GEN:Email and privacy

[kdlinks <kdlinks@ICON.CO.ZA>]

 Hi to all
I was greeted with this interesting information in the newspaper IT
supplement of The Star
( Johannesburg South Africa).
"No Place To Hide In Digital Office"
I Quote:
  The phone doesn't only  ring,it can squeal on you, along with your
computer.
You can delete,hide,erase,scratch,wipe shred and obfuscate,but if the
office wants to
 find out whay you are doing in the modern digital age, it usually can.
From the electronic footprint left by your computer,telephones and fax,your
boss can
should he choose,recreate much of what you said did or wrote on any given
day, months
after the event.
The author goes on to say that the electronic trail specifically e-mail
although deleted at some stage live on in the computer hard drives,even if
the people who send them don't realise it.
For that reason, investigators are turning  more frequently to retrieved e-
mail as evidence in court proceedings.
Under US federal law, e-mail messages have the same protection as first
class letters or phone calls.
They cannot be intercepted in transmission without a court order unless
there is some evidence
of wrong doing.
The catch occurs when the messages are stored,at which point  they become
unprotected documents .
What worries me is I can't remember 3 or 4 months back what I deleted, and
what could be held against  me,as well as the fact that e-mails cut across
continents and borders.
Will the US law be applicable to all of us?
Finally although the web is public domain,I thought person to person
e-mails were private
and once deleted were gone forever!
I will think carefully in future if I know that Big Brother is watching!
What are your thoughts on this issue?

Sybil Finemel
Media Coordinator
King David High School
Johannesburg
South Africa
kdlinks@icon.co.za

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