🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <huh?>, jpglori@srv.PacBell.COM (John P. Gloria) writes:
|> >>>Question:  did the staff worker have the RIGHT to read Wang's email?
|> >
[...]
|> >
|> >It isn't a question of whether you have the _time_; the question is, do you
|> >have the _right_?
|> >
|> >Unless it's in the contract, how can the answer be anything but "NO!"?
|> >Why would it be in the contract?  Who would sign such a contract?
|> >
|> >-JTT
|> >
|> 
|> The ramifications on this particular case will certainly test an
|> individual's right to e-mail privacy vs the company's right to
|> access employee's accounts.  The paper did not elaborate on exactly
|> why the staff worker read the e-mail.  It appeared the worker, IMHO,
|> was snooping around without just cause. Of course, a company policy
|> could exist that gives them the right to peruse an account.  Afterall,
|> Wang held a high office, and there could be some messages that needed to 
|> be re-directed to his successor.  

I'm sorry, but there seem to be some confusion about the facts in your
original post.  Wang worked for Borland International.  He had an MCI
Mail account.  MCI is the electronic communications service provider.
An *MCI* staff worker was closing the account, not a Borland employee.
At least, that is what I read from your post:

> Apparently when Wang resigned, his MCI Mail account was closed.
> According to the paper, MCI Mail saves messages for five days and then
> deleted.  All these came to light when a staff worker was closing the
> account and "looked" into Wang's account and was suprised on the
> contents of the messages.  This started court orders to search
> offices/residences on both parties.

The MCI worker is part of the service provider and is explicitly exempt
from the prohibitions on reading another person's stored electronic
communications.  Unless I seriously misunderstand how MCI Mail works, I
wouldn't think that a Borland employee could close/look into another
person's MCI mail account.  If the mail messages were somehow stored on
a Borland system before they were sent out to/through MCI Mail
(although the original post seems to indicate something else), if that
Borland employee's duties are to maintain the mail accounts, then
he/she is still considered to be part of an electronic communications
service provider, because in this case, Borland is also a provider.
Thus, again, according to the ECPA, what the employee apparently did
was legal.  It doesn't have to be in any contract.  Given the
information we on the net have, I don't really think that we are in a
position to determine (or decide for ourselves) whether what the
person did was illegal or outside his/her "rights".


-- 
Joseph A. Watters, Jr.		jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet
Rice University
Houston, Texas