Is E-mail private correspondence in all cases, or are messages posted in “public” areas no more private than statements made at a city council meeting?
Each of the nation’s thousands of computer bulletin boards and dozens of online services has its own rules. The Prodigy online service allows journalists to quote from public messages without securing approval from those who posted them; the Well, a San Francisco board, prohibits reporters from republishing messages without permission. The standards on the Internet, the ever-expanding computer network of computer networks, are less clear. In one incident last August, a Yale professor who had received a letter bomb sent an E-mail note to friends about the incident. The note later showed up in the Washington Post after being posted on an electronic mailing list where it could be read by as many as 20,000 people. “I think of myself as a nice guy, but there were people who called me an online piranha,” says science reporter John Schwartz, who wrote the Post story after trying unsuccessfully to contact the professor by phone and E-mail. He says the professor told him after…
Related Questions
- Is E-mail private correspondence in all cases, or are messages posted in "public" areas no more private than statements made at a city council meeting?
- What is the Citys ability to regulate private and public educational facilities via the Zoning Ordinance?
- Are E-mail messages considered public records?
