Email World: A Private Realm? by Roben Farzad '98

THE ISSUES

* As an employee of a firm or student of a school providing me with an email account, can I extend my Constitutional right to privacy to the letters in my inbox and the archived letters already mailed? Should my email be treated like letters on a desk in the case of warranted police / FBI search? If so, what do we have to say about academic / disciplinary audits of our email, and employer productivity / misconduct checks? In short, should I carefully censor myself when using email?

*What about my email address? Like my phone number, should I have the right and power to keep it out of the hands of cyber junkmailers the way JD Salinger keeps his phone number and social security private? What about software companies like Lotus using my email address and other information as a piece to the profitable grand puzzle of a locator-demographics CD?

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> Even though an email user may very well get the impression that his password gives only him access to his email, and hitting "delete" would permanently expunge any record of a message (a la Oliver North), the provider can still (in most cases) furnish the user's institution with his private, seemingly-expunged messages.

> An institution can opt for one of 2 avenues of email policy:

  • 1) No specific blueprint of action; play each case by ear, on an ad hoc basis
  • 2) Formally declare and articulate an email access policy: "We in all / some / no cases reserve the right to spot-check your mail."

    * Rationalization often given for employer access: maintain efficiency, productivity, seek out improprieties and abuses as they would in monitoring phone calls.

    Indeed email HAS effectively replaced many phone transactions and conversations

    > Another argument: maintain the present employer access status quo, but employ cryptographic pseudonyms to prevent Orwellian dosssier society (Chaum).

    > Immediate and substantive legislation usually follows public outcry instead of technological strides. In the US today, the near exponentially-growing "Internet" is far ahead in priorities and abilities than a Congress decidedly outside the Information Age realm. In the meantime, we are forced to loosely interpret theoConstitution in its search & seizure and privacy provisions. But what about free speech and junk mail distribution?