The trouble with this is that employees often assume that their email conversations are personal in nature, and therefore fail to find out whether in fact this is actually the case. In general, "They tend to believe that their e-mails are private because they communicate outside the network or because their e-mail accounts are protected by a password. These misconceptions lull many employees into a false sense of security."
The result is that intelligence officers often relay information through emails which is sensitive, personal, or contrary to information that they provided their superiors. This, of course, may be grounds for termination in certain circumstances. The important fact is that emails should not be regarded as strictly personal in nature when send within the workplace. However, it should be the agency's responsibility to inform all intelligence officers of their emailing policies. If no strict policies are stated, each individual employee should enquire. Ultimately, this is because emailing has yet to be protected as a private conversation under many laws; until it is, emailing in the workplace should be conducted with caution.
Surveillance has also evolved as technologies have made themselves available to the demands of employers seeking to further their ends: "Examples include miniature cameras, 'smart' ID badges that can be used to track an employee's movements around a building, computerized analysis of the pattern of telephone use and the destination of calls, and various systems that monitor employees' computer transactions more or less in detail." These measures introduce a handful of difficulties for employees contesting that they represent...
After all, as long as the ID badges, for example, only monitor movements within the building, it is difficult to argue that an employer does not have the right to know the location of any particular employee. In short, lines of reasoning claiming that workplace surveillance qualifies as an invasion of person privacy usually have a difficult case to prove. In short, although the right to privacy is a fundamental right afforded to all citizens of the United States by the Constitution, intelligence agencies cannot function properly or maintain national security if virtually all personal privacy is surrendered. Yet, this privacy can only be surrendered voluntarily, and under contract, by intelligence officers. Civilians, on the other hand, must be protected by the law, and investigated only when probable cause is sufficient.
Works Cited
Nusraty, Tim and John Pascua. 2006. "E-Mail Privacy in the Workplace." Georgia State University. Available:
http://gsulaw.gsu.edu/lawand/papers/fa99/nusraty_pascua/.
Persson, Anders J. And Sven Ove Hansson. 2003. "Privacy at Work Ethical Criteria." Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 42, iss. 1.
Nusraty, Tim and John Pascua. 2006. "E-Mail Privacy in the Workplace." Georgia State University. Available:
http://gsulaw.gsu.edu/lawand/papers/fa99/nusraty_pascua/.
Nusraty.
Persson, Anders J. And Sven Ove Hansson. 2003. "Privacy at Work Ethical Criteria." Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 42, iss. 1. Page 2.
