At 11:22 PM 8/3/96 -0400, Rabid Wombat wrote:

What you publish as a use policy, and what you actively enforce do not have to be the same.

Unfortunately this is a problem in many companies. There are policies which are enforced to the letter, guidelines which are just suggestions, and fake-rules which are not even attempted to be enforced. The problem comes when the employee and employer can't distinguish them from each other. Personally I think I would approach it as the privacy we have with the eontents of our car's trunk. If an officer has probable cause to search the trunk then he can, otherwise he can't. It's not a perfect system but it does work better than other alternatives I can think of. Write into your policy: "Electronic mail may be monitored if there is sufficient reason to believe that it is being improperly used which includes, but is not limited to: mail to competitors, more than 20 recipients (spam), and incoming mail from questionable sources. If such monitored mail is encrypted the employee must provide a clear text version of the mail which is to be unencrypted under supervision to avoid substitutions. Any employee refusing to make available such mail will be ...." Just remember, as was said, once you make a policy it becomes precedence and will stick with you forever... longer if it's a bad one. Best Wishes Jim Jim Sewell - jims@tansoft.com Tantalus Incorporated - Key West, FL