Submission + - In Case You Were Unsure: E-Mail is Not Private.
Brad Eleven writes: "Wal-Mart, the largest corporation on the planet, has indicated that it is so powerful that it believes that it can do whatever it wants in the name of its own bottom line, reputation, and other concerns exclusive to its own enterprise. It is alleged here that The Company That Sam Built found and paid for potentially incriminating email messages in order to discredit a fired executive. Apparently Wal-Mart doesn't want to lose the suit which Julie Roehm filed for compensation to which she believes she is entitled.
Corporate malfeasance is old news. Even discounting the cultural problem of Big Money paying goons to bend/break the law to get what it wants, this underscores the fallacy of the widely-held belief that one's personal email is private. At least not when powerful entities want to see it. You and I probably can't afford to dig this deeply into the electronic effluvium, but we also tend towards encrypting our private communications. The larger concern is that our privacy means nothing to the elite. Though somewhat protected in many parts of the world by law, this is another example of how corporate leaders presume that the world really is their oyster. If your email isn't protected from prying eyes, you might want to take an hour or so to get it that way. Or just don't discuss anything which could ever possibly be used against you in a court of law of any kind. And don't presume that deleting email makes any difference at all in this context. That is, it's not that Wal-Mart's pinkertons broke into Ms. Roehm's email store. They got it from her alleged lover's wife. By reminding her that they knew which church she attended, and that he hadn't yet received his $200K bonus.
What if it wasn't just the world's largest corporation that wanted the email? Ramifications of the US Patriot Act are left as an exercise of the reader. The perception of FUD on your part is optional."
Corporate malfeasance is old news. Even discounting the cultural problem of Big Money paying goons to bend/break the law to get what it wants, this underscores the fallacy of the widely-held belief that one's personal email is private. At least not when powerful entities want to see it. You and I probably can't afford to dig this deeply into the electronic effluvium, but we also tend towards encrypting our private communications. The larger concern is that our privacy means nothing to the elite. Though somewhat protected in many parts of the world by law, this is another example of how corporate leaders presume that the world really is their oyster. If your email isn't protected from prying eyes, you might want to take an hour or so to get it that way. Or just don't discuss anything which could ever possibly be used against you in a court of law of any kind. And don't presume that deleting email makes any difference at all in this context. That is, it's not that Wal-Mart's pinkertons broke into Ms. Roehm's email store. They got it from her alleged lover's wife. By reminding her that they knew which church she attended, and that he hadn't yet received his $200K bonus.
What if it wasn't just the world's largest corporation that wanted the email? Ramifications of the US Patriot Act are left as an exercise of the reader. The perception of FUD on your part is optional."
