Is ths legal?... (fwd)

[Jay Holovacs]

On Sun, 17 Dec 1995, Declan B. McCullagh wrote:

> Exactly. If Oklahoma University is private, it can establish and enforce
> policies that would be unconstitutional at public schools. Those 
> policies become part of the contract and a student must abide by them, 
> except when they are administered arbitrarily and capriciously. At a
> public universities, students probably would have more freedom to 
> challenge this policy.  

Think about this principle in light of the current political climate
toward "privatization." Moves to privatize schools, prisons, even police
forces in a few communities. Sounds like a good way around all those
<pesky> constitutional protections. 

> A recent article from the school's student newspaper says: > 
> "In the third part, the policy states that the university reserves the
> right of access to user e-mail... 

It seems to me that there is some legal status to email established by 
Congress in the late '80s, especially that which comes in from outside 
with 'some expectation' of privacy. I've got to rummage around for the 
details however.

 Jay Holovacs <holovacs at ios.com>
PGP Key fingerprint =  AC 29 C8 7A E4 2D 07 27  AE CA 99 4A F6 59 87 90 
 (KEY id 1024/80E4AA05) email for key