This is pathetic. Apparently, someone anonomously posted a suggestion on a message board that employees participate in a “sick-out” in protest of lack of union contract progress.
NWA got a court to agree that they could search the home computer systems of several employees in an attempt to find the perp.
Krispy Original – The original SDMB bad boy
Not at all comfortable. This is scary, and outragious.
Gosh darn it! I think I screwed up the link.
Try this:
Krispy Original – The original SDMB bad boy
I don’t know KO, while I agree that it is a frightening thought, how is it different than them getting a search warrent to go through your house if you’ve been suspected of wrong-doing? Like it or not, if those gentlmen are guilty of what the airline is accusing them of, then the company has a legal right to request that any source of incriminating information be searched.
I’m not frightened. From what I read, there is a reasonable basis to assume that the employees helped create the sickout. It’s not unreasonble for Northwest to get permission from the court to conduct a search to get proof.
What’s the problem? Employees should be able to hide behind anonymity and incite illegal actions?
I dunno, an anonymous post to a message board suggesting that people might call in sick gives the court and the employer the right to search the personal computers of 43 employees?
Does an anomymous tip that someone in your neighborhood is growing refer in their basement give the government the right to search the basement of everyone on your block?
Does an anomymous post to a message board suggesting that we start a tax revolt give the government the right to search the PC of everyone posting on the message board?
Krispy Original – The original SDMB bad boy
I think I should declare the current government to be out of line, and in need of a sick out. I also think that we should all revolt and declare war against the standing government for making us pawns in its internal battles.
Com’n get me, I dare ya.
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. "
Jonathan Swift
Good point, K.O. – one anonymous tip hardly sounds like Probable Cause to search 21 sets of privately-held data.
I know that the case law surrounding what qualifies as “probable cause” is enormous. Any search-and-seizure experts here know whether there would be sufficient probable cause in a case like this?
I’ve also got to wonder if the same judge would be as cooperative in giving the union access to management correspondence based upon an assertion by the union of union-busting comments in corporate memos?
Krispy Original – The original SDMB bad boy
I don’t know much about union issues, but is it ILLEGAL to stage a sick-out, or just against company/union policy?
If it’s illegal, why did company-hired forensics experts have to conduct the search? Shouldn’t the police have been involved?
I think companies in general are stepping further and further over the line of what is our personal life and what is company business. My company just dictated that we are no longer allowed to speak about “controversial subjects” with our fellow employees while at work. !
…or how about this more appropriate analogy:
Someone makes an anonymous post on a message board claiming that management is emailing one another from their home computers concerning illegal union-busting tactics…
…does the court allow the search of the home computers of all company management?
…once you open this can, where does it end?
Krispy Original – The original SDMB bad boy
Well another question is how do we know that some management person did not do this to try to get something to use against the union.
I know a guy whose wife is a flight attendant for NWA, and she said there were some people who were really sick that were made to come in due to this supposed sickout.
Also, what about a company that has gotten its flight attendants to go for years without a contract and even longer without a raise? What power do the flight attendants have?
Jeffery
I’m with Krispy on this one. This sucks.
Although I do have to say “boo-fucking-hoo” for the poor misunderstood, underpaid flight attendants. My cousin just finished her B.A. and instead of applying for the teaching job she’s always planned for, she’s training to be a flight attendant. Her father and mother, a college president and lifelong elemantary school teacher respectively, are mortified. But the sad fact is that she can make almost TWICE the salary as a flying waitress as she can taking a teaching job. That’s absurd.
No one came to get me. Chickens!
SBC and PAcific Bell are the worst though. They actually told people, “you are an employee of SBC 24/7- fail to meet our standards or what we feel is “correct” and you are gone”.
They also fired one guy for what he said about his job in a PERSONAL email he sent and received answer to at his home. They found out about it, because they overheard his phone call on a pay phone outside the front of the office.
This is sad
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. "
Jonathan Swift
This isn’t a search promoted by criminal concerns, as I understand it. It’s more like the serving of a subpoena duces tecum, a discovery device in civil litigation.
The agent of the search was Northwest, not the cops.
If I sue you, alleging that you fired me because you discovered I was Hispanic, I am entitled to conduct discovery. Among other things, that may mean I can subpoena your documents to uncover evidence supporting my claim.
I can’t just go on a fishing expedition. I have to show a nexus between my claim and the documents I want you to produce.
I can ask you questions in a deposition, under oath. Those questions don’t even have to elicit admissible evidence. They must, however, be reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.
Now, I don’t know what the nexus was here between Northwest’s cause of action and the employees whose computers were searched. But Northwest obviously submitted some evidence to the judge who authorized the search. And that evidence was compelling enough to convince the judge to authorize the search.
So what’s the problem?
Bricker said (about a discovery device):
That’s a very important part of the problem. It’s not like just the email files were being asked for, or just text documents relating to the “sick-out”. The entire hard drive was copied. This wholesale pirating of private data would seem to argue against the limitations on searches you mention:
and:
The whole procedure seems overbroad and calculated to intimidate rather than produce evidence - along the lines of seizing a suspect’s microwave because it has a chip in it.
If this is the criteria for computer searches, expect it to be applies extremely unevenly. Imagine AMD charging Intel with unfair competitive practices and getting a court order to make copies of all Intel’s machines, including R&D, marketing, financial, etc. Think that’d fly?
(brief tangent)
It’s a really crappy job, jane. Flying gets old really quick. So does sleeping in hotels and babysitting irate sheep.
Not saying they don’t get paid enough, just that it’s not “waitressing.”
-andros-
I said:
Tominator said:
A better analogy might be the subpoena of a diary or a personal calendar/day-timer book. The courts have held that those are acceptable for discovery purposes.
Now, if you have other information there, things that you don’t want the other side to see, and that are not relevant to the cause of action, you may ask that the judge review them in camera – that is, look at them himself and only turn over to the other side redacted copies.
The judge may also appoint a special master, especially in cases where the job of extracting the data is non-trivial, such as hard drives. The master answers not to either party, but is neutral and answers only to the judge. He may be charged with reviewing the entire contents of the hard drive and turning over only that information relevant and responsive to the discovery order.
If the discovery order were broad enough in scope to encompass all those, and it withstood the inevitable objections from Intel, and the inevitable interlocutory appeal from the judge’s decision… then yes, sure, that would fly.
I have no opinion on whether the situation described in the OP was or was not an unjustified invasion of privacy. But I will note that for people concerned about data privacy, there are many tools available to help. Encryption filesystems have been around for eons, and PGP is also freely available. There are many issues that can easily compromise data security, but it is available in most circumstances to those who make the effort.
Basically, if you care about data privacy, (1) use strong encryption, and (2) understand the technology you’re using well enough to avoid security holes.
–
peas on earth
Andros : It may very well be a crappy job, but they certainly aren’t about to go on welfare. They chose to be flight attendants, they can choose not to be flight attendants anytime they please. I’ll admit I was being facetious by referring to them as “flying waitresses”. However, my point remains the same. It’s damn near criminal that this job pays twice what we as a nation are willing to pay the people we trust with our next generation (all day long, too - not just from Boston to Seattle).
I don’t think that you or anyone else is going to say that being a flight atendant is a more stressful, difficult or important job than an educator, or should warant a higher salary. All I’m saying is that they could be doing a lot worse job for a lot less money.