Civil liberties of employees (Re: FYB_oss)

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 10:03 PM 5/12/96, John Young wrote:
>   5-12-96. NYPaper:
>
>   "Who's Reading Your E-Mail? Maybe the Boss. More Companies
>   Say Messages Are Their Property."
>
>   Reports on various spying policies and employee rights.
>   Quotes PRZ demurring: "You don't check your constitutional
>   rights at the door." Notes Apple's snooping not.
>

Actually, one _does_ check one's Constitutional rights "at the door" (of an
employer), and the confusion over this issue is pervasively destroying real
Constitutional rights.

For instance, if I hire someone, I can require him or her to wear a
uniform, to not wear blue jeans to work, to not smoke (or even to smoke, if
this is what the job involves), to take off his or her clothes, to tap
dance, to not say anything to my customers, and on and on. If the
government required these behaviors, this would be a legitimate issue, but
not if employers set these conditions as terms of continued employment.

If an employer says that all messages will be read by him, this is not a
violation of anyone's "civil liberties." (And, on a practical note,
companies are often held responsible for the messages emanating on company
time from employees, so there are actual reasons why such monitoring may be
necessary.)

An employee who dislikes the terms of his employment is of course free, in
our society, to leave.

The Constitution is about what the government can and cannot require, not
about what I as an employer can require. This point is frequently confusing
to people who, in my opinion, haven't thought about it. Thus, a "Hooters
girl" suddenly decides she doesn't like "displaying herself" to men and
announces that her civil liberties are being violated by being told to wear
skimpy outfits.

(I haven't read Zimmermann's comments in full, to get the full context, but
I doubt we'll agree on such things. His achievement with PGP was
considerable, but I know from first-hand experience that his political
views are very non-libertarian and are, in fact, counter to liberty.)

--Tim May



Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."