E-mail: public or private?

[allen]

interesting doc Andrew.  I have always assumed my e-mail was about
as private as a postcard.  more private than posting on a bulletin 
board and less private than a letter.  
users of internet need to adjust their expectations to fit the medium
i think...witness recent flap re. MS hotmail.
thanks again Andrew
allen


On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Andrew Higgins wrote:

> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:22:44 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Andrew Higgins <bb156 at scn.org>
> To: scn at scn.org
> Subject: E-mail: public or private?
> 
> 
> X-No-Archive: Yes
>    
>    E-mail: public or private?
>    
>    Friday, August 27, 1999 --  (BOSTON AP) - It used to be any written
>    correspondence with a government official was considered a matter of
>    public record that the public had a right to review.
>    
>    But what about e-mail? Seven Boston city councilors are fighting
>    vigorously to protect e-mail correspondence from constituents that one
>    newspaper group says should be fully open for review.
>    
>    Legal experts say they have news for the councilors: Courts around the
>    country are siding with the public's right to know.
>    
>    During the Bush Administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled e-mails
>    in the White House system were government documents. Since then, the
>    courts have pretty consistently considered e-mail documents as public
>    records, Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig, who specializes in
>    Internet law, said Thursday.
>    
>    But as Internet use has exploded, e-spats have erupted about e-mails
>    throughout the commonwealth and the country.
>    
>    In 1995, the Norfolk County District Attorney ordered three members of
>    the Foxboro School Committee to make paper copies of e-mails they sent
>    before a controversial vote.
>    
>    In November, a complaint was lodged against the town of Ashland
>    because selectmen wrote e-mails about a controversial apartment
>    complex.
>    
>    Winchester school board members won't exchange e-mails on anything but
>    mundane topics ever since a resident filed a complaint against them.
>    
>    In Texas, Gov. George W. Bush won't e-mail for fear incoming e-mail
>    might become the subject of an open records request.
>    
>    City Councilor Stephen Murphy sides with Bush.
>    
>    He has defied a state order to hand over e-mail correspondence from
>    his constituents to Linda Rosencrance, a reporter for the weekly
>    Boston TAB.
>    
>    Rosencrance had asked eight months ago for the councilors' e-mails
>    about a controversial real estate development along South Boston's
>    industrial waterfront.
>    
>    Murphy, along with six of 13 councilors, refused, even after the
>    state's supervisor of public records told them to hand the e-mails
>    over.
>    
>    ``This isn't about me, this isn't about the Boston TAB, it's about
>    private citizens and their ability to access public information,''
>    said Rosencrance, who said she can barely remember what the e-mails
>    she did get were about.
>    
>    City Councilor Thomas Keane, who handed over to Rosencrance his e-mail
>    correspondence, agrees.
>    
>    ``The real problem of what's going on is you have a bunch of
>    politicians who would like to keep secret what they're doing rather
>    than expose them to the light of day,'' Keane said. ``It's a terrible
>    thing. It creates suspicion where there shouldn't be.''
>    
>    But Murphy believes a requirement to turn over his private
>    correspondence with constituents - electronic and otherwise - would
>    chill his constituents' constitutional right to free speech.
>    
>    ``I still have a right to close my door and have a meeting in my
>    office and keep Linda Rosencrance in the hallway,'' Murphy said.
>    
>    His constituents agree with him, he said.
>    
>    Lessig believes people have different expectations about what happens
>    to a document than they do a phone call. And, he said, ``It's just as
>    abusive to record telephone calls and to turn them over as it is to
>    turn over e-mails.''
>    
>    Today, the secretary of state was to ask the attorney general to
>    enforce the order to turn over the e-mails.
>    
>    ``They don't have a problem with our office,'' said Jack McCarthy,
>    spokesman for the secretary of state's office. ``They have a problem
>    with the law.''
> 
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