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... rms of whether the person had an expectation of privacy in the situation which the state singles out for intrusion. The monitoring by the employer of employee conversations in lounges during work breaks would most assuredly be regarded as a monitoring of behaviors outside the employer's sphere of interest. The heightened expectation of privacy attached to oral conversations is recognized in legislation like the Federal Wiretap Act, which prohibits both private and public employers from intercepting and recording the "wire communications" of employees. It is the conversation which is protected. For instance, employers may use cameras to observe employees and to provide security.
But providing those cameras with audio capability could violate the Wiretap Act. This is consistent with employees who may tolerate surveillance of bursar windows or mail-rooms for security reasons, but draw the line on any attempt to record their conversations. This privacy of conversation or expression claim is commonly raised when employers sanction employees for violation of organizational policies or rules in their use of cybernetic communications networks. Users of these cybernetic networks are inclined to view the public message areas of computer bulletin boards as public forum in which they as "netizen's" can freely communicate. Commentators have characterized computer bulletin boards as "electronic soapboxes, " and the open access areas as fora equivalent to the streets, parks, and commons of an older America, and the open radio talk show lines of contemporary America.
These particular claims strain the concept of a violation of privacy since the employee communicators use public message areas which can involve exposure to an indefinite public. Whatever the semantic distinction between private and public, these cases represent the issue of permissible or non-permissible intrusion by the employer into employee activity, which the employee regards as none of the employer's business, hence private. This open marketplace of ideas model may work for the social domain of autonomous persons. However, Robert Post draws a sharp division between public and non-public spheres like the workplace where managerial control and social interdependence of employees and executive officers requires a maintenance of a proper work environment and where sexist, racist, harassing, defamatory, and insubordinate speech must not interfere with the functioning of the agency. After recognizing that persons in the workplace had some privacy rights based on the particular needs discussed, and after defining those rights in terms of commonly accepted expectations of being immune from intrusion, the courts balanced the privacy claims of employees against the legitimate claims of employers. Historically, the courts have permitted incursions into the Fourth Amendment rights of public employees if the intrusions are reasonable, if the employer has a compelling interest, and if the incursions are job-related.
Reasonableness is a standard that applies to the expectation of privacy on the part of the employee, the purpose of the intrusion, and the means used to effect the intrusion. Two important touchstones of reasonable policy include 1) prior notice with publication of rules and regulations to employees that surveillance may be conducted on their activity, and 2) steps to obtain consent from employees to be searched or eavesdropped. Such consent may be implicit in accepting employment, but even where consent may be obtained, it is to be limited to business related conversations, not personal ones. A public employer's best protection against suit is to implement an E-mail monitoring policy that provides a warning to employees that E-mail messages may be monitored. The Internet has been a very instrumental technology that has greatly advanced the ways in which we now do things such as; business, daily activities, shopping, scheduling appointments, and many other things. And with more and more people using the Internet, more and more information being passed over the Internet, more problems arise.
The Internet has been an advance in technology that has greatly increased the capacities of a computer. These new capacities have been the cause of some serious problems though. One very important trouble is the lack of privacy on the Internet. People pass much important information over the Internet and they expect it to be safe from others.
Information passed over the Internet can in fact be intercepted and read by other people. For many years, this has been happening, and it has always been a problem, but with more and more information being passed through, people want something to ensure their privacy. The government does not want to allow everyday people the privilege of computer security. Although they have tried to place laws on the uses of some methods of privacy, they have not been as successful as they had hoped. Privacy is important to people, governments and businesses, and finding a method to protect their information is also a concern. Employers are generally on firm ground for conducting surveillance on employees when a compelling interest is involved.
A compelling interest is indicated when the employer is reacting to, or attempting to prevent, employee behavior that is injurious to other employees, such as racist, sexist, harassing or obscene behavior. In U. S. v. Lampley, the Court affirmed Congress' compelling interest in protecting individuals from fear, abuse and annoyance when it upheld the constitutionality of 47 U. S.
C. 233, which makes the communication of obscene or harassing phone calls a federal crime. Employers have no less a responsibility. The responsibility is reinforced through anti-discrimination statutes like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which has been interpreted to prohibit direct harassment and creation of hostile environments in the workplace. The U.
S. Constitution gives substantial protection to privacy in the home, but not where Americans make a living. To make up for federal inadequacy, some states have enacted their own privacy statues. Federal law takes precedence, but where state laws provide greater protection, employers are usually subject to both. The map on the following page shows states that ban various activities, including paper-and-pencil honesty test, which have not been scientifically validated. No state gives strong privacy protection to workers using e-mail, voice mail or telephone, nor does any state prohibit intrusive psychological testing.
Unless or until national workplace laws can be passed, the maps illustrations are going to remain the same with state laws providing only spotty overall support for worker privacy.
Free research essays on topics related to: state laws, bulletin boards, e mail, private and public, privacy
Research essay sample on Private And Public Bulletin Boards
