With the development of affordable computer technology over the past two decades, coupled with the need for increased and faster communications, the American office place has experienced a significant metamorphosis. While it was once a luxury to have your own office phone extension, it is now common for workers to have voice mail, personal computers, e-mail and Internet connection. While these advances have aided productivity and business growth, they have also created new concerns over corporate security efforts and the privacy rights of employees.

As American workers generate billions of e-mails and phone calls every business day, employers are increasingly monitoring and cataloguing these and other employee communications. According to the American Management Association, 73.5 percent of major U.S. corporations record and monitor employee e-mails, computer files and phone conversations, as well as track Web sites workers visit on the Internet. These companies often perceive monitoring as the best means of limiting liability and increasing worker productivity. Companies vary on whether they inform employees of such tactics.

While the American Civil Liberties Union, numerous computer privacy groups and scores of employees condemn monitoring, arguing that it violates personal privacy, laws regarding workplace privacy indicate differently. Passed by Congress in 1986, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) gave employers the right to monitor electronic communications "in the ordinary course" of business. Public debate has grown over the ethics and legality employer monitoring. In October 1999, California Governor Gray Davis vetoed a state bill that would have prohibited companies from secretly monitoring employee communications. Other states are addressing similar pieces of legislation.

On One Hand...

Monitoring the electronic communications of employees violates their Constitutional right to privacy established by the Fourth Amendment. Such practices alienate workers, increase their stress levels and destroy company loyalty, all of which are detrimental to overall company performance and customer service. Electronic communications, especially of a private nature, are the property of individuals. The ECPA and several current state laws regarding worker privacy hand too much authority to employers and are extremely antiquated. The Internet and e-mail were barely in existence when the ECPA became law. New laws must be enacted to prohibit electronic monitoring and protect worker privacy.

On the Other Hand...

The legal right of employers to intercept the electronic communications of employees is invaluable to the security and success of countless companies and must be protected. Considering several recent lawsuits in which plaintiffs sued employers over inappropriate office communications, many containing racial or sexually offensive material, employers must be able to review employee communications to limit their liability. Monitoring employee e-mails and computer hard drives combats the constant risk of internal hacking and sabotage by disgruntled workers. Employees should be focused on company goals and customer needs when on company time, not e-mail and Web surfing.

• It is estimated that U.S. workers generate 2.8 billion e-mails daily.

• A recent study by the American Management Association found that 55 percent of companies use electronic devices and programs to prevent their employees from dialing prohibited phone numbers.

• In 1996, the Morgan Stanley brokerage firm was sued for $70 million by employees offended by e-mails containing racial humor that were sent through the firm's e-mail system.

• An estimated 38 percent of major companies review employee e-mails.

• Despite deleting an e-mail from your work computer, many company e-mail systems produce copies of all messages that pass through the system.

• The New York Times Company recently fired 23 employees for sending e-mails containing pornographic images.

• An estimated quarter of all major corporations have released employees for inappropriately using electronic office equipment.

U.S. News & World Report, eWEEK, American Management Association, USA Today, San Jose Mercury News