Cyberspace--a boon to freedom and liberty, right? Only there can people all over the world almost fully exercise a right to freely speak, associate, and access information for little more than the price of a couple meals a month. People on the Internet can read anything they want to and and type anything they want to. Can't they?
Unfortunately, the right to privacy is not as easy to guarantee. The issue of online privacy raises many more questions than answers: Can you be sure that the person you sent email To: is the only one reading it? They can't catch you downloading mp3 files, can they? Do they know whether you're reading Shakespeare or smut? How private are those ICQ chat sessions?
Privacy is definitely not a new concern. The framers of the Constitution built it into at least three of the Amendments -- the First granting the right "to be left alone," personal autonomy, the Fourth protecting "persons, houses, papers, and effects" from unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fifth giving the right "to remain silent" against self-incrimination.
Privacy online is a completely different matter, however. Being the ramshackle conglomeration of users that it is, the Internet has few unified governing bodies and even fewer established rules about privacy. Congress has passed various acts blocking this or that but basically everything on the Internet is as public and easy-to-read as skywriting.
Does this include email? Unfortunately, yes -- sometimes.
There are many ways email is handled on the Internet. The most popular (and what they use here) is mailboxes. Mailboxes (usually using a cryptic-sounding POP3 or SMTP protocol) aren't exactly boxes. Email sent to a mailbox is placed in a file on a central computer until the user reads it or transfers it elsewhere. As such, anyone with full access to the computer, and much determination, can read anyone else's email. Also, in some companies supervisors have access to their underlings' so-called private accounts. In addition, actual law only prevents the government and third parties from reading stored email in mailboxes—service providers also can access the messages.
However, all is not lost. Just because someone can read your email, doesn't mean someone will. And what do you have to hide, anyway?
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