Privacy Issues in the Community College Workplace

Second, the Wiretap Act does not apply where a party to the electronic communication has consented to the interception. Thus, an employer who gives employees notice that their electronic communications are subject to monitoring, and has obtained each employee’s written consent to monitoring through a signed acknowledgment of the employer’s computer and electronic communications policy, has greatly insulated itself against potential liability.

Watkins v. L. M. Berry Co. The employer had a policy of monitoring sales calls as part of its employee training program. 417 The court held that because of the company policy, the employer could monitor business calls without violating the Act. Briggs v. American Air Filter Co. Inc. 418 An employer was held not to have violated the Federal Wiretapping Laws by intercepting an employee’s phone call who was disclosing confidential business information to a competitor. Epps v. St. Mary’s Hospital of Athens 419 The employer was held not to have violated the law when she intercepted an interoffice phone conversation between two employees who were making scurrilous and disparaging remarks about fellow employees. Bohach v. City of Reno 420 Police officers claimed violations of the Fourth Amendment and wiretap statutes and sought to halt their Department’s investigation into their possible misuse of the computerized paging system. The court held that the police officers did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their use of the computerized paging system and that the Department could access their electronic messages. The court stated that all the messages were recorded and stored, not because anyone was “tapping” the system, but simply because that was an integral part of the technology which stored messages in the central computer. Further, the Department had notified all users that their messages would be “logged on the network” and that certain types of messages were banned from the system. United States v. Simons 421 This case involved an employee’s use of the Internet. Mark Simons was employed as an electrical engineer within the Foreign Bureau of Information Services (“FBIS”) which is a part of the CIA. Simons had access to both a computer system, owned and operated by the CIA, and to the Internet. The CIA had an employee who managed the computer network for FBIS and who monitored the Internet traffic. The CIA conducted a search of which web sites were being frequented from their computer network and determined that Mark Simons was frequenting pornographic sites and that he had downloaded 1,000 documents that were pornographic in nature.

Privacy Issues in the Community College Workplace ©2021 (c) Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 136