Breaking into the employee’s G mail account is a bit much I think. Of course if he was accessing the account with company equipment then it falls into more of a grey area I suppose.
I’m sure Boeing has a policy stating individuals who accept employment with them \\

Business - no matter how large or how small - does not have any right whatsoever to spy on an individual that is not on “company time” without a court order or a warrent. It is a business for goodness sake, not the overseeer of all things in an employee life. To condone such behavior is unthinkable. Are the predictions of the Orwell’s and Assimov’s of a world governed by self appointed CEO God wannabes going to become a reality? The Boeing person that ordered the spying on the employee should first be sued for invasion and second sent to jail for harrassment.

What about in cases of Worker’s Compensation where an individual has feigned an injury to collect. Is it wrong for a company to protect it’s interests with a P-I to photograph someone with a supposed hurt back playing golf, and lifting heavy stuff at their home?
How is that different from what Boeing has done?

Employers do have the right to protect their interests, as we do as individuals. Ethical business pratice would suggest that an employer notify all employees up-front about any policies related to the use of equipment, tools, or services, inclusive of e-mail and internet use, and any provision that allows for the monitoring of such use, as permitted by law. A larger concern impacting the work environment is the general lack of trust in staff at all levels of the organization.

There is still a gray area here, just like a matter of security for the country, IPR and other stuff are proprieitary and the begining of an investigation will be a stake out. Maybe the punishment for misuse for vendetta on an employee should be stiffer. The pitfalls of technology is its misuse.

With the reference to PI investigation of employees, insurers are looking for public activity to prove fake Worker comp claims. So anything you do in the public eye is free to be photographed and witnessed. However, PIs should not be allowed to peek though windows, monitor e-mails, eavesdrop, or set up surveillance without proper judicial process. If you are Brittany Spears, you can’t claim invasion of privacy when you expose yourself to the public.

The Boeing case sounds similar to the H-P spying case. So why aren’t any Boeing employees being indicted?

Though this may seem to be a grey area to some, it probably shouldn\’t be. An employer has the right to write legal policies regarding correspondence that flows from employer-owned equipment, on employer\’s time, and over the Internet service provided by the employer. A policy may include the statement that the Internet should not be used for personal gain, and that employees consent to the employer monitoring and transcribing all such personal use. A person has the option of accepting employment from employers who write such policies. And if (s)he accepts employment, and signs an agreement form indicating acknowledgement, understanding, and agreement with corporate policies, then the discussion is over. However, spying on one\’s personal e-mail account definitely should only be done through legal means, by showing cause.

Do not skewer Boeing yet.
Many an employee has broken legitimate policy and then tried to gain leverage by leaking information to the press.
Remember the source, a disgruntled ex-employee.
Much more to learn here, and you cannot rely on the media to give you the full story.

Okay, what happened to the right of privacy? I understand that organizations have confidential and proprietary information, but this type of stalking is just too much. Furthermore, there is not one provision in the Patriot Act that covers this type of behavior by corporations, only the Federal Government.

As has been stated, this can be a very gray area indeed. Yes, when hired employees should be requested to read and sign that they have read a policy issued by the company deliniating all the parameters in which an employee may be monitored by the company, to include emails and telephone calls. Of course, employees should not be engaging in personal emails, or going to questionable sites and similar activities while on company time.
However, the aspect of trust/distrust in a company’s corporate culture should also be an ongoing concern to the entire company. A company that fosters employee loyalty will have many fewer problems concerning employees talking to the press, or engaging in non-company related activities while on the company time clock.
Insurance fraud has reached an all-time high, and so it is quite understandable that the company may have a private investigator, or request that its insurance company have a private investigator look into the activities (or lack thereof) of an employee who has filed a workman’s comp claim.
To help to prevent such claims, companies absolutely must make sure they properly train every employee in all needed safety measures and factors pursuant to a clean and safe working environment.
If a company is one which is dealing with the manufacture of goods and/or the providing of services that could possibly, however remotely, relate to issues concerning national security, such as a company like Boeing might, it is definitely imperative that all employees realize the seriousness of such matters and again, be required to read and sign a statement that they have read policy information regarding such issues. Such a policy could include a non-disclosure agreement on the part of employees, so as to reduce possible security risks.

If the employee’s Gmail account was accessed through company systems, then it is a no-brainer. This employee may have a legitimate complaint about business practices, but he is not protected as a whistleblower unless he went to the government, not the media. I am always disappointed if/when an inside employee has a legitimate call to whistleblow, but then ruins his credibility by going to the media or some other stunt. Of course a gov’t contractor making so much money on the war is going to be ruthless if necessary.

Here in Tennessee, telephone recording is acceptable for a two-party call, as long as one of the parties consents. The recording can be used as evidence in a State of Tennessee or local court.
I manage a taxi company here, and I like to record my calls. It is quite useful for defending the company over disputes and complaints.
Example:
We get a complaint that the call taker was rude, and hung up on the customer. Upon review, more often than not, the caller has directed insulting profanity directly to the call taker. The call taker subsequently hangs up the phone. We’re weird like that.

The sad issue about spying on employees speaks volumes about superiority of employers over employees. First let me say that I might want to agree that employers could ‘check out’ what their employees are doing from time to time, but quite frankly I would worry about the depth of the ‘checking out’ attitude. Ok, if I suspect that an employee is leaking information to the competition, how do I establish that claim? If the employee is silly enough to apply my devices in communicating with the opposition, and if I am certain that my devices (telephone, fax, email, etc) are deployed, should I not get a proof to back me up when I do kick him out of my firm? If I take this route it simply means that I have spied on him. Isn’t it so? But generally, is it humane to eavesdrop on any one’s conversation? Certainly not! This issue is in the grey arena honestly. On one hand you question the ethics/morality of spying/eavesdropping and on the other hand you as the employer are trying to protect your property. I think we should, as practitioners in the fields of human development sciences, begin to raise these kinds of discussions in order for us all to find better ways of dealing with them.
Wrapping up: Every employer should let every employee understand that there is a policy on using company infrastructure for their personal use. But come on, what about creating a welcoming environment for an employee? Why can’t an employee use company infrastructure to help him/herself during lunch time? Afterall he is part of the firm. Should he run out to a cafe for instance to send a mail? These are some of the issues we need to examine.
Again come to think of it, IT managers essentially monitor usage of IT facilities not neccesarily to eavesdrop but to make sure that bandwidths are not clogged.

If the employee has nothing to hide, what are they worried about? It seems the only people concerned about their rights being violated by the company watching them, should be those who have something to hide.

Well, I hate to mention this, but the computer employees are using at work, are owned by the company. Therefore, technically, everything an employee does on the computer is proprietary information for the company.

While most employees do send emails and use company computers for non-work related issues, as an HR Professional, I understand that because the company owns the computer, they have the right to \

This sounds too much like the HP Spy scandal. Congress passed laws to protect against this type of behavior since then. So my question is, is their going to be an government investigation or is the Boeing lobby too powerful for that? Attitudes at Boeing concerning their employee relations proves that unions will never go away and shouldn’t as long as this type of behavior is tolerated. I am not pro union but this guy would have never been fired in a union. HP’s actions caused the government to get involved. Boeing deserves the same treatment. Government should get involved and pass laws that define what a company can do, to many people are willing to push the gray areas.

It is possible that Boeing, being a government contractor, has been awarded classified projects. If awarded a government contract, the contractor is trusted with the government’s intellectual property (engineering data, etc) and are required to protect that information with measures beyond those in the commercial/private sector. They are charged with export regulations. Under those circumstances, with reasonable cause, a government contractor has the obligation to investigate. I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to answer why an investigation wasn’t performed and allowed trade secrets to fall into the wrong hands.

Corporate management more often than not will abuse even legitimate powers to intimidate and retaliate. If they think an employee is leaking classified material, the government should be notified immediately. True spies industrial or otherwise, are most often the employees management likes most, as these people work to allay the fears of management by brownnosing. Indeed America’s narcissistic management reinforces the scenerio, a trend matching the increase of corruption, including unwarranted compensation with the decrease in competence.

I recently had my privacy intruded on by the corporation that I worked for. I had my Myspace viewed by members of management in which I had voiced somethings to my friends about the corporation. The violation occurred due to the fact that personal Myspace pages are against company policy to view while at work. Therefore, they had no right to view my page especially since it was set to private. I think corporations are going beyond the law to get into the personal lives of the employers. I don’t care how much money you pay me, it does not buy my right to free speech when I am off the clock. Once I leave the office, you no longer have the right to control me.

Let’s put together a hypothetical situation here.
Let’s say that the employee knows the code to magicaly disarm the entire United States Military, rendering the nations defenses absolutely useless. As this person’s employer, you are responsible for ensuring that this information is kept secure. Then it comes to your attention that this person who holds the key to the nation’s defense system is talking to terrorists. What is your responsibility as that employer?
Do the rights of that individual override the importance of keeping that information secure?
In my humble opinion, that employer has a responsibility to the entire nation to use whatever means necessary to keep that information secure… and I do mean by ANY means necessary.

When you really get down to it - the employee used his work computer account and his insider’s work knowledge to do something that made the employer unhappy. For this, the punishment was the severance of the working relationship.
It isn’t like he lost his ability to make money, or to pursue other employement, or exercise his private rights in any way. If the company had fired him for expressing his own private opinions about something non-work-related on his own time on his own computer, I would argue otherwise. \