management was "monitoring" the email, it would be perfectly legal.

Separate goverment branches are not usually treated as "one company", and routine email MAY be considered private. How those branches are organized and separated may impact how it plays out, and if their email is being snooped BROADLY by the branch that set it up it may be considered illegal anyway. Normall such snooping is held strictly to IT and management that has responsibility for content, not spread around and used by others. An argument can be made that the branch hosting the email is responsible for what content goes through their system, but if that email is being shared/used for more than just monitoring, I suspect they've overstepped legality.

 

Alot of email accounts are only privvy to a single person,if each employee has his\her own account I believe its a federal offence for someone else to look into the email inbox even if the account and password is already filled in,its different if drafts of emails are saved as files and passed between computer ads anyone using the computer can read them legally I believe

EDIT GT kinda of said it all really

 

Since one IT office is responsible for managing all e-mail then it is probable that they will be held responsible for all the information transmitted on or from their systems. In respect of managing e-mails, I would expect that there is an e-mail policy to ensure that the system is used for business purposes and hence monitoring that comes with it. http://www.email-policy.com/

An example regarding monitoring across US states can be found here: http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/412

However, if the e-mails are external I would expect that the information is transmitted unencrypted and also in the public domain and I would expect that those system could be "monitoring" traffic as well.

Finally, isn't local government accountable to the people it serves (i.e., public) and thus information it holds is available to them under, say, Freedom of Information?

 

i dont know what to say about the e-mails but i dont think its right to read anyone elses e-mail with out them telling you that you can.

what i wanted to know is what part of south GA? is it Pulaski, dodge, wilcox?

 

Yep, same account would probably be legal. Different accounts, probably not. As said, one would think they would have separate and encrypted accounts.

The lack of security in some Govt. agencies and Depts. never ceases to appal me.

 

There's a lot of talk, about creating legislation to ensure email privacy. However, it's just talk. The stumbling block for the lawyers, appears to be "reasonable assumption of privacy" which is the cornerstone of most of the world's "anti-wiretapping" legislations. In Canada, you must insist on email privacy in order for the courts to rule in your favour when you make a law suit against a third party who willfully reads your email. Apparently, if the first words of your email say "If this message was not addressed to you, do not read it. It is a private message and if you read it, you will violate anti-wiretapping legislation and you will be prosecuted." This works in Canada, and employers who wish to monitor the emails of their employees are not well pleased. There may be similar strategies available in other jurisdictions. By insisting on privacy in the first paragraph, and indicating the penalty for non-compliance, you have set the groundwork for even a first year law clerk to file suit under existing "anti-wiretapping" legislation.

 

Good to know about the anti-wiretapping!

I'll have to keep that in mind. Altho, I usually keep it in mind that emails aren't private. At my last work it was routinely noted that our emails were monitored.

But I definitely think that type of thing should be restricted to the IT staff and your supervisor. Not something where legislative branches are spying on another. That's just terrible.

Oh and N5638J, none of the towns you mentioned. It's a small town around Savannah. If you read the paper, I believe the news may break soon.

Thanks for the websites Maxwell, I may write my next column on this topic since it's so unclear.

 

Yeah, go ask the ex CEO of HP and see what she thinks.

 

Of course, under the Patriot Act, and the so-called 'War on Terror', the Govt. now has a Caveat on all privacy, meaning that privacy acts become irrelevant, if the Govt. can show "probable cause", and they can if they wish, wether real or fabricated. (Applies to U.S., U.K. and Aust., anyway).

 

......or Dubya.

Jack

 

Sadly, this is true in Canada as well. In Canada's case, there doesn't seem to be any legislation that forbids Government Police agencies (RCMP, CSIS), from accessing your email, or your snail mail. They can do so, with or without a court sanctioned subpoena for documents. They won't be able to prosecute with that intel, but usually it will uncover criminal activity, for which they can get legitimate search and seizure orders. In the US, they have the "fruit of the poisoned tree" legal concept, which makes, such a blatant use of power less likely. That's when they invoke the Patriot Act.