Is e-mail private?

[Donna Baumbach 407-823-2056 <BAUMBAD@MAIL.FIRN.EDU>]

I think I know a LITTLE about the answer to the question posed here about
e-mail and privacy that related to a court cae in Florida.  What I know
comes, interestingly enough, from a e-mail message forwarded from someone
in Maine to our university president to our dean to us.  It was a note from
someone on a campus in Maine who had read an article in the local paper
about a recent court case in which the Tampa Tribune had sued the local
state university to gain access to administrative e-mail documents,
claiming they were public documents.  The court found in favor of the
newspaper, and the article said that the paper plans to monitor the e-mail
of all campus administrators.

This is in direct conflict to a statement issued some time ago from our
computer center which indicated that e-mail was to be treated as a phone
call...it is private, but if someone overhears it...

The message from Maine also predicted this would be the death of e-mail.  I
can't imagine that!  I can imagine that EVERYONE will be more careful about
what they write--and that may not be bad!

Donna Baumbach
University of Central Florida
College of Education
baumbad@mail.firn.edu