From subhas@CS.WM.EDU Wed Jun 16 14:53:02 1993
To: adam@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu, rumman@CS.WM.EDU
Subject: usenet/email and litigation

(found from usenet)

From: naga@jtown.Eng.Sun.COM (Ashok Nagarajan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject:  USENET E-mails and Lawsuits  ------- Part 1 of 2
Date: 16 Jun 1993 03:14:57 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA

  Fafat had claimed that USENET material cannot be used as legal    
 evidence. I don't think it is true. Let me give a few cases in the
 Silicon Valley where USENET and personal e-mails have been used as
 legal evidences recently.

 1) An employee from a company I'd rather not name but which should    
    be obvious to any unsuspecting reader, recently fired an emplyoee
    for making repeated offensive postings to an X-rated bboard. The
    employee sued the company back and the case is in the courts. His
    postings to USENET are used as evidences in  company's defense. 

 2) An employee of Mentor Graphics in San Jose was fired because of
    an e-mail he sent to his friend at Hal Computers. This e-mail 
    contained certain program coding style which Mentor considered
    proprietary info. The fired employee sued the company but I believe is 
    certain to lose the case. Once again, the primary evidence against
    him is his e-mail. 

 3) Symantec recently lured a top executive from Borland International
    to its fold. This executive, on his very last day at Borland, sent
    several e-mails to his new boss at Symantec which contained several
    strategic info developed by this executive while at Borland. 
    Needless to say, after Borland found that out, both the executive
    and the CEO of Symantec were sued by Borland. Once again, the
    departed executive personal e-mails are at the center of controversy. 

  Some of the arguments in the defense of these accused have been that 
 the personal e-mails are protected by the First Amendment. But the companies
 have successfully argued that since the accused used the company's
equipments and softwares, even the private e-mails belong to the
company. And the jury seem to accept this argument.

In a recent survey of some of the best known companies in the US, more
than 30% of the companies questioned admitted to snooping employees
personal e-mails, voice-mails and private computer files at regular
intervals. This was published in the San Jose Mercury News just a few
weeks back. The number is bound only to go up in the future as e-mails
facility become available to more companies.

So in essence, if anybody thinks that USENET material and e-mails
can't be used as legal evidences, think again. It is just that until
now a precedent was not set simply because USENET and e-mails were
confined to a very few. But with both of them becoming more
accessible, a few initial lawsuits would change the ground rules quite
drastically.

By one estimate, USENET is accessible to more than 3 million all over
the world and this number is increasing at an exponential rate every
day. So if we have posters that offend sensibilities of a certain
race, religion or whatever, all it probably needs to take it to the
courts is a determined individual among the affected with "deep
pockets".