Samantha, This is all dependent on what your WRITTEN E-MAIL POLICY is for the school district. It has been commonly accepted by the courts that a WRITTEN POLICY must be in effect to determine what management of any business (and the School District and School Board are a business in the eyes of the law) can and cannot do with e-mail.
Whatever the written policy is, it must apply EQUALLY to every employee, no matter what their position. It is also commonly held by the courts that e-mail, unless specifically spelled out in a policy manual, is the property of the RECIPIENT of the message. Between those rulings and the laws in the State of Michigan, it could be anything from an illegal search and seizure to wire tapping without a court order that the school Disctrict can be held responsible for. You need to retain the services of a QUALIFIED ATTORNEY - IMMEDIATELY and not second guess this issue. Good luck, Bruce Barnes ChicagoNetTech Inc -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bridges, Samantha Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 10:11 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [IMail Forum] Email and Laws. Punishment to Host Admin Hello Forum: Here is a question for anyone who might know about email and laws. I host email for 12 school districts here in Michigan. One of the Host Administrators, without a request, forwarded email from a teachers account to the Personnel Director for that district. This was done illegally and now the teachers union wants to press charges against the Admin. It was proven that the admin changed the forwarding on this teachers account. The changes were made over the Web and were logged in the W2xxxxxx.log. Using one IP address from a local cable ISP, the admin signed in as the teacher..looking in her preferences, inbox, and then ultimately changing the forward and then logging out. A couple of seconds later...still on the same IP, the admin logged in as themselves, checked mail and logged out. One IP logging in as two different accounts. The school district reprimanded and I believe fired the admin. However, the teacher and her union want to know if they can do anything? Can the teacher press charges? Can anyone lead me to an article or something to help with this? Thanks forum, I don't know who else to ask. Samantha Samantha Bridges Communications Technician Macomb Intermediate School District 44001 Garfield Road Clinton Township MI 48038-1100 (586) 228-3300 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.misd.net CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
