Essay about Legal: Supreme Court of the United States and Correct Answer

Did you know that 58% of employers have fired workers for Internet and email misuse? And 48% justify employee video monitoring as an effort to “counter theft and violence?” According to the “2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey” of which 304 U.S. companies participated in, computer-monitoring results have led to the highest cause of employee termination. These companies used several tactics to eavesdrop on employees while claiming to be managing productivity or for security purposes. Some argue that surveillance is absolutely necessary to help protect and grow a business; others argue that employee and customer rights come first. However, companies that use such tactics often violate the privacy of individuals, exploit their private information and even punish those that do not conform to their standards.

5. Not making a reasonable accommodation for the disabilities of employees or denying employment opportunities to them because of the duty to accommodate their disabilities.

The departments of a company that are holding personal information are required to have adequate security measures in place. Those include technical measures (such as firewalls) and organisational measures (such as staff training).

There are many acts that help the employees within the workforce. The acts we will be discussing are as follows: Americans with Disabilities Act, Age Discrimination in Employment act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, Family Medical Leave Act, and Fair Labor Standards Act. We will also be discussing harassment, diversity, and grievances.

This view is upheld in many courts. One such case is the McLoren v. Microsoft, and Smyth v. Pillsbury. Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, explain, in the case of McLoren v. Microsoft, McLoren was part of a harassment investigation, and Microsoft broke into McLoren’s password protected personal e-mail folder to gather evidence. McLoren claimed, the password protected folder was like a personal locker, for personal items. The court rejected the argument, stating the e-mail was first received in the inbox of the e-mail provided by Microsoft and moving it to a personal folder is no exception (Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, 2006). In Smyth v. Pillsbury Company, Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, explain, Smyth sent unprofessional comments in an e-mail, from home to his supervisor. Pillsbury fired Smyth. The courts upheld this action, because the e-mail was retrieved from storage at the company owned servers (Nord, McCubbins, and J. Nord, 2006). With these examples of employees misusing company communication equipment, employers must monitor employees to avoid legal liability.

Employers do have the right to monitor what an employee is doing on the web to make sure the employee is being productive. The monitoring process can help employers and the whole company from theft or other harm begin released by employees. If employees believe that they

A company's privacy protection can limit the company's liability in many ways. By monitoring employees work and progression, a company can ensure that the employee is being productive. By monitoring an employee's productivity, the company can ensure that employee is performing all their job duties and performing them correctly. If performed incorrectly, the company may be held responsible. Companies can also monitor employees to ensure all employees are using the company's assets for company related reasons and not conducting any personal or illegal activities that can

The most common form of an invasion, to employee privacy rights is email. With the massive use of computers, email has become the biggest communication tool of choice in the workplace. The concern of employers has grown tremendously with the use of email in the workplace. Employers' concern is that, employees can waste time by sending and receiving email for personal use, and they may provide easy access for hackers to entry their computer system. Employers can monitor an employee computer activity to ensure productivity in the workplace. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2006) states, "Unfortunately, if an employee uses a company computer for email use, the employee employer has the right to review the contents of his or her email."

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse went over computer and workstation monitoring, email monitoring, telephone monitoring, mobile device monitoring, audio and video monitoring, GPS tracking, postal mail and social media monitoring. Employers are able to see what is on your screen, how much time you spend away from your computer and how many keystrokes per hour each employer does. Employers are able to discretely monitor employees with certain computer equipment. Employees may not know they are being monitored. Employers can review email content. Even though the message may have an option for marking an email as private, the company may still have access to the email. You should assume that your work emails are not private. Even though you may delete your emails, the company still has access to them also.

Mark J. Mcburney (Respondent) V. Nathaniel L Young, 569 US, 12–17. (2013) Argued February 20, 2013—Decided April 29, 2013 in United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

I. Employees have complete expectation of privacy since they can select their password for in-house and remote access of e-mails. II. A subpoena is required by the employer to read any e-mail that is clearly marked “confidential” by the employee. III. No expectation of privacy exists over an employer-owned computer system at work. IV. Statement by the employer that e-mails are confidential and privileged cannot be later used by an employer to defeat an employee’s claim of privacy

The second scenario is “After being disciplined for criticizing a customer in an email (sent from his personal email account on a company compute), Joe threatens to sue the company for invasion of privacy. In this case the company was right in disciplining Joe, because he not only used the company’s computer to possible damage a relationship with a customer, but he tried to cover it up by using his personal email address. The whole problem with this is that he used the company computer to access his personal email, which opens his personal email up to be monitored when utilizing the company’s network/wifi. Also, with his law suit, it has been proven that when utilizing the company owned material, you are subject to surveillance. A good example is in the text with Michael A. Smyth v. The Pillsbury Company. The judge found that the company had a write to access the email because during surveillance, there was proof of wrong doing that could potentially

As much as a company should not invade the rights of its employees , it has the equal responsibility of ensuring that its privacy and that of its employees are not divulged or used in any personal intent by other employees . According to Nyman (2005 , more companies are being held accountable by employees whose privacy was compromised in the workplace because of what is seen as a lack in its measures to ensure their privacy . Therefore , if employers are being held accountable for such situations , Nyman believes that they should be given enough power to protect themselves from such liabilities

Rebuttal: The leakage of all personal information - including address, passwords, credit cards, etc. - is feared by many who have invested their time on the internet. New technologies are making it easier for governments and corporations to learn the minutiae of our online activities. Corporations collect our information to sell to the highest bidder while an expanding surveillance apparatus and outdated privacy laws allow the government to monitor us like never before.

The issue of employers’ and employees’ rights has always brought controversy in most companies. Some rights are expressly known like the right of employees to get paid after working for the agreed period of time among others. However, there are those things done by the employers that most employees feel are too private. Employees feel that some things done by the employers are an intrusion to their privacy. This paper will discuss issues on whether the employer has a right to review the employees’ email. It will look at both the employers and the employees’ perspective and what the law says about the issue.