PRISM: NSA/FBI Internet data mining project

Mon Jun 10 06:53:28 UTC 2013

On 6/10/13, Rob McEwen <rob at invaluement.com> wrote:
> On 6/9/2013 2:26 PM, Rob McEwen wrote:
> I should mention... there also "exceptions to the exceptions". While it
> is totally legal and ethical for a boss to snoop on his employee's
> e-mails (in a business), I would think it would be very unethical and

The organization as a legal entity has the legal and moral right,  but
that right does not necessarily flow to any individual responsible for
the daily activities in that organization, or to any individual
manager or officer.

Only if done in a manner that is consistent with the organization's
policies and internal controls: and employees have to be informed if
their private email might be discovered and shared, and under what
conditions,  so they can understand that e-mail has a reduced
expectation of privacy.

If it wasn't explained to employees,  and employees are allowed to use
e-mail for personal purposes or very sensitive purposes;  then under
some circumstances, it is questionable if it is ethical.

In the most extreme case;  some organization could require a vote of
the board to approve administrative snooping on a mailbox.    Then a
"boss"  snooping without the proper authorization,  where the org has
such rules,  could be subject to being sued by the organization.

In some organization,  there may be employees whose 1st line manager
or "boss" has no right whatsoever to snoop on mail;   the organization
 may have internal procedures that have to be followed,  for an
investigation or discovery of content from email,  which might require
a CEO signature,   not just a request from some boss to "see what's in
bob's inbox".

In some organizations, there might be signatures from a legal
department and a security department required.    There might be
highly sensitive information in some employee's mailbox that is
legally privileged or subject to NDA,   that could place the
organization at risk, if improperly disclosed to a "boss"  or
"manager"  that did not have the need to know or security clearance
for the technical details,  when the boss' role is administrative.

There might be encrypted mailbox content requiring multiple
departments to be involved to provide the backup keys to get the
decrypted version.

> illegal, for example, for the executive branch to snoop on a
> congressional aide's e-mail, to gain "intel" on political opponents....

Hopefully,  the federal government had the foresight  to require
senior congressional reviews,  before  a request to discover a
congressional aide's e-mail  could be performed by a member of the
executive branch...

The government itself has a right to any employee's  e-mail.

That doesn't mean that right flows to individual people, or that
senior members of the executive have a right to circumvent whatever
procedures are established to ensure proper use.

> even if that congressional aide were a government employee and the
> e-mail was a ".gov" address. But I'm not sure where those lines are
> drawn with regards to the US Federal Government.

> --
> Rob McEwen
--
-JH