At 03:06 PM 4/6/01 -0400, Peter Kaulback wrote the following:
>I remember a couple years back here in Canada that one firm, I will not
>disclose, who went after some of it's employees who made some disparaging
>comments of their employer in a chat room. They believed they were
>anonymous but the employer had the chat room host disclose the names
>through the courts and disciplined it's offending workers. To what degree
>the discipline extended I'm unawares. I know some large firms who do have
>protocols for handling defamation of character, be it on the net,
>newspaper, or otherwise and they do from time to time flex their
>muscles. But for occasional flaming, it happens far too much to be
>pursued actively, though with the success of Carnivore from the FBI and
>the fears brought on by the Columbine shooting there is an increasingly
>high number of court cases surrounding the implications of scenarios,
>fictional or not. One Canadian student prepared a story which followed a
>storyline of one of America's best know horror authors, you likely know
>his work by now, for his high school class and he was arrested because of
>the content and what it's implications might be derived as. It wasn't an
>attack plan or strategy, merely an essay.
BEWARE - In the US, any threatening communication that crosses state lines
is a federal offense. Hence, the tough crackdown on any school shooting
threat whether they be stories, chat room talk, or anything else.
Also in the US it has been upheld by two California court cases, that use of
an "employer's" computer for anything other than work related activities can
be reason for termination, fines, jail terms and/or any combination thereof
depending upon the severity of the offense. Most corporations just terminate
the employee unless the activity also violates federal law (threats, child
porn, credit card fraud or theft, etc.)
Last year Dow Chemical company began firing employees who violated the
company's AUP (Acceptable Use Policy). There has been a long ongoing
brouhaha from this.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/24/dow.sex.firing.idg/
http://www.gcwf.com/articles/interest/interest_40.html
--
Gerry Boyd -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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