Date: 23 AUG 92 05:40:04 GMT
Newsgroups: vmsnet.networks.tcp-ip.multinet
X-Return-path: <info-multinet-relay@TGV.COM>
X-RFC822-From:     adelman (Kenneth Adelman) @ TGV.COM
From: adelman@TGV.COM
Subject:  Re: Postmasters and privacy
Organization: The INFO-MULTINET Community

> I don't know that this subject properly belongs on the Multinet
> list, but I'll try anyway. I am postmaster on my host (and by
> default on the whole of usgs.gov). Two questions about what a
> postmaster can/should do with regard to privacy issues:

> 1) In a government installation like mine, there is a strict
> rule that machines are to be used for government business only.
> This is likely codified in federal law, but I know not where.
> Similar restrictions likely also apply to commercial establishments.
> In such an environment, if a postmaster accidentally/deliberately
> reads the body of a mail message, could s/he properly be accused
> of invading 'personal privacy' ? (Who's sleeping with whom does
> not seem to be included in the category of government business,
> current political campaigns aside).

    The definitive answer to this (in the United States) is found in
the Federal Electronic Privacy Act. With the usual disclaimer of
not being a lawyer, that I've left my copy of the act at work, and
that if you're going to be reading electronic mail you should consult
with one first, my understanding is that reading mail "interception of
electronic communications" to enforce a policy or law (absent a
warrant) is not permitted, but that under some circumstances reading
mail for the purpose of debugging problems is permitted PROVIDED THAT
THE CONTENTS ARE NOT DISCLOSED, unless a law is found to be broken, in
which case the contents may be disclosed to the appropriate
authorities.

    More interestingly, as a carrier of electronic communications
you're immune from subpoena of any communication you have stored.
Disclosure requires either the sender's or intended recipient's
permission, or a subpoena directed at one of those two parties.

    Violation of the Act calls for severe criminal as well as civil
penalties.

> 2) On more than one occasion, _I_ have seen on this machine pieces
> of mail which could neither be sent to the destination nor returned
> to the sender. On investigation, the sender used some sort of word
> processing package to construct the body, so there were lines as
> long as 3000 characters. So I took the offending text into an editor
> and placed hard carriage returns in the proper places, so as to
> make the mail sendable. Did I invade the personal privacy of the
> sender/receiver in so doing ?

    The exception for debugging purposes is worded something odd like
"for checking line quality".  Correcting a message is clearly `more'
than checking line quality.  Also consider that it may have been
possible to correct the problem without reading the message -- in my
mail debugging days I wrote a program which left headers intact but
replaced the contents and "Subject" with an "X" for every uppercase
letter, an "x" for every lowercase, and a "0" for every digit.	With
such a program you could have debugged the problem and even written a
mechanical process to repair the mail without reading it.

							Ken
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