A proposal submitted by the US Committee on Automation and
Technology (CAT) is causing a stir amongst the judiciary. The
proposal would allow for unlimited monitoring of e-mail and other
internet activity of judicial employees including judges
themselves. This monitoring may even be carried out by third
parties not affiliated with a given federal jurisdiction.
In an recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Judge Kozinski
spoke out strongly against the proposals. Judge Kozinski likened
the monitoring of court employees to “the way we treat prison
inmates”. He added: “like most judges, I had assumed that keeping
case deliberations confidential was a bedrock principle of our
judicial system. But under the proposed policy, every federal judge
will have to agree that court communications can be monitored and
recorded if some court administrator thinks he has a good enough
reason for doing so.”
It will be interesting to see whether this outcry will affect
judges’ views on future cases concerning employee surveillance.
Until now, US judges have generally favoured increased monitoring
of workers’ internet activities.
For example, a federal judge in Philadelphia dismissed a case
concerning an employee who claimed his privacy had been invaded
after his employer fired him as a result of an e-mail he had sent
to one of his supervisors. An ex-employee of the Pillsbury Company
brought the case against his employer because he had been assured
that all e-mails would remain privileged communication. The court
ruled that the assurances were meaningless and that an employee
should have no reasonable expectation of privacy in his
workplace.
