Can My University Monitor My Email?
Historically, on college campuses, there is a certain adversarial dynamic between the Associated Students (student government) and the University Administration/Cabinet. Along with this dynamic comes the realization that the University Administration/Cabinet carries power over the Associated Students, much like an employer to an employee. They can veto the AS budget if so desired or even not allow the AS to spend their budget or use University facilities. On this train of thought, I began thinking about how this situation applies to our technologically dependent CSUMB community. Does the University Administration/Cabinet of any school have the authority to check student's email accounts? It seems to be an easy question to look up the answer to and yet, the answer lies in the interpretation of many rules and regulations. Some of these have been recently established and others currently in legislation. The Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) I began my search in what better place to find newly passed laws, the Internet. In 1986, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) was passed. This is a patchwork of provisions
In the arena of systems of education, i.e. universities, Carl M. Kadie writes. "Ethically (and perhaps legally) email communications should have the same privacy protection as telephone calls. It would be unwise for any university employee to tape email communications without authorization from the university presidents, university legal counsel, and the academic freedom committee. According to Mike Godwin, legal services counsel for the Electronics Frontier Foundation (EFF), the US's ECPA could be reasonably construed to protect university email. This is also the reported opinion of the University of Michigan's lawyers. Also, the US' Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act gives students at all public and most private school some privacy rights."(2) This is the major differentiation between the workplace and educational system. Lance Rose writes in his treatise on online legal rights, Netlaw (Berkeley, CA: MbGraw Hill 1995): "Most lawyers agree that under current law, workers do not have privacy rights on in-house computer systems unless their employer gives them those rights."(4) Rose goes on to state that it is in the best interest of the employer and employee to define the email privacy issue with a set of regulations. A US government task force says that "Email monitoring of government employees of actual communication and communicators may impinge on the Constitutional rights of freedom of speech (1st Amendment), against unreasonable search and seizure (4th Amendment), and against self-incrimination (5th Amendment), as well as on the right to privacy, specifically as set forth in both the Privacy Act and the ECPA."(4) 3. The California State University 4CNet Acceptable Use Policy, California State University. Retrieved December 3, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.csu.net/documents/4cnet_policy.html. To bring this topic back to home, CSUMB is currently constructing their policy for responsible computing. As of now, they this document, and oth
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Approximate Word count = 1345
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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