>Alan Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Placing CLIENT/LAWYER privilege on the correspondence does nothing. First
>of all, in order for them to read that message, they already have had to
>be reading his mail. Second of all, it assumes that the phrase actually
>means something to whoever is prying into their mail.
>
>Sounds like someone not to hire for anything sensitive. (Or anything you
>don't want the whole world to know about.)
Legally (at least in the US), it actual does mean something to put the
CLIENT/LAWYER privilege disclaimer on the message regardless of who
reads it. Unless the lawyer or the client discloses the privileged
communication, it is still privileged and cannot be used in a court
regardless of who intercepts and reads it. Remember, intercepting
a private email message is a crime in the US. Other countries have
different policies, so sending email overseas is more problematic when
it comes to privacy. Of course sending an encrypted email message to
France or Russia is illegal as well. So things get even more
complicated internationally.
My point was not to say the message could not be intercepted and read,
but rather a risk asessment in this particular circumstance shows this
practice to be no more risky than sending the correspondence via postal
mail which lawyers do all the time. Reading email messages saved
in /var/mail is similar to a postal worker or a courier unsealing an
envelope and reading the correspondence. So does sending correspondence
via cleartext email increase the risk of interception? Probably not.
Does it reduce the cost and speed of correspondence? Certainly. So from
a business practices standpoint it makes sense to use email even for
lawyers communicating with their clients.
BTW, if I ever caught a sysadmin reading other peoples mailboxes without
permission they would be terminated on the spot.
Smoot Carl-Mitchell
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