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Northwest Searches Employees' Home Computers
J.t.Qbe writes "The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Northwest Airlines has begun searching home computers belonging to some of its employees for e-mail evidence that the employees helped organize a 'sickout' over New Year's. Scary stuff. Still eager to take that 'free PC' from your employer?" The best quote is from a corporate lawyer who redefines commercial speech to be speech about a corporation rather than speech by one: "Business speech is not subject to the same protections as political speech," said John Roberts, a Minneapolis attorney who specializes in cyberlaw. "You can't say whatever you want about a company."
Update: 02/09 20:41 by michael : Some slashdot readers are not reading the story before commenting. The computers in question are the personally-owned machines of their employees. The company is fighting the union in court, and obtained a court order to search the personal property of these people who are not even union officials.
Are you one of the computer users that feels "powerful and excited" when using a computer?
OH OH I AM I AM
Man, everytime I sit down at this keyboard I get some serious mahogany!!!! I'm gonna tear my pants with this one.
... and you're now shifting your argument, BTW.
Since you've pretty much been defeated on the "should be able to search" front, you're now trying to silently switch your argument to the "are able to search" front. The answer to that is pretty much unquestionably "yes", but you've still got a point to rebut while making the case for your previous argument.
Seems that the web site's still got traffic, unless they changed their minds midstream this afternoon, they're still on about it. Worse, they already have disk images of at least one person's computers.
These are there home computers, not there work ones.
... not like that's gonna draw alot of applause around here ;)
Dude, lay off the nudies, and you won't have this problem.
That's why Slashdot is such a good idea! We are protected to some extent if we identify ourselves as Anonymous Coward. This way the truth about what's really going on inside companies can come out.
Sure when you read slashdot posts you have to sift the chaff from the wheat. But, it's worth it to finally get to the truth, no matter how damaging it may be to a company. Afterall, who wants to work for a bad company.
Nope. They gave those folks computers to take home and use. They may have required them to take them home. One nice thing about this country is people aren't allowed to "give away" their consitutional rights. Just because they accepted(or submitted to) the take-home-computer plan doesn't mean they no longer have a right to privacy. If this were true, comapnies could require employees to take home all sorts of intrusive
And if you're using StegFS, about all they might be able to show is... Well, that you've got StegFS support. Woohoo. And I'm pretty sure it's illegal to say "tell us where the secret directory that might not exist at all containing all your incriminating documents is."
haha
Nope. They gave those folks computers to take
home and use. They may have required them to take
them home.
One nice thing about this country is people
aren't allowed to "give away" their consitutional
rights. Just because they accepted(or submitted to)
the take-home-computer plan doesn't mean they no longer have
a right to privacy.
If the computers were at work and the messages
submitted from there, it'd be a different story. What the people do at home and off the clock is outside of the realm of the corps.
NorthworstDK
Thank you.
Rick Moen *IS* poo.
POO!
Ban Rick Moen.
As to the potential evil of meganationals, show me their armies, their police, their courts and their jails, and then I'll worry.
To give only the most recent example, see what happened in Norway? Theirs are the same ones that you think belong to the state.
They don't find this god awful color scheme!
READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE YOU DIP SHIT! They are searching personal computers.
/.
Maybe you should go back to Kindergarten and work on your comprehension skills before running your dumbass mouth on
The whole Y2K thing was complete bullshit, and now they want to punish people for not sacrificing their good time for The Company? If I worked for one of these companies, I would organize a "walkout."
First post
AMLoR ownz.
And when I get angry, Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset. And when Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people die!!!
Red Hat Release 6.1 (Cartman)
:(
Kernel 2.2.12-10 in an i586
localhost login:
Investigator I don't understand. Where is the icon that I can click to read your email
Thank you for your insight. The original poster had some good meat to his post, you have ... an unsubstantiated refutation!
I can see what the original poster means; it seems more and more like corporations these days are being granted the ability to do whatever they wish wrt to their employees (I end up working 80 hour weeks), this being the latest step. I don't think we're at a feudal system yet -- though I'd say this certainly shows it to be within imagination.
Now, please substantiate your statement.
I have one thing to say. Securely wipe the hard drive and let them have the box....
I work for a real company. I didn't sign anything that said, "This is our equipment that we are letting you use, don't ever be fooled into thinking that you can't be monitored" or anything similar.
74k3 w0rd, 4C, y0u h4v3 633n n071c3d 6y th3 m0d3r4t0rz, 4nd w1ll 63 3l1m1n4t3d.
Script kiddie V. 0.43.
Don't fight the moderators: You will only be buried under the trolls. You will Assimilate. All Hail Torvalds! All Hail Linux! Send the microsoft people to the camp!
Linux Nazis? I'll never say either way.
(I'm afraid for my box, and my life note: I love moderation, moderation is good, moderators are next to gods.)
but it looks like NWA (Northwest Arrogance?)
Nimbuses With Attitude
I guess their pilots just hung out a little longer at the airport bar when the flight attendants sicked out..
They can have the police serve me with a search warrant or they can agree to my terms. I'm sure that I can dream up terms under which I would part with my computer. They would certainly include a written agreement in advance that they would sign an apology to me when they failed to find they evidence they were looking for. It would also include prior acknowledgement that everything on the computer that could not be identified unambiguously as company property was mine. They would wipe every computer on which they looked at it. And the first idiot looking at my computer who didn't understand that he wasn't looking at a Linux box would be fired for incompetence.
Being the nice guy I am I wrote another book last month that is online for free:
Cryptographic software solutions and how to use them.
It is available at: http://www.securitypo rtal.com/research/cryptodocs/basic-book/
Chapter 8 - Encrypting email in Linux, BSD, and other Unices
Chapter 9 - Encrypting files and drives in Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000
Chapter 10 - Encrypting files and drives in Linux, BSD, and other Unices
And so on and so forth, you get the idea.
Kurt Seifried - Senior Analyst
http://www.securityportal.com/
http://www.cryptoarchive.net/
http://www.seifried.org/
Your right to privacy in your own home is significantly different than your right to privacy at work.
Make it interesting... write your own file system. NOT NTFS not EXT2 not fat32...your own.... SMILE WHILE SOMEBODY TRYS TO READ IT!!!!
I'm sorry, but until you provide me with proof, I refuse to believe that those arresting policemen had MPAA badges on their shoulders.
That's fine, because the badges are totally unnecessary.
Sounds more like a corrupt Norwegian government selling out to the highest bidder.
Isn't this really the same thing?
Somebody in power will always be corruptible in any sort of system (if you've got a better idea that prevents this, let me know). The problem is that the current system allows this to be exploited so that the corporations (the groups with money) can use the government as a tool. The point is that somebody was able to bid high enough, and there was nothing to stop the bid from going through.
Sure, there is something going wrong on both the government side and the corporation side, but this is still largely irrelevant - the MPAA was still able to use the Norwegian police as its own. And I think being able to use them is what matters, not an abstract concept of "ownership" that may or may not reflect who actually has control.
Who's more evil, the junkie or the pusher?
You can draw the analogy either way in this case, so this would seem largely irrelevant.
Do stuff like taking the boot ROMs out of the airplanes while they're on the ground so they can't get off the ground (Something mean, rotten, disruptive, but not really dangerous). It's only fair, you-take-my-data-I-take-yours.
you said: "computers are just as fair game as your answering machine"... but with a digital answering machine all I need to do is push the "clear msgs" button. Hmmm A good argument for using RAM DISKS instead of hard disks for important info... Just fick the powerswitch and pull the backup battery and .... "I am sorry but we had a power glitch and all data was lost. Yes I know we could have used a harddrive but they are just too unreliable and slow..."...
They can't stop me!
Northwest is horrible. They have the worst planes and the worst service of any airline in the United States. Especially in Minneapolis where they have a strangle hold on the airport and charge a ludicris amount to any other airline that services the area keeping their competition's prices through the roof so they can gouge the consumer (Remind anyone of a certain Redmond based company?). They should be the last ones to begin complaining about something not being fair.
In short, Northwest is a terrible corporation. And this incident just goes to prove it.
BTW, does anyone know if computer passwords and encryption keys are protected by the fifth ammendment? I don't want these bozos looking through my files.
I expect the search to be extremely quick. Copy the data to tape and give me back my machine. That should take an hour or so. After that, my lawyer starts getting reall pushy. I also expect a complete record of who had access to my private data. It all carries my implied copyright. Keeping copies of anything irrelevant to the case will certainly be grounds for a lawsuit. Oh, and if anything private is leaked from that data, I can make a case against the people who conducted the search, even if they weren't the one's who leaked it.
With lots of disgruntled employees, I wouldn't want to be one of the guys conducting the search. They could find that they have very little privacy any more without a single illegal act being committed. For example, they could find their names posted some place public.
If this were a crime then it would not be Northwest doing the investigation. This is civil suit between Northwest and the Teamsters. This is a dicovery motion, sanctioned by the court to search the HOME computers of employees. These are not computers provided by the company. These are not computers that enable them to work from home. Guess what, these individuals are not personally being sued.
This is a privacy issue. That you do not believe it is shows that the educational system has produced another sheep. One day you may be middle management. Keep up the good work.
Oh, please.
So you would use the same governments bought by the corps to fight the corps with? Crazy! Sort of like summoning demons to perform an excorcism with.
Sometimes you have to go through the system to beat the system, and in this case, nobody has come up with a better idea so far. Do you have one?
A nitpick!?! The feudal lord WAS THE STATE! He had the power of summary EXECUTION! He threw into the gibbet any serf that QUIT! Don't give me any bullshit that your boss has anywhere near the power over you that a feudal lord would. That's just delusional.
Stop it with the straw man arguments, please. Your company can't do these because the current system is dichotomous: the democratic public system, and, as the original poster would argue, the feudal private one. The public system would appear to be the one in control, but the private system actually exerts significant influence over it.
Also, you're arguing a quantitative difference here. It may be a less extreme form of feudalism, but it's still feudalism.
I guess you too have a "fact filter"
Please review the following topics:
1) Civil vs Criminal Law
2) Discovery motions
3) Individual privacy protections defined by case law.
4) Does the us constitution guarantee privacy. [no]
Also, you'll find that alot of people here do not think coroporations are evil. Many do recognize that a corporate agenda may be completely askew from personal agendas and thus easily defined as 'evil'.
Privacy protection will be the next amendment to the constitution, unfortunatly we are about 15-20 years away from that, and a lot of people will need to be trampled before anyone takes notice. Maybe, with luck, it could be you!
Let's face it-- money spooks humanity. Increasingly, this love of money is making American corporatism more obnoxious than an endearing insurance commercial. Capitalist sickies. People in it for the cars, houses and stocks and planes....could crash in a huge freeway fireball of modernity. It'd do some good. Companies...Yeah they sell stuff... 90% of which most people don't really need. Yeah we got to get up in the morning and make a dollah...ho hum. But if one of these company lawyers or spokespeople (companies really are just a collection of greedy and sometimes nice people) ever tells me I can't call him a certain name. Then I'll speak with my fists. They make the message simple enough when you got to fight the BS. Gotta remain anonymous... I'm still in school.
WTF?
/. isn't free enough to condem a company for wrong doing? God forbid we say anything negative about the great corporate mobs that make this country rich.
DOWN WITH THE MAN!!!!
http://japanese.asian -hotel.com/cumshots/natalie/natalie.html
nuff said
These people, sheesh...they need to live like a handicapped person for awhile. Maybe it would give them some humility and decency. How about I give his kid a free school notebook and then have teachers examine it when he comes to school? Too bad, your kid said a joke about Miss Perkins-- he's out of here-- we'll upgrade when he get's to highschool-- give him an ethernet connection. This guy obviously could agree with that. Like he could agree to a vacation in N. Korea-- it is a beautiful and proud country-- but the thinking of the people living there is just insane.
NWA has done similar things in the past, a couple years ago some employees had set up a company chat room and had taken to bashing a couple other employees, NWA found them and fired them. Before that some graduates from my school were flown down to Minneapolis for an interview, after the interview they were all hanging around in the hotel lobby talking about it, one mentioned how bad her interviewer was. Later they found out there was a northwest employee hanging out in the lobby listening. So I guess invading personal privacy isn't anything new to NWA. I remember a story about them calling people early in the morning before an interview, acting like a lost tourist with a bad accent looking for directions just as a test too.
It's not only people with military service that could vote. It's people with FEDERAL service that could vote. Federal service meant you might wind up being an infantryman or a janitor. The important point was that you demonstrate a commitment to society through honorable FEDERAL service.
Money grubbin' dick pickin' pointy headed' suit sucker. Bend over my knee...the belts a comin' Daddy's got to teach you how to treat others. You join a team doesn't mean you can just go out and have your way with people now does it? Now, it don't. Now come're boy.
Actually, I'm almost shocked that I would be suggesting this, because under any other circumstances, I despise government with a passion. I don't think, as a matter of general principle, that a government should get involved in the affairs of any of its citizens. So in general cases, the laws protecting citizens against "unreasonable search and seizure" are good things, and must be protected at all times. BUT ..
Am I the only one who does not think it would be a bad thing to strip these rights away from members of labor unions? Whether you like them or not, you have to admit that labor unions basically amount to legalized bribery, blackmail, and prostitution. For years labor unions have been thumbing their noses at the civil rights of corporations. They have cost corporations billions of dollars in money wasted on completely superfluous things, such as making sure that working conditions live up to "safety standards." You and I know that these safety standards are nothing more than invention of the litigious liberals that are in bed with the trial lawyers. But apparently the corporations and the Supreme Court of this great land are oblivious to this fact.
Many unions and groups of unions, such as the AFL-CIO, don't even attempt to hide the fact that they are run by organized crime. The union dues paid by members can buy lots of drugs, guns, and political power. The ties between the Mafia and liberal politicians are well-documented. Therefore it should not be surprising that the leftist establishment in this country and the criminal underworld are working together to prop up the labor unions to forward their common goal of socialism, and eventually, communism. That's what they want, and they don't try to hide it. Equality and "rights" for "workers?" Sickening Marxist nonsense! This is America, and we don't put up with that type of left-wing pinko claptrap here.
Ever since organized labor conspired with the Democratic Party and the Mafia to have President Reagan killed by Gambino family foot soldier John Hinckley, I have come to one conclusion: Unions are evil, and therefore, their members are also evil by association. I, for one, would find it endlessly amusing if the government would thumb its nose at the labor unions and their members. They've got it coming. What was the intent of posting this story on Slashdot? To make me weep and cry for the violated rights of these "poor" union members? Well, guess what, Slashdot: I'm not taking the bait, and neither is any real American. We know where our loyalties lie, and they most certainly do not lie with the labor unions.
In order to take my computer they would have to enter my home by stepping over my dead body.
hehe, I know it's not real (yet!) but who knows what might happen if we're not wary?
If we make a verbal agreement that I would protect you and keep you safe if you take a ride in my car with me driving and then suddenly, I just happen to drive off a cliff and we plummet 100 feet--- then maybe in those few remaining moments, I'll listen to something you have to say about ownership... because in a few seconds you wouldn't have anything not even your life and it would be all over for both of us. But retching about what's lawful for "conkinies" uhhhhh....give it a deep sleep since we don't have time to consider the agreement do we? I'll sign an agreement next time.
Hey let's bomb Yugolavia. They're foreigners and don't have rights under American law. Lots of innocent blood goes a long way. Remeber when the bombs killed children there. Better than thug orthodox christians killing them. Same goes for Northwest. Sure they are crappy but they can't do this. Civil or criminal? How about International, it could go up to the U.N. where justice is meted out on a purely human level.
Hey, let's just log every comment any employee says onto a database somewhere. Could it be done with a MS inspired speech to text engine that runs over ASP 3.0-- that remotely wakes on Lan and streams compressed .ASF files into a SQL7 server? I'm sure we could dig up dirt on somebody. Datamine for libel-- a great opportunity. A new goldmine for companies barely making it with a truck loads of unhappy employees. Of course we all know who runs the database. I wish corporate tools would get melted.
This is your boss. Big business really isn't all that bad, you know? We're all just trying to make it any way we can, and, yeah, a few toes are going to get stepped on in the process. A few logs might get looked at, a few connections might be tapped, a few people might be put away, but that's the price you gotta pay for a little capitalism and democracy. It's worth it, right? Hope this helps.
P.S. -- you're fired.
Or is it closer to having the diary on full view but having written the entries in a cypher or a language unknown to the officers collecting the evidence?
"They do not need a reason to fire you, they just can. "
Did you even read the story? -- it's a union contract dispute. Union contracts prevent things like firing people without reason.
This has nothing at all to do with free speech. These are the COMPANY computers they are searching.
YAY NORTHWEST!! Good for you.
Now discover that some Judge may decide that my home machine is fair game for unrestricted access by people I do not know, and therefore cannot trust. So this coming weekend...
- My PGP keys get moved off on to a floppy
- My ssh keys get moved off on to a floppy
- A separate copy of tripwire and a database that checks the integrity of the on-hd tripwire and database gets created and maintained (what a hassle that is).
(These are all good practices anyway. Just never thought I'd need them in the privacy of my own homeAnd should my home system ever be violated in a like manner, when it's returned:
- System gets scrubbed and restored from backups
- PGP and SSH keys get invalidated and new ones issued
Think about it, folks: the U.S. Congress just passed a digital signature bill. Can you trust that your digital signatures remain inviolable after someone else has "owned" the machine on which they reside?I take the privacy and reliability of my personal system very seriously indeed.
all of the hard drives were brought to E&Y offices. nobody went to anybodys house.
computer forensics is done with software that images the entire harddrive. mbr, partition table, partitions and all. it doesn't matter what partition type it is.
and yes they know about fat16, fat32, NTFS, ext2, etc... dd and mount -ro isn't that hard. these people get paid more than you.
Yeah. Sure. Cop pulls a gun on you, you'll blow him away huh? Big man. Go play with yourself some more and congratulate yourself on dicksize.
in this case, the police do have a search warrant, so this whole discussion is moot.
"You can't say whatever you want about a company."
i take quotes like this as an insult. if this topic weren't so serious i surely would laugh at the idea that someone is going to control my speech. freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution etc. yeah yeah this is common sense so ill just ridicule the a**hole that said this and confirm my hatred for communism and dictatorship.
I would meet the fuckers at the door with a Beretta 480 and a Ruger P89. Akimbo. There'd be dead suits lining the streets right up to my door, guaranteed. Failing that I'd rig the whole place to explode if I died. There's no way in hell I'm going to surrender to anyone's fucking company town. Ever.
This means if the stockholders bad mouth the company due to poor earnings, then the company can get a court order and come search your computer and financial records at will, all because commercial speech isn't the same as free speech and one's grievance (speech) isn't "politically correct".
What's your frequency, Kenneth?
My computer though isn't corporate property! Nor is it used for Union purposes. Theres no tax deduction then.
You can't say whatever you want about a company
Let me get this straight: The KKK can hold public demonstrations, but I can't bad mouth a company? Larry Flynt can publish false information about the Reverends sexual relations with his mother, and I can't bad mouth a company? Uhh.
Phil,
You were great when you were in Genesis, but you kind of suck on your own. I like to tell movie stars to hang in there, but I hope you go away. You looked gay during the Super Bowl.
Get away from me, you dumb turd you.
The University owns the fucking computers. You people need to get over yourselves. There is a lot of fucked up stuff going on in the world. I don't need to read about how some geeks are upset because they can't hide illegal warez and chain-mail on "their" computers. Give me a fucking break.
James,
You were great as the voice of Darth Vader. Those Bell Atlantic ads are okay - don't listen to what everyone says! Hang in there, sparky!
C'mere, you, and gimmie a hug. Ya dumb turd, you.
I fly out out Minneapolis, a major Northwest hub. There are over 50 gates here, with Northwest taking almost all of them. Way on down at the far end of the terminal are the 2 little Delta gates. Every single Delta flight I've taken in the last 2 years has been on time or early. The employees are always pleasant. The waits are shorter for check-in since there are a lot fewer people. In contrast, every time I flew Northwest (I don't fly them anymore), the employees have been cranky or downright rude, my flights have always been delayed (60 minutes - 5 hours! Grrr!) and of course always late on arrival. They suck. The treatment of their employees is contempable, and a slap in the face to the constitution. "Corporate America" is all too true. On a marginally related note: No, I do not much care for unions. At my last IT job I refused to join the employee union (it was a newspaper) because I have a REAL problem with the corrupt practices sometimes found in unions. I've also worked in positions where it was illegal to strike and was GROSSLY underpaid and tolerated abhorrent working condition until I could walk away. Saddly, there are always desparate newbies who want to get their foot in the door who will take jobs like that, until they too become disillusioned a few years later.
Isn't this what's technically called fascism? A government (via federal court in this case) rolling over its citizen's alleged rights at some corporation's whim?
Sure the bosses can fire but what is the point of labor organization if they could? Turnover costs of training new people would skyrocket. Be that as it may, I am not too concerned about NW's stupid actions because from my own experience, I know for a *fact* that there is nothing corporate bosses fear more than workers realizing their own power and actually using it. NW's actions are not so much an act of power as it is an reflective of their fear. Because they know that when all is said and done they are nothing more than mere farts blowing in the air when people stand up for their rights and get organized.
-corperashins r gonna have there dix up yer ass fer life so just live with it!!!! corpz own u: but its cool. ur there propirty: [fuckn commoonistes,]
A monkey was drowned, shot, and drawn and quartered as a result of this post.
...
I mean "outrage"!
What right do these companies have to trample on our personal freedoms!
Can I say Ernst & Young sucks? Way to kill their image in the 'security' community. Most security people are also rpivacy peope by nature and I can see this as a black mark on the record the've been trying soo hard to make good.
Well, this is certainly vile. I thought I'd read that wrong -- how can they search private computers? That would really suck, though, to have people come in, copy your *hard drive*, and sift through it. What if they found something on an employee's drive, like evidence of a different sexual orientation, that they would use against them later? Homosexuals = higher insurance rates (to business) = a reason to fire (to save money). This is wrong, wrong, wrong. Somebody's got to stop this, or it's just going to get worse.
whaddaya mean illegal action? I believe that people still have a right not to go to work if they don't want to.
Here's one which I sent them. To hell with niceities: "Because of your raw exercise of power in grabbing your employee's personal computers for evidence, I will NEVER, EVER fly your fucking airline again. Ever. And I will advise others to do the same."
I believe jerky may be missing the point on this one. In almost all industrial democracies, the USA being the sole exception, unions and their members have significantly amounts of political sway -- with good reason. They are perhaps the only force that will be capable of standing up to growing multinationals in the years ahead. Short-sighted union-bashing, and laws restricting the actions of unions that are only looking out for the good of their members will only hurt the working man and woman. Ask yourself -- why did the employees organize an illegal sick-out? Because strikes have been made illegal! The recognized (again, in many, many countries but the USA) method of POLITICAL SPEECH demanding fair treatment and compensation for work is the strike -- but not in the USA! Imagine -- you're not allowed to miss work, even to protest, and if you do, you get thrown in jail! Sounds like a throwback to feudalism to me. No wonder the employees had to resort to a sick-out -- if they did at all -- the article seems to indicate that this raid was to amass possible evidence. Wow, they're not even sure if a sick-out occurred, but they're raiding home PCs. Yup, definitely the world I want to live in...
One's called tcfs. And I think you can do something with the loopback device too, I think there's a HOWTO on that. Also, OpenBSD uses one, can't remember what it's called, but essentially your entire swap space is encrypted. Maybe unrelated...
I fly a lot for business, and about half of it is on Northwest. After hearing about this, I sent the following letter to northwest.
To whom it may concern.
I am a Platinum Elite member (#XXXXXXXXX), and I have recently read in the Star Tribune that Northwest is searching the personally owned home computers of some of its employees as part of a labor dispute.
Quite frankly, this outrages me. First I do not believe Northwest has any right to view the contents of the private computers of its employees, and, even if it did have that legal right, it would be immoral and improper to exercise that right.
I fully realize that the $50,000 or so that I spend a year on Northwest airline flights will not make a significant impact on your profitability, however, until such time that you officially reverse and apologize for your actions against Kevin Griffin, Ted Reeve and any others whose rights you have infringed, I will no longer chose to do business with Northwest.
If you have wisely already reversed this decision, then I applaud you and would like to hear about it. When you do reverse this policy, I will happily bring my business back to Northwest.
Regards,
Boycott Northwest.
- Total anonymity
- Distributed network of servers
- ...any more you can think of?
Why are governments and corporations scared of strong encryption? I think they are scared of exactly this sort of application. Let's give them something to be scared about!- Angry
The article alludes to the Union not helping these people because they didn't in turn support the Union's plan.
Kind of sounds like the Union sold them out.
Although, I think I've flown my last flight on Northwest.
I do not see where the legal grounds are to search someone's home computer because some people "called in sick".
Was anyone arrested? Nah.
Is this clearly a scare tactic? Yup.
Will it get worse? Yup.
*sigh*
Careful, you're starting to step over the line into the lunatic fringe of conspiracists.
No, all that I meant is that it's only necessary for the state to do what the corporations want it to do, and that it's not really helping any of them if the state announces, "but the company made us do it!"
Ok, our argument seems to have essentially been one over definitions, or division of responsibility for this between the government and the corporations. I'm actually fairly indifferent to how it gets solved, though limiting the government's power sounds at least as good as any other idea I've heard. The trick is to keep the government strong enough to keep the corporations in check, while keeping it weak enough that it doesn't have any excess strength to sell them...
I'm really ambiguous about unions, On one hand, they were instrumental in passing many of the labor laws we have. On the other hand are the teamster's (documented) ties to the Mafia and the AFL's roots as an organization to keep Blacks out of industry (really)! Then, of course, are the things that happen during "disputes".
In my area (Boston), Amtrak's union is fighting a private takeover of some repair services, scheduled for next month. Twelve hours after the takeover deal passed, there were incidents of sabotage on the Commuter Rail. And there have been others since. I assume the union wants public support, but sabotaging the Commuter Rail during rush hour is not the way to get it.
My aunt lives in Silver Spring, Md. A few years ago, the teacher's union there imposed "work-to-rule" in response to a contract dispute. Work-to-rule means that the teachers show up, teach class, and go home. They don't chaperone dances, do field trips, or work with clubs. What got everyone up in arms about work-to-rule was the policy for college reccommendations. The teachers decided that they would only write recommendations for students if they or their parents made a public show of support for the teachers.
Unions can do good things. One got a bunch of waitresses hired at a restaurant at the new Logan hotel (they only wanted young women with Irish accents). But sabotage, shootings, and using high school students as pawns makes for really bad PR.
The above post is wrong. A court order on an individual to compel compliance with a subpoena is not a search warrant.
I don't think they took the computers, they just copied the hard drives, so they won't get a LILO prompt unless they're stupid enough to boot off it. You might have set your computer to wipe your hard drive after an invalid password attempt or something, so it wouldn't be a good idea. They'd probably load it as the second hard drive in another computer, and figure out how to read an ext2 filesystem (or take it to a data recovery place that can).
Of course this action was legal, and organised sickouts are illegal.
The reason is simple. It's the way the Bosses want it, so they make sure the appropriate laws are put in place, thus enabling them to continue enjoying their inalienable right to exploit and profiteer without such hinderances as ensuring decent conditions, decent pay or employee rights. They have good reason to be scared. The organised working class is the only power on Earth that can take their wealth, factories, offices, courts and governments off them, and one day we will.
Around the World, workers are increasingly using electronic media to organise. At the same time, major companies and their respective governments are pushing for ever tighter controls on internet technology. Now there's a coincidence.
"Question everything" -Karl Marx
Ok looks like northwest airlines gets my tfnattention. ok, fed boys stop looking at my ip, I am not your new teenage bad boy/girl crowd.
I'm guessing that you are young, single, childless, and working in an industry that has more jobs than qualified people to fill them.
More to the point, how many other corporations have used such a tactic and would be so willing to antagonize its employees so thoroughly. Just think what such a fishing expedition might find on a personal PC and how NWA and its lawyers might use it. How are you going to kept NWA managment from poking around ALL of the material, relevant or not, on a individuals's PC. Such a situation is hardly so similar to paper records.
NWA needs to address its core problems of sorid employee relations rather than invading their PCs in another blatant attempt of harassment.
You must not be very good then, or at least one of em woulda stuck around.
*wicked grin*
-AC #42
DUMB MOTHER FUCKER
These were not company computers, guy. They are are own personal computers. And we didn't endorse a sick out. If you'd read the postings, you'd have a clearer idea. Don't pretend to know about this case unless you do the research. It makes you look like an ass.
Being at a hub barely helps. I fly with Delta out of Atlanta on a weekly basis, and their customer service sucks pretty badly there, too. Recently I had to take a flight with United, and found them far better. Friendlier people, and when we were delayed, they did a far better job of keeping us informed of what was happening and why. I wish I could get direct flights with them regularly. And if you want to consider non-US airlines: Air France's economy class compares well with Delta's first class.
...FUCKING MORON
With financial backing from Don Rickles and a soon to be announce IPO, Disparage Inc., will be in the business of saying bad things about the businesses doing bad things, like those unconstitutional, anti-American, pinko, control-freak basterds [sic] that are Northwest Airlines. Since insults and flaming are my business, I now possess special constitution-rights-suspending powers to go about my business unimpeded. No one has the "right" to try and stop nor say anything negative about my business since that is what my business will be all about. We should begin offering 20 million shares of stock at $10/share on the NYSE under the ticker symbol FUCK.
That you're waiting for "someone with power" to do this indicates that you really didn't understand Heinlein too well at all.
The search has since been suspended pending a temporary settlement of the airline's lawsuit against Teamsters Local 2000...
(Cut to bedroom of President and CEO of Northwest airlines.)
*thud* *errrr*
Mr CEO: Honey, did you hear something? Honey?
(Enter Mob boss with his soldiers, all wearing dark sunglasses)
Mob Boss (in thick Italian accent): Wussdiss I hear about breakin' into union computers, uh? We have a certain, set of rights, to protect, uh?
Mr CEO: I, I...
Mob Boss: Are you lookin' to get whacked?
Mr CEO: NO! I mean, I was doing this in the best interest of the Union! GOD BLESS THE UNION!
Mob Boss: Uh, you make me very happy, I have your assurance this will not continue.
Mr CEO: Oh! Of course! (whiping sweat off brow, and smiling with a hint of relief)
Mob Boss: Thank you, uh? I'll be leaving now.
(Mob Boss leaves the room, but his soldiers stay behind - much to the dismay of Mr CEO...)
Mr CEO: Wuh, what are YOU DOING!??!
Soldier #1: You leave us no choice.
Mr CEO: Get that AWAY FROM ME! NO! GOD NO!!
--The Three Soldiers open up a laptop, and show him the color scheme Slashdot uses for YRO. Mr CEO has never returned to work, and compulsively washes himself with Clorox Bleach....Muttering something about Rosebud.---
Thank You.
We live in a corporate controlled fascist state. This is NOT a free country. This is not a democracy. Corporations own the world.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/28/usa.html
This isn't about getting fired, this is about an invasion of privacy. They were not offered a choice like "Show us your hard drive or get fired". Of course the employees could get fired for calling a sick-out, but that does not give the company a right to go through their personal files.
I get the same looks from people when I explain that I work in order to live, not live in order to work. Apparently the highest ideal in American society is to work yourself to death for your company.
Unlike the previous poster, I am single and don't have kids, and I don't plan on getting married in the future either. But I still only work 40 hours a week unless specifically asked to work more, just on principle. To me there's no reason to work for money if there's no time left over to enjoy the results of my work.
And now we've even passed the Japanese in working ourselves to death. All this work makes our corporations powerful -- power which is then turned right against us. America may be a power in economic terms, but all this working makes us much poorer as a culture.
All the talk here about "fighting back" and boycotting this company here for doing one thing, and this company there for doing another thing... hey, want to REALLY strike a blow for individual freedom today? Go home at 5.
not everyone can just quit their job. some people need to make money to live.
I think the posted realized the company did not provide the PC, but it's still a valid concern. Would you trust a free PC provided by your employer? Personally, I'd at least wipe whatever operating system is on there, even if I was going to reinstall it.
And delete email you don't need any more. When somebody emails you to say "Everyone phone in sick next Monday", do you really need to keep that message? Wipe the disk if you're paranoid, otherwise just delete old messages.
It IS illigal when their union contract specifies that they won't.
+,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
thank you.
ahh sorry- that document has been suspended, as well as the constitution.
Sure hope they used encryption, and refuse to hand the keys over.
Big brother is alive and well- living in big business.
I think people would complain just as much if this were an answering machine. Remember the recent article on the search & seizure at some electronics company? (Ramsey??) People didn't feel much differently about that, and it had nothing to do with computers (they sold stuff like video cameras). The point of this is that people don't think the searches were justified, whether or not they involved computers.
www.kerneli.org has information on the official crypto patch for the Linux kernel. You can find patches for the 2.2 series there, up to 2.2.13. I think the 2.2.13 patch will work on 2.2.14, I'm running a 2.2.14 kernel with encryption (but I'm not sure, I downloaded the patch from the non-US Debian mirror, not kerneli.org).
You might be interested to know that many law schools these days teach that the ninth amendment is completely meaningless and carries no legal weight. As a matter of fact, if you really care about such things, search up a few law students and ask them about the things they're being taught these days. It will both enlighten you and make your blood run cold.
That was a particularly lame troll.
StegFS implements a steg filesystem for Linux, but it's not part or the standard or international kernels. The information is kind of volatile too. Until you mount the steg fs, Linux doesn't know where the files are stored (this would be impossible to know, by definition), and may overwrite them (so there is a fair bit of redundancy used). Encoding them in the low bits of a wave file may be a better method (I'm not sure how to do this in Linux, but ScramDisk on Win9x supports this). You'll waste disk space either way, but it would be much harder to use stuff against you in court.
Are the moderators calling in sick again? I haven't seen any score:4 comments yet today, and most of the >=2 comments have been from auto +2ers.
To continue as off topic thread: listen up geeks, if you ever get the chance on business travel, there is really only one airline to fly: Midwest Express. Every seat is first class size, they serve real meals on China, on flights where you just get "snack" service our snack consisted of berries and cream with champagne. They cost slightly more than a typical coach class fare but not a huge premium (usually about $50). If they would only install those electrical outlets in the arms of all their seats so I could fire up my laptop the whole time it would be nirvana.
These were home PCs, BTW.
Look at this. You are using your companys property and storing stuff on there. And if you were doing something debilitating to the company and they found out, your loss, either play by the rules or be ready to get burned.
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thank you.
He would be dead before he had a chance to use it.
I have my own.
Uhhhh, the story did not mention anything about Northwest Airlines giving these employees computers. It said the home computers of employees were being seized. It was not my impression that these flight attendants were using company property in any way. I got the impression Northwest Airlines management caught wind of the message site, went and read it themselves and decided to to use good old fashioned bully tactics to bust up this union sickout.
Suppose me and some coworkers got on here badmouthing our employer, word got back to them and they sent the cops to get our PCs? I believe that is the issue here. If so, this seizure is a particularly egregious abuse of our civil liberties.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
As a person who often deals with privacy issues, I am not exactly sure how to take this.
In my mind, this is akin to a company getting a court order to examine the calling records of employees home telephone lines. I can't say that I have heard of that happening, and perhaps it isn't all that unusual.
However, Northwest may be setting precedent only in the fact that we can point out and say "this is what badly run companies do."
It is unusual to hear of an airline so disliked as Northwest is, and the reason many point out is Northwest's management, which has been extremely effective at demoralizing its employees. A demoralized work force is not a good work force, and I hope that any idiot manager knows this. It's why many people refuse to fly the airline, and the biggest loser is the state of Minnesota, which is beholden to Northwest's high fares and bad service.
The reason for examing the computers had to do with illegal union action. While I am not necessarily the biggest fan of unions, illegal union action in the airline industry isn't all that unusual. The reason it occurs is usually because airline management is doing something stupid or not answering employee demands (which admittedly may be unreasonable.)
Illegal union action has generally been viewed as not as severe as, say, stealing something from the airline. Most airlines get the picture, or they just continue to let the situation worsen (a la Frank Lorenzo and Eastern airlines...a good example of bad management turning a good airline into crap and then destroying it.)
It surprises me that the union isn't as concerned about this, but perhaps they are trying to take the high road, letting the airline discover nothing, and then mocking it's attempts later.
Oh, and perhaps this is a good test of whether the 1st amendment covers corporate speech. If not, I'll wake up tomorrow morning with a warrant on my doorstep for my comments here.
I always hear Americans going on about their rights and this contrasts strongly with what I read about the abuses of basic human rights in the US. This sort of thing is what I would expect in China or somewhere 3rd world. It makes me feel that America is just a rich 3rd world country.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Or use the contents of a widely available edition of some book. RAND's "One Million Random Numbers" might work well against the lay decrypter (e.g. FBI but not, not, not NSA ;)
Just as long as you know what the source is, the password can be unbelivably huge and you need not memorize it and trust that you won't forget something important.
Depending on the criteria used to select the 'hiding in plain sight' key, this could be easily as reliable as traditional passwords. Any cypherpunks care to comment?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I think that it's debatable, as the password is a form of knowledge, not a tangible thing.
A warrant can only (IANAL) provide access to physical items and spaces. You can't get a warrant to look into someone's mind.
Furthermore, while you can be subpoenaed and compelled to give testimony, which relates to knowledge, that's where the 5th can kick in. Now if it won't incriminate you then you might need to reveal it, but I'm not certain if you are required to discuss even potentially incriminating evidence unless granted immunity regarding what you reveal.
Anyway, it all seems like a good argument against using biometrics (or relying too heavily on them anyhow) to me.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I think that it's pretty clear that revealing a password can be considered self-incriminatory.
And unless they've got quite a lot of support, hardly anyone's going to say that garbage characters is significant evidence. (this is where Mitnick's latest issue breaks down - there's a very good reason to believe that there are nasty things in his files)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Seven passes is what the US Goveernment and Military *claim* to be sufficient. Do you really think they stop at seven, though?
If I were the type to handle info like that, I'd probably set a file wiper program for at least 21 passes.. but the only sure way to permanently bury it would be to melt down the platters. Depends on how paranoid you are, I guess =)
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
"A prophet is without honor in his own time, in his own home town"...I know I read that someplace...
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Never use this airline again.
Recommend to my friends and business associates to not use this airline for any reason.
Hit them in the pocketbook...the only place that seems to matter to business anymore.
Northwest sued the union for organizing this event (which was prohibited by the latest union contract), so really this isn't a case corportation playing big brother, its a case of the law proceeding as it should.
So this makes it OK for them to search my computer? It certainly sounds like big brother to me. So many people think that if there is legal utility in the information on someone's personal computer, they are entitled to look at it. What if the emails had already been deleted? What happened to the employees who were sick, but didn't have computers?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
northwest may have a court injunction to copy the hdds of employees, but, say one of the employees was using *nix/*bsd machine where obtaining files without password access can be near impossible. does the court order force disclosure of passwords and logins as well? just something i wonder about.
Depends on how they do it. If the hard drives are removed and studied bit by bit, UNIX files should be no harder to read than windows. OTOH, if they just boot up each machine and look for files on it, then they will be in for a bit more trouble.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Back OT, I have to agree with you; this is not the whole story. The key to this is what Federal law was "broken" (don't know the details about the labor law that was mentioned in the article) and what is the extent of this law.
I want more self-combusting cow articles!
Be sure to combine your crypto with steganography.
--
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
If you're going to archive - archive like you expect your data to be made public view. Protection of this kind really helps if you plan ahead. Corperations, peers, and etc *will try to steal your data - take precautions.
If you hide a loopback fs inside a VCD or some other media, no one will find it. Even if they do have it encrypted, then if asked to decrypt you can deny knowning about it - saying that your cdr was just flaky, and that someone would be crazy to hide data like that. Hey, want to see my home movies on VCD? =)
Remember archiving without "hiding" is like running about at a fetish party nude and no expecting to get groped... man if I had a dime for everytime someone quoted me on that...
This is court authorized. It is no different from a company asking a court to require an employee to hand over private documents or allowing them to enter the house if they suspect the employee is guilty of stealing from the company. There is nothing surprising about this nor original. I fail to see why it was even posted on SlashDot other than being computer related.
This is routinely done by corporations too. A good example would be Corel getting court orders to require Microsoft turn over documents in their recent case. Corel thought they were unjustly harmed so they required Microsoft to turn it over.
We may have personal opinions that this is an invasion of privacy (personally I feel it is not). Fact is people are so enamored by the "privacy" of the Internet and computers they fail to realize that they have far less privacy in their regular "non-electronic" lives than they do on the computer. If you want to fight for your right to privacy you should start "offline" before moving "online".
And you yankees are lucky enough to have the 5th amendment, so you can't be forced to disclose your encryption key!!!
--
" It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky "
So a corporation, who would not even exist if it weren't given permission to do so by a state government, has the same rights as a real, honest-to-god human being. (Incorporation is done by the state government here in the U.S. Well, at least I'm not aware of any Federally authorized corporations and I'm not sure how corporations come into being in other countries.) And, apparently, some lawyers seem to think that corporations have additional rights over and above those of private citizens. Truly scary!!!
Is this another case made possible by the now infamous Millenium Copyright Act? Business speech? What the heck is business speech? You say something an entity, whose existence is granted by the government of the people, by the people, etc., etc., doesn't care to hear and they can have the police enter your home and rifle through your personal belongings? If the PC was owned by the corporation but used by the individual at home for business purposes, I'd have an easier time understanding the legal basis for this otherwise gross invasion of privacy. Are you allowed to deny entry to your home until your own lawyer can be present? Once the police take something from your home, you'll never get it back. There's plenty of cases that show that.
It seems that the New Middle Ages are almost here. Except our existence won't be granted by the local duke/prince/king. We will be allowed to exist only according to the whim of the corporations! They'll decide what you can say, what you can see, what equipment you can see it on, etc.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Even if he has a gun pointed at you?
uhhh a gun pointed at you? welcome to earth. . . this was *just* a sick day not a capital crime.
...and they had court orders, BTW.
Let's not forget that what's happening here is normal pre-trial discovery, in the NWA suit against the flight attendants' union, accused of organizing "sick outs."
/no different/ than the court collecting other forms of evidence, such as notebooks and whatnot. It's worth noting that the union lawyers did not object to this discovery, or attempt to have it stopped.
This isn't jackbooted stormtroopers kicking down people's doors to rip computers out of the hands of hapless NWA employees; it's
This is less of a privacy problem than perhaps most people realize. Of course, IANAL, and would love to hear what a lawyer might think about this. The spectre of a business doing this outside of the discovery process is far more frightening than this relatively harmless episode.
Best,
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
IANAL, but if Northwest Airlines sues you, you are not protected by the 5th amendment. The 5th Amendment specifically applies to criminal cases, not your case, and you are bound by the rules of discovery and evidence for the appropriate jurisdiction (state or federal, depending where they sue you). So it is up to those rules, and your judge's interpretation of them, to determine how far the plaintiff can go in demanding evidence from you.
Generally speaking, I can't see a judge requiring you to turn over documents but not require you to provide a key for decryption. To run with your example, that would be like telling the judge, "my conversations with my broker are transcribed or recorded on papers or tapes in this here safe, and I choose not to give the court the combination." You'd be found in contempt of court, I expect. (And if you think the principle is worth it, go to jail for it.)
HOWEVER, if you're not talking about a few specific encrypted documents, but a complete hard disk, or a complete, unedited In-Box full of mail, the plaintiff and the court don't need all that stuff. They don't need your diary, love letters, purchases from fatbrain, or anything else irrelevant to the case.
The question then becomes, how does the court a) determine what the appropriate scope of evidence is, and b) become convinced that all appropriate evidence has been turned over? These questions exist whether the evidence is analog (paper or tape) or digital.
So, you lawyers out there, care to explain how discovery is generally scoped and operated? If someone sues Microsoft, isn't it up to Microsoft's own lawyers to collect and send over all evidence they believe relevant, under penalty of contempt of court? I don't belive Caldera gets to go over to Redmond and examine the hard drives and filing cabinet contents of all Microsoft employees. How is the procedure determined, please?
An interesting discovery... If you go to google and search on "Bill of Rights", the first result is Microsoft's home page. !!!
Get real. This is not a feudal system by any stretch of the imagination.
Well, one person "volunteered" (I want you, you, and you to volunteer.) to hand his computer over. Do they have images of two people's computers?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I that's what you want, then use a pink-noise generator to create the input and send new encrypted 3-5k packet to anyone who sends you spam. With a harmless cover letter, of course, e.g:
Dear Sir,
I would like to call to your attention that
if you would read this *attachment all would be made clear.
I think that someone once called this kind of thing "Zen Telegrams".
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I trust my reading more than theirs. This appears purely a matter of the guys with the cash buying heavies to break down the doors of the opposition. There could be more to it, but I haven't seen any sign of it. So why shouldn't I panic? This means that it is perfectly legal for my property to be seized with no justification given. That's not a good precedent.
Legal? I don't care. So many of the laws are bought and paid for that I care about practice, I care about how the precedent could affect me, I care about how I read the constitution. I know a legislator building up a campaign chest won't read it the the same way, and that carries no weight with me.
To me this seems in clear violation of the constitution, and a direct attact on common law. The law tends to run on precedent, and this is a truly foul one. I wish that I could say that it was the worst one this year. And it's only February.
I would have been more explicit with my feelings about this, but then I would have choosen to post anonymously.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Revealing a password is generally not considered speech, but rather an access device. Much like the key to a locked file cabinet, law enforcement can compel you to give it up. I think a passphrase would fall into this catagory as well. IANAL, but have had some experience with and exposure to this issue.
---
2. Northwest and the flight attendants (through their Teamsters' union) are(were?) in contract negotiations.
3. Some messages on the board were posted suggesting a sick-out, where many employees call in sick at the same time in protest. With flight attendants (as with any of the crew), this can severely hamper the airline's ability to run.
4. Several employees (associated with the message board) were given a court order to turn over their PERSONAL computers to search for evidence of illegal labor practices.
Now for what I believe, but am not certain about:
1. Sick-outs are considered an illegal labor practice. There's a lot of legislature out there concening contract negotiation.
2. The one story from an employee that I read stated that he took his PC to an office where technicians from Ernest & Young dismantled the system and did a complete replication of their hard drive.
So, it comes down to NW getting a court order to do a full search of their employees' personal computers. I never saw the word "warrant", but it could have been one.
Hope this clears things up for some folks. My girlfriend is a flight attendant, and they are about to go through contract negotiations. The general concensus is that the company will try several tactics to screw them (they are the most underpaid of all airlines).
I've tried to help her figure out how to organize a bit and get folks to stand up for what they deserve, but with thousands of flight attendants, it takes a lot of work. And the fear of retribution is severe. Horror stories of constant drug tests (the company can drug test whenever they want, which is just an annoyance) and having your superiors watching you like a hawk dissuade most everyone from doing much more than gossipping. Even putting up flyers is a frightening idea.
Personally, I'm appalled at the actions of NWA. Unfortunately, I DON'T think they're the exception in this game.
The problem is, this wasn't just subpoenaing information. This was a blanket demand to turn over all information, whether or not it was germane to the case, held on a computer not owned or controlled by the company requesting the information. Traditionally with paper, one has to subpoena the information and then convince the judge that relevant information exists and was not turned over before being allowed to ransack a person's property and looking at everything there.
And frankly I find the attorney's quote about speech about a company not being protected frightening. By his standards, the publicity about the propensity of the gas tanks of one model of car to explode and kill people in rear-end collisions could legally have been suppressed by the car maker because the people making those statements and producing the evidence would not have had a legal right to malign a corporation that way. Gah!
A court order to search email I can see, but the entire hard drive that's way out of bounds!! Where did i put PGP? I guess everything even routine must now be encrypted just for minimum security
Ok, the court subpoenaed these empoyees on the suspection of.. *ahem* sabotage. Now, if they're collectively (even through their union) are liable, shouldn't they be able to exercise their right against self-incrimination?!
OTOH, regardless of the 5th amendment, what is the procedure for "examining the hard drive" even through a "reliable 3rd party"? I believe they can just remove the HD from your PC and then scan it at leisure for "pertinent information".
So the only way out seems to be encrypted FS (ouch!), because that makes the issue 100% straight: contempt of court v. self-incrimination.
Jesus dude did you read the article? It WAS their home computer.
Now on a more serious note, now more than ever we need encrypted filesystems. The day a company comes to my home demanding my personal computer is the day I file a lawsuit. Let me explain something. I haven't stolen anything from my job. If they have a reason to suspect as such, they are free to search my premises. Admitedly if the company doesn't trust me, I will look for employment elsewhere.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Well, I just sent them a polite letter to let them know that I disapprove of their actions. Hopefully more will follow.
Your attitude of "if you don't like it, leave" is what is cowardly. Plus, not everybody has the luxury of picking and choosing jobs here and there, and at some times in history jobs are damned hard to come by. Someone with several kids, a mortgage, health care issues, etc, might want to stay at their job, but want to fix some things they don't like. Without collective action by workers, companies will feel free to do whatever they want. After all, if one person quits, there's always more cattle to choose from.
As for thugs who murdered, how about the various times owners of companies (say, mining) had their own security forces or even the government murder workers and unionists? Check out "We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us" and ask how those workers could have said "screw this, I'll get a job somewhere else?"
The sick out was a matter of speech. In effect, they were saying that they did not like how NW was bargaining with them. The fact that NW has pushed this so far upsets me.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
Thanks for the URL. I just canceled my membership.
Please, be nice, but let them know that this should not stand.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
I fly Northwest alot ... my choices are usually American (cramped and stinky planes), Southwest (who wants to site backwards facing a screaming toddler and no lap tray), US Air (my preferrence), Delta (crabby employees) and Northwest (my second next to US Air).
... I fly from Nashville and there is no major hub here ... the airlines tend to ignore service at airports like this one. The airport is nice, but until it has a hub we'll always get crappy routes, crappy planes and crabby employees.
I think alot of it depends on where you fly from
The only thing I don't like about Northwest is trying to run for connections in Detroit where they are split between 2 terminals.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
...which is namely that the union that the employees belong to claimed during court proceedings that they did not organize this "sick out", just that a large percentage of their memebers all got sick on the same day and didn't go to work. Northwest sued the union for organizing this event (which was prohibited by the latest union contract), so really this isn't a case corportation playing big brother, its a case of the law proceeding as it should.
Off topic: Man, I fly Northwest probably 40 to 60 times a year. Is there a worse airline?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
But there are some interesting differences. I think (IANAL) that search warrants have a much better chance of being approved and withstanding later challenges if they are specific. But there's going to be a lot of stuff on a computer that is not at all related to any given investigation. So you can get a search warrant that specifically identifies computer, but gives an investigator access to a broad range of personal information. So what happens if they come for your computer because they think you've been saying mean things about your boss and they instead discover of a vast conspiracy to overthrow the government or evidence of a kiddie porn ring? (Not that /.ers are into kiddie porn or anarch--er not that we're into kiddie porn.)
Secondly, is a judge (or whoever) more likely to issue a search warrant for a computer than, say, a personal diary? Do authorities value our privacy regardless of where we choose to record our lives?
JADBP
I didn't think it would come to this, but I think everyone these days needs encrypted file systems just to protect their basic human rights. Not just for the crackers and Mitnicks of this world any more.
That guy was RIGHT, you DO sound like that perky intern from dilbert. What heaven's name does "Are you one of those computer users that feels 'powerful and excited' when using a computer?" have to do with the subject at hand? NOTHING.
/. article poster was making a comment in not-so-many-words that this "checking up" would be even easier on a free PC the company gave you, as they could load it with monitoring software.
/. staff. Close mouth.
If you had an inferential skills whatsoever, you'd note that the article had nothing to do with free PCs, but the
Read post. Read article. Note that there is no mention of free pc's in article. Conclude that it must be an editorial comment by the
James
Let's see: is Northwest a publicly elected prosecutor? NO?? Well, then, it's NOT legal. I don't believe that anyone OTHER than a legally constituted authority conducting an ongoing criminal investigation has any right under the law to even request a warrant. As far as I can tell, Northwest is abusing the law, and should be charged with -- at least -- breaking and entering, since they have NO right to interfere with the papers and possessions of private individuals.
Just because they were able to sidestep around the normal prosecutorial process and trick a judge doesn't make it right. If they can't play by the rules which the rest of us abide by, then someone needs to bring them up short. BTW, where *is* the public prosecutor in this jurisdiction and what is *he* doing about this? He ought to be investigating the company.
And I also feel that the Federal Judge in this case has made a grievous error by allowing this incredible search. Allowing judges to become prosecutorial activists, especially when there are clear constitutional issues at stake, is very disturbing. This case illustrates *why* the founding fathers drew very clear boundaries between the excecutive, legislative and judicial branches. Someone in the legislature should wake up and investigate this abdication of democratic principles and the unseemly smell of creeping corporatism.
Northwest is NOT "the Man" and has no right to pretend that it is.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
NO, you are wrong. It is legal for the PROSECUTOR to request a warrant, based on affidavits made by DULY CONSTITUTED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS, after a determination has been made that a crime has been committed and it has been ascertained that there are "certain items and articles" in the possession of the accused that might decide the situation one way or the other. It does NOT appear, *based on the article*, that this was done; instead, Northwest counsel appealed directly to the judge and he inexplicably granted this BY FIAT. They appear to have skipped a Constitutionally required step -- that's why it's so wrong. Northwest is NOT the state; therefore, it has no standing to act AS the state, which is what is apparently happening here.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
. There is no chance in hell that this company is going to get out of this without being sued into the ground.
This is a case about people suspected of breaking the law. The police had warents. Northwest did nothing illigal.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
In this particular case, however, how is "psst, call in sick on Christmas" considered "speech about a company"? It sounds more like strike-organization to me, which afaik is not only legal but protected by various laws.
:). Because I think in order for something to be slander, the person saying it has to know that it is not true (and good luck proving that...).
:P
It would seem like this is true, but in some industries, it might not be. I think nurses, for example aren't allowed to. The same thing might be true about airline employees, I'm not sure (or, it could be disallowed in there contract)
In any case, I find the idea of people going through other peoples personal email highly disturbing. I mean, there's going to be a lot of stuff in there that people don't want to share.
As a site question, how protected are political candidates? Does "Candidate X slept with 40 women in the last 5 years" count as political speech or a slanderous personal attack?
Probably not. In fact I could probably get away with saying the same thing about you (not that anyone would listen
btw... I'd also like everyone to know that I did in fact sleep with 40 women in the past 5 years
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
When Michael mentions free PCs, he is talking about the recent Ford story
J.t.Qbe wrote that part. The parts in italics are always from the submitter.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The FEC says I can't support a political candidate on my web site..
Actually, this isn't true. At all. If you want to support a candidate on a website you need to report the 'value' of the site as a campaign contribution, as it clearly is. Where did you get the idea that you couldn't do that at all?
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
A person's thoughts simply cannot harm anyone else by themselves, and private data sitting on someone's harddrive cannot harm anyone either. For a crime to have been committed, there has to be some manifestation beyond someone's thoughts or private data.
As individuals, the sovereignty and dignity of these areas is fundamental, therefore it should be regarded as being well beyond society's purview. Society's interests can be served just as well without any need to intrude into these areas.
As we have seen, however, society doesn't quite give a damn about individual rights in some instances. At least in the United States the Bill of Rights recognizes these rights in the first, second (metaphorically) and fifth ammendments.
But these ammendments aren't magic. They need constant defense and recognition. Recognition only comes from excersise. Do your part and use encryption. The more people who do, the stronger these rights become.
I think that this is an outrage. Without a doubt one's personal computer is off limits to your employer. Sickout or not Northwest has no rights in the domain. I suggest a boycott. J
doh, I didn't realize they violated the special laws that Reagan(?) put in, "Airline workers can't strike."
Encrypt your shit or have everyone else smell it when you decide stand up for yourself.
+&x
Too late dude. It seems that the usual "Slashdot Fact Filter [1]" has been applied for most of these people and they could care less if the event under discussion is legal or not. It "sounds like" someone is getting ass-raped by Big-Corp Inc. so obviously there is going to be the usual first amendmant, crypto, disobediance and disrespect called for.
[1] You know. The one that removes any facts and relevant information from the story before anybody gets to comment on it here on slashdot.
WTF? What you posted and what I posted are pretty much unconnected, except for your attack. I understand all four of your points as well as any non-litigious, non-lawyer can. Go back and reread the posts on this thread. You see numerous examples of people crying for crypto. Crying about free speech. Crying about using crypto and not providing the keys. And crying about how the system is violating their personal liberties.
Then tell me that I've got a "fact filter".
hail discorda!
someone lother then my self see's this!
really, we are but serfs. and our lord isnt really a person, no its this corpration. and we all are just, junkys. our junk is dollers. you can not ive without money, and you can not stop playing the "i must work for a living game", ie work all my live just to make little me's that will one day take my place...
where is your the fix?
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
yeah, but you can use PGP when the other person is competent enough, likewise to use PGP, this is plain wrong!
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
I just finished writing a letter, when I get home, I am getting an envelope and sending it to them, To hell with them, to hell with their frequent flyer miles, I can afford to loose those. Don't stay on slashdot and talk, take action!
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
No one showed up at their door demanding their computers. If you read the article you would have noticed the fact that one of the flight attendents surrendured his laptop and desktop to the Ernst and Young consultants (note to self: don't work for them) who would be examining them. The key to this is that it isn't quite a 'seizure' i.e. they didn't bust down the door and take stuff. It's what's called 'discovery' where they show a judge that there is reason to believe that information is contained in files someone else has to prove they committed some crime against you. In this case organizing a sickout. While I completely disagree with NW's lawyer, as all speech is political, especially business speech. Excuse me for a quick rant: BIG BUSINESSES ARE POLITICAL. EVER HEARD OF SOFT MONEY!? WHAT % OF PEOPLE WORK FOR A BUSINESS? THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL!! Phew. (sorry, it's been an angsty day) Back to what I was saying: It's all very legal it's only that the reach is extending from the ability to look at your files in your desk to the files on your computer. Granted there are numerous ways in which this can be abused, the flight attendents must place full trust and have no oversight into Ernst & Young's handling of their equipment, that business control of evidence has extreme potential for abuse. So, I would encourage you to read (or reread) the story and note the part about 'discovery' and how the evidence was turned over. Whether or not I agree with the way the judicial system works for this . . . another day, it jsut makes me angry :)
Joey
+-------+ between the wish and the thing lies the world - All the Pretty Horses
"I *did* notice that *one* of the flight attendants gave it up willingly. THAT instance was a case of stupid voluntary cooperation."
;) mostly because I don't agree that the big deal really is the corporation's ability to get access to things in a person's home (although their ability to hire good lawyers and keep control of giant proportions of wealth from the *people* and the laborers is a concern of mine but not immediatly related) The big deal is that they're going after the specific item email. This is a new ground in the legal world and will define the difference between what is wiretapping and isn't (see other reply to my post FMI)
That instance was not "voluntary cooperation" he was under court order from a *federal judge* and as you say ""Discovery" or "fact finding" includes having to show a judge there's reasonable grounds..." Note however that it is not a warrant they receive, as you seem to believe, instead, they are ordered to surrender certain goods by the authority of the court. You are found in contempt if you do not comply (although IANAL). In other words, it's not the "company's reach" that is extending into the individual's home, it's the government's. I don't agree with your analysis of the article (as if that wasn't clear
+-------+ between the wish and the thing lies the world - All the Pretty Horses
One solution that has been proposed recently and is to be included (is included) in upcoming Irish legislation is this:
Faced with encrypted documents (subpoenaed from you) a judge can compel you to hand over decrypted forms of these documents, with some form of proof that the encrypted doc == decrypted doc.
You could provide the following by making sure your encryption scheme sticks a md hash of the
encrypted doc outside the encrypted doc.
This reduces the problem to the same (legal) problem as before computing/email; should you be forced to hand over personal documents. It leaves
your secret passphrase secret.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
I think a more effective way to keep people from getting your info is to have an encryped fs. If I had to search for info on a hd, the first thing I would do is put it in another linux box and mount it... no passowrds needed then. If it was encryped, that woulnd't work. Does anyone know if there is an fs that encryps your whole file system?
I wasn't lost... I was only momentaraly confused of my spacial orientation relative to my prime destination.
Yes if AOL is pissing you off you can go work for CNN. Oh wait a minute they are the same company maybe you can work for Time oops that wouln't work either.
Oh yea the corps have first amendment rights granted to them by the Supreme Court so it follows that they MUST have second amendment rights too. You can bet your ass they are going to raise armies soon.
War is necrophilia.
Where I work, emergency medical personel are routinely seen wheeling someone out on a stretcher. For some time, this was a daily event. With this sort of environment, you'd think someone would raise an eyebrow and investigate the working conditions. Where I work, the majority of workers are Phone Monkeys, this place is commonly called a call-center. These beasts are quickly becoming the place where modern-day bluecaller workers get money. Since there's no heavy machinery or falling objects, OSHA doesn't seem to care. What seems to happen is this:
:
Company gives you stock options, dangling this carrot in front of you. Imagine: retire by 30. Then the company gives you unreasonable goals, often times terminating your employment if you fail to reach them by a small margin. The result is that the (many) psychologically unstable call center employees go through nervous breakdowns. I fear that someday it will be someone going postal and not simply a nervous breakdown (not to diminish the profound effects of a breakdown). People should be proud of their jobs.
What does this have to with Northwest? It's a job, and it's a job that provides an environment that is unfavorable to it's employees.
Anyways. That's my rant. I wonder if they will come get me and search my computer.
Visit: just click it (
The potential is there to recover the file if the part of the disk it is on is not overwritten. Use a secure deletion utility that overwrites the file area with random noise three passes worth. That's what the military insists on.
For that matter, stenographic filesystems are available for Linux. Even if they discover you are using a steno filesystem they can never be sure you gave them the REAL passphrase. Anything a corporate or government trogolyte wants to use against you probably doesn't need much space to live in. How are they going to find something encrypted that is scattered all over a disk.....interleaved with a honeypot storage volume keyed to a bogus passphrase.
If I recall this story, the judge in charge of this case also pounded the union and employees with incredibly excessive fines until they broke. At least, that's what I recall. Its been a month.
This is, I think, utter and total bullshit. I would love to know what the judge was thinking when he signed that order. I would have loved to see if that order was thrown out in apellate court. Do any of these employees have grounds for a lawsuit here?
>So of course, what happened to airline prices? They went up, up, up! If I compare a flight from Minneapolis to any given city, and a flight from Des Moines (few hundred miles away) and that same other city, the Des Moines flight will usually cost less.
Nitpicking slightly, but it's cheaper for people in Des Moines to drive to Minneapolis or Kansas City and fly from there than to go nearly anywhere from the Des Moines airport. This is also because of Northwest. They have a tighter grip on the Des Moines market, since Northwest moved in and undercut the existing competition there (Vanguard, I believe it was) until they had to withdraw from the market. Northwest then promptly raised the prices to whatever they wanted.
The people mentioned specifically in the article ran websites dedicated to Northwest employees that had had postings on them encouraging a sickout; in each instance, they were followed by a posting from the administrator discouraging anyone from doing so.
The only problem with your argument was that most of the computers searched WERE NOT from the named defendants.
The reason it was allowed was that none of the persons involved filed to suppress the search.
It's people like you that make others glad there is a Constitution, and due process. You speak as if these people have been convicted, they have not. It's about due process kid, innocent until proven guilty.
Dave
Today's political comic said: "northwest airlines, the only way to pry."
Get off your smug high horse and think for a moment:
Quitting wouldn't do any good. This was not ordered by the company, this was ordered by a federal court. Quitting isn't an option. The only alternative to complying with a court order is being jailed for contempt of court.
Now take my case. They hang me up here five years ago. Every night
they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up
again. Which I guard as very fair, in view of what I've done. And if
nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans, and it's
taught me that you'll never get anywhere in this life, unless you
are prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's...
It could happen. Veterans own companies too, you know, and I'm sure they know how to lobby just as well as the current crop of CEOs (as a whole) do. I don't think the Starship Troopers solution would even come close to solving the welfare issue. Unfortunately =(
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
Theoretically, steganography would be the way to get around this. What good steganography tools are available?
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
I once worked on a MUMPS system with a contractor who almost got sacked for a similar reason. When you make an open call in MUMPS, and the open fails MUMPS default behaviour is to continuously retry. Well this poor guy ran a program that attempted to open a remote printer in another state. Because of a network mixup, his access had been revoked. The open failed, and generated an intrusion alert. Then the code entered a tight loop of: open, fail, intrusion alert, open, fail...
Next thing, the security guy, who only was familiar with IBM machines (the MUMPS system was VAX and DECnet) was on the phone to my boss demanding that the contractor be fired. Fortunately the contractor had good notes. The scare thing was, no one that was familiar enough with VAX, VMS, DECNet and MUMPS to really understand the problem was ever called in. The guy was defenseless. My boss had no clue. The security guy didn't either. I got wind of it while they were grilling the guy in my bosses office, and using my access to a system account on a remote Vax was able to whip up a program to demo MUMPS behavior in about 15 minutes.
Bottom line, the guy almost got fired for a simple coding mistake.
Off topic: Man, I fly Northwest probably 40 to 60 times a year. Is there a worse airline?
Yeah, IMHO... after I fly Delta or America West, I get on a Northwest flight just to cheer myself up.
Off-Off-topic: is there a worse airplane than anything built by Airbus?
Code isn't speech, how dare we suggest that? Commenting on businesses isn't speech, you can't say whatever you want.
Dear god. Do these people *really* hear what they are saying? America land of the Free indeed.
The funniest part of it, in a sadly ironic way, is to consider exactly what today's soceity would have done to our founding fathers. Psych wards and jails...you get the idea.
Maybe Heinlien had it right. Any soceity that grows to the point of requiring IDs is a soceity to leave behind.
Yeah! That's right! fsck the Bill of Rights.
When you do that you'll see this amendment near the bottom; it's numbered nine.
This amendment is often forgotten by people and seems to have been completely forgotten by the U.S. government. How often do you hear the phrase 'constitutional rights'? That phrase is an attack on your rights. It's tantamount to saying that you have no rights, except those given to you by law. Well that's not so! You have all your rights by the fact that you're a human being that has to reason in order to live.
Don't win battles to lose the war.
If they stepped aside when a cop with a warrant said "move, I'm searching your stuff on behalf of your boss" then we've got bigger problems
It's sad to say but I don't remember a court ruling any time recently that was in favor of an individual and not some corporation. As opposed to some states , the federal judges are not elected so it's not like they're getting campaign contributions from these companies. I guess we've been reduced to the true definition of a work force. "What you're not working!!!" "Put him in jail and seize all his property!!" I'm expecting that this will happen soon.
The short answer is, discovery is basically limitless. It can be a huge invasion into privacy, not to mention a huge cost; if it weren't for the fact that big corporations are the defendants in most serious lawsuits, we'd all be outraged that such a system exists. (Of course, it also makes our legal system much more effective, though more costly, than any other country's: it's basically impossible to prove lots of things without it.)
On the Fifth Amendment: note that it *does* protect you from testifying in a civil trial to things which could be used against you in a later criminal prosecution. But it does not generally protect physical evidence, like computer files, in criminal or civil court.
In detail:
Discovery begins with a lawyer for one side sending the other a written request. (In some federal courts, each side has to disclose certain things without being asked, too.) The recipient's lawyers can object on a variety of grounds -- e.g., that it involves trade secrets, personal secrets, priveleged information (like letters between a lawyer and client), that it is has no possible relation to the case. But lots of private things of essentially no legal relevance do get turned over for dozens of lawyers to pore over or laugh at. Hence the Paula Jones case.
Requests can be for information of a specific type (e.g., "all memos that relate to the pricing of vitamins"), or in a specific place (e.g., "the CEO's diary entries for last month"). In general, yes, the information is collected by the recipient's lawyers, but a request for all the files on a particular PC wouldn't be obviously objectionable.
Where a document might contain something legally important, but also private matters, it is possible for the judge to look it over and cut out whatever the other side shouldn't see.
In practice, in the big suits, discovery is a hopeless morass, and it would take far too long for a judge or magistrate to settle every disagreement, so the two sides make a kind of trade: you show us this, we'll show you that.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
What is the reference to the "free pc" from the company then? I -did- read the article. Are you one of the computer users that feels "powerful and excited" when using a computer?
Microsoft sucks!
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
If I were to accept a free/low-cost computer from my employer, I would make sure there was some sort of privacy agreement guaranteeing such a thing as this could not be done. In addition, I would probably format the hard drive and start anew, so they can't have any pre-installed key-capture software or Back-Orifice style programs. This is something anybody buying a computer should have the freedom to know, whether you get it from freepc.com, from your employer, or pay full price at CompUSA...
---------------
Yes! That guy!
Along with Etoys (lawsuit), Egghead (spam), and any movie studio associated with the MPAA (lawsuit). The list gets larger...
I didn't see this specifically said, but it looks like NWA (Northwest Arrogance?) sustained some form of damage to their bottom line, possibly by a breach of contract. They didn't have any substantial leads, so they went after the maintainers of the attendants' website.
This is akin to a situation where Etoys' shareholders decide to recoup some lost share price by suing, among others, everyone who ever posted critical comments on an online forum, and confiscating the personal computers of the site maintainers.
Speaking about speech, Eric Wieffering and Tony Kennedy get a "Sound Bite of the Year" nomination for clipping John Roberts' quote. IANAL, but I consider (misrepresentation == slander). Roberts comes across as a Nazi supporter, but (a) he might be describing a specific situation, and (b) the rest of a paragraph may put the comment into a different light. I would like to read the rest of that interview. 15 yard penalty, repeat the down.
Here's another thing that isn't mentioned. If it turns out that the union had nothing to do with the sickout, and that it was implemented by non-union or non-active union workers, that kind of leaves the union (and unions in general) in a much reduced role. Note the lack of help from the union towards the two non-officials (they could be playing the part, of course).
First of all, you can say whatever you want about a company, to say otherwise would impede on First Amendment rights (unless you signed some type of anti-deflamatory clause when you were hired). Secondly, if you take your employer's computer, reformat it and install linux. Also, depending on who actually owns the computer, they might not beable to legally search it, is it a free computer from your employer(gift) or is it a computer so you can work at home(work computer @ home) yes, there's a difference.
<blockquote>Underlying message: read the fine print and possibly get a second opinion first.<blockquote>
northwest may have a court injunction to copy the hdds of employees, but, say one of the employees was using *nix/*bsd machine where obtaining files without password access can be near impossible. does the court order force disclosure of passwords and logins as well? just something i wonder about.
First of all, I agree that John Roberts sounds like a Nazi.
However, I really have to wonder if this is a violation of privacy or not. After all, if you're suspected of doing something illegal, isn't it law enforcement's right to get a search warrent ant search your premises? Why wouldn't that extend to your PC at home?
It looks like they didn't actually get search warrents though.
"The threat of a court-authorized search of home computers..."
I certainly wouldn't surrender my PC w/o a search warrent.
Additionally, I really don't understand the comment on the front page about, "taking a free PC from your employer."
I've finally found the off by one erro
but if they have the HD then they have the PGP key.
LRJ
Well the difference is the ENTIRE hd was copied, JUST the relivent emails. If it were paper, the police would look through the filing cabinte for very specific papers that contain the evidence, they would not just take the whole filling cabinet. Also, if papers were discovered that uncovered something else illegel (like the person was in the illegel drug business), the police would have to leave them as they do not pertain to the crime on the warrent. In order to use that evidence, the police would have to go to a judge and say while i was looking for this illegal thing, i also found this, may i have a warrent for that now? The office if issued the warrent could then return for that evidence only.
First post
AMLoR ownz.
1: Were these computers really provided by the employer? I didn't see any mention in the article, although it was implied in the summary.
2: Anyone happen to know if any of these computers were encrypted?
3: Does anyone know if any of these computers are being held by the police, and if so, will they be held semi-permanently, similar to police action in drug cases?
4: What possible repercussions are being considered if the claims are true?
5: What happens if one of these boxen has DeCSS? Not trolling, really curious.
And finally, and possibly most importantly,
6: What are they counting as "computer?" Since the accusition was made about e-mail, did they search any advanced cell-phones/PDAs?
Just idle curiosity.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
Hmm, maybe slashdot isn't all bad after all. Think we should incorporate and contract with the US government? That would take care of slashdot articles like the one yesterday about Operati.. I mean, those internet attacks carried out by remorselesss crackers.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Actually, it's not. Our government allows us to badmouth it because if it didn't, the government would have too much power.
Consider : Suddenly crackers seem to have become far better than any have ever been before. But then again -- what organization has the best computer and phone-system crackers in the world?! There is "No Such Agency." No we didn't. Here are some, umm, records that show we didn't do it. Want to take it up in federal court (which, btw, is also operated under the government)?
On the other hand, corporations are protected against libel/slander because otherwise, you get a shouting match between corporations or between activist groups and corporations. FUD would be a lot worse if corporations weren't protected against false claims against them.
In this particular case, however, how is "psst, call in sick on christmas" considered "speech about a company"? It sounds more like strike-organization to me, which afaik is not only legal but protected by various laws.
As a site question, how protected are political candidates? Does "Candidate X slept with 40 women in the last 5 years" count as political speech or a slanderous personal attack?
--
The shareholder is always right.
Even if he has a gun pointed at you?
--
The shareholder is always right.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Since this is court-authorized, Northwest must have been able to demonstrate just cause for doing it.
A comment in the article compared this to a wiretap. However, I think a more accurate comparison would be to compare it to a search warrant with the goal of tracking down more evidence after-the-fact (i.e. written correspondence).
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
The story doesn't say if "the courts" they refer to are criminal or civil. If it is the latter, then the statement is correct: you CAN'T bad-mouth a company, if you are specifically uttering untrue statements, since you are committing libel and/or slander. Some of the most extreme statements could be criminally prosecuted (i.e. I hate XYZ airlines so much I'm going to plant a bomb on one of their planes).
The press does indeed badmouth companies all the time, and most of the time the facts back them up, so there's nothing the company in question can do about it. However, on the occasions where the press fabricated their "facts" and were caught doing it, it has turned out to be very expensive - recall the expoding gas tank story that burned one newsmagazine (Dateline?) a few years ago.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
"there was no mention ... that a warrant was acquired for the search"
Re-read the title of the article. The first three words are "Court authorizes search". Clearly, a warrant was indeed obtained.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
Frequent assertions by US readers to the contrary: the US is *not* the only nation state with constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech.
The US constitution is a fine document and once was unique. It is, however, far from unique in this respect in C(21). More to the point the legal practice of privacy and free speech is far more develop in other industrial nations. Searching of people's private PC on *suspicion* in a civil case... that'd take some doing even in the UK. Never mind Germany or France or whatever.
What bugs me most about this is not that they searched the computers, but that the lawyer said that free speech does not apply when you're talking about a company. Since when does the constitution not apply to corporations?
What if you have passwords on your computer that prevent people from viewing the contents of your harddrive? Are you required to give that password to the forensics experts? Are they allowed to try to crack your passwords?
Does anyone have any insight?
Ben
steganographic file system
What right does the federal government have to regulate workers organization? None whatsoever.
Does the constitution explicitly say that they can regulate it? Do I hear no? Then, it's a violation of the of tenth amendment.
I reserve the right to organize with coworkers and use any nonviolent means necessary to increase my wages.
What's so illegal about "call in sick?" It's certainly within my 1st amendment rights to send messages, and to assemble peacefully!
Here's a nickel, kid! Go getcher self a copy of the US Constitution!
No comment at this time
We already have our comments monitored by everyone IN the company, and can get fired for them, or suspended. The FEC says I can't support a political candidate on my web site, and if you try to complain publicaly about a home builder in Missouri, you'll be sued under tort laws.
I'm scared. Fight this. All speech by a private citizen should be given protection to the fullest extent. Within reason. This does not qualify.
But then, what do you expect from Northwest.
(Perhaps to hear from their lawyers, eh?)
'There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action' Goethe
Once, in the wilds of Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew and had to live on food and water for a number of weeks.
I'm in Minnesota. No, I do not work for nor represent Northwest. A not far drive from Minneapolis (a Northwest hub -- so much so other airlines ahve complained, and I belive rightly so, about being unable to get sufficient gate space). I have flown NWA before. At the time they were about like any other major airline.
I'm a similar distance away from another, smaller airport that is more evenly served by various airlines. I prefer that one, it's cheaper to park, to fly, and I have *gasp* CHOICE of carrier there.
I'm also not typically one to side with any union, having been up close to a couple and see them as the lazyman's excuse to get paid handsomely to only almost work... while nonunion folks next to them busted thier butts to get stuff done, for far less pay (and no benefits).
But this is too much. Search the computers USED ON THE JOB, yes. That is quite quite legal, though uncomfortable. But home machines? Does Northwest expect to be able to tap employee's home phones too? And when was this 'sickout' (Ththe union I must say was very very careful to discourage any such thing - having seen another airline's pilot's union get deservedly zapped for pulling it) occurred, guess when? The height of flu season, in a year where the flu made the news for it's severity. Hrmmmmmm...
Northwest is only hurting themselves with this one.
Here's a twist. Some folks, such as myself, don't using local email programs at home, but telnet or ssh our way to shell accounts for our mail. Would some company demand our passwords? Or would they try to extract info from the account provider? I suppose this sort of thing is another call for easy to use encryption.
Yes, E&Y was called in, but that's still different from the normal evidence gathering for any other thing. Why shouldn't the rules for digital evidence gathering be as strict as the rules for paper? Just becuase it's "new"? Then why don't we allow wiretapping at whim? That's "new" too. I do wonder how Minnesota's privacy laws (yes, we have them) may affect things or if that's just non-court sanction spying on folks. Yes, spying. Let's call it what it is.
What to do? Well, I can think of a few things - keep the accounts non-local (make 'em work across as many states as possible, countries, ideally). Fill up things with innocuous references. Encrypt. (I'm really partial to the idea of dual-decryptable fils, one decryption being as valid as the other, but with different results. Irksome indeed, but if my privacy is invaded, I want to be as protected UP FRONT as I can be. First and Fourth Amendments are nice, but I can't fight giants easily, especially after they've had their way. Delete delete delete and scramble if need be.
And no, I'm NOT advocating anything illegal. But those who would do such acts against me deserve to have as rough a time as I can make it.
But Northwest has another solution: Never ever exercise First (or Fourth) Amendment rights. Or else. Sorry, NWA, that bird ain't gonna fly. And I've no sympathy for you.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
The article says "It's like wiretapping" but I see it as a lot more than that.
It's more like logging everyone's phone calls, then when someone gets subpoenaed(sp?) you listen to it.
On one hand, it seems that this is no different from your personal hard-copy files from beind searched in the case of a lawsuit, but it does sort of give me a chill. I can see this "power" being abused. How is "Business Speech" defined? It is really sort of sickening to see that the courts are saying that "you can't bad mouth a company". That is extreamly disturbing. If I think that a company or their products are terrible, I should be ablke to say so. If I think that the management at a particular company is trerrible, I should be able to say so. Doesn't the "press" do this all the time?
If I think that a company or their products are terrible, I should be ablke to say so....Doesn't the "press" do this all the time?
Yes they do, but they can be sued too. January's Consumer Reports had an editorial about Isuzu's lawsuit against them. It was filed when they called the Trooper "unacceptable" because it tends to roll over in hard turns (the kind you would make tryingto dodge a deer or a child.
Molly Ivins had a great column about "SLAPP" (Strategic Lawsuit Against Political Participation) suits. Companies file them when someone says smethg damaging but true about them. Oprah Winfrey was hit by one a few years ago: the Beef Council sued her when she discussed the dangers of eating red meet on her show. The Ivins column isn't on the web (too old) , but PR Watch has a nice series of articles about them.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
I'm guessing that you are young, single, childless, and working in an industry that has more jobs than qualified people to fill them.
And I'm guessing that so are you, as are 90% of Slashdot. But that's irrelevant. You see, you have to use logic in arguments, what you are doing is a logical fallacy by attacking the speaker. Even if I'm a pathological liar, you hve to evaluate my argument objectively if you ever want to understand anything in the world.
Eperandi
Oh, so Northwest's employees are worthless? That's a great stand to take.
Esperandi
The people throughout history that you are talking about did not "jeopardize their jobs by demanding better working conditions", they grouped into a mindless horde and intimidated, maimed, and murdered people to get their petty way that they didn't deserve. I'm not saying they didn't deserve better working conditions as workers, they did. But as thugs, they deserved to be jailed and nothing less. If they take their arguments to their employer and can't get conditions changed, they leave. The company replaces them with someone willing to work in those conditions. An idiot, no doubt. Well, that idiot isn't as good as you, right? Kick back and watch while the company goes under.
If it weren't for unions, bad companies would go bankrupt, not be kept around half-alive.
And leaving is not cowardly. If an equitable solution cannot be had, why would you stick around? That's like saying not buying an overpriced car is cowardly, you should buy it and then bitch about it not being better and send petitions to the carmaker to improve these "inhumane conditions" you were put into - oh, no, wait, FORCED into.
"After all, if one person quits, there's always more cattle to choose from. "
Okay, I agree with you, you are cattle. However, I am not. If they replace me with one of your kind, the cattle, the company will not do as well. If they choose to replace me anyways or choose not to pay me enough to retain me, bad move on their part, the company is never going to be as good as it could have been if I'd been there making my contribution.
I guess my whole problem is that I don't think I'm completely worthless like you think you are.
Esperandi
Note about history: Capitalism did not create the sweatshops of early America, it inherited them.
Heh, bad issue to pick, I live in West Virginia where the majority of this stuff went on in the first place. When the companies turned on the unions, they were fighting fire with fire. The only way to stop force is with force, you can't reason with it and you can't just live with it. I don't think it should have been done the way it usually was done (after hours, drivebys by their homes, etc), i think they should have walked up to the picket line and the first guy to swing a club or throw a punch gets beat into a twitching mass. The next guy gets the same. And the next and the next until there are a few people left who will say "Okay, this obviously isn't working. We're working in bad conditions. If these conditions persist, we will leave and you will have to replace us with inferior help. This will hurt your business. The cost of improving the conditions a bit (no mine is ever going to be heaven) is less than the cost you will lose."
But, strangely, the collective never thought quite as clearly as that, and miners are not stupid people.
People keep telling me to read history, and I've read loads and loads of it. Every country that has taken on any form of socialism from unions to welfare has eliminated more and more of their geniuses, they call it "brain drain". The entire philsophy behind "everyone is just as good as everyone else" is not "everyone is a genius", but instead "everyone is a lout and they can't help what they do" and its used to excuse the real louts, and treat the geniuses like louts, bleeding them into poverty in order to prop up one or two other people. If they resist, they are "evil, heartless, cruel" and cast out of society or killed. Well, geniuses are smart people, they don't take that - they leave.
Esperandi
Actually, if you just make sure you have legal ownership of the PC (possession is 9/10ths of the law too), you're safe, privacy agreement or no... excepting an anti-privacy agreement they might want you to sign. In such a case, do not accept the PC is that is a concern to you. If you sign and accept and bitch about getting searched or asked for keys to your PGP encrypted mail and even get a court order for them, pony up or you deserve a smack in the face.
Esperandi
People who sign a contract with no intent to uphold it really, REALLY need to be jailed.
I was already composing my "it's not THEIR computers" assuming this was another retarded story about employees getting pissed about not being allowed to have porn on the companies computers in their cubicle... but this really IS the employees computers!
This is not only not right, this is downright and unquestionably illegal. There is no chance in hell that this company is going to get out of this without being sued into the ground. The vast majority of the time, I don't give a rats ass about privacy issues, and I don't really care whether or not the company fires people for organizing a "sick-out". But the fact that they searched peoples computers for this evidence is abhorrent. I can't imagine them being able to search for this sort of thing unless they went through and read email piece by piece. Number 1, they shouldn't be reading peoples email like that. Number 2, if they find this "evidence", they are (not they kinda are, not this is a metaphor for, they *ARE*) violating the first amendment. A lot of people will scream this without even thinking and sound retarded, but I've studeied the first amendment a bit. This is a perfect example of what is called the "chilling effect" on speech. Even talking about your company in an unfavorable light is becoming chilled here. People won't do it for fear of their employer searching their PC and them getting fired for it.
The first amendment was created to protect speech that people want to stop --- not to protect speech no one cares about like saying "nice day". You should be able to talk about anything you want within bounds (the bounds are laid out by the supreme court and I agree with them).
On a deeper note, any person that participated in this SHOULD be fired, for their own good. They are obviously unable to deal with their employer in a productive manner individually to improve their situation to make it positive for both parties. Every single person in such a situation should either quit their job or be fired. Employment should be a win-win situation. The employer pays what they are willing to pay and you accept a certain level of payment. If you want more, you bargain or you quit. period. You do not join a union and use violence and intimidation or things like "sick-outs" to get your point across. You don't fight for raises for the person next to you, you fight for your own raise and you out-produce the person next to you to get it.
Esperandi
While you're talking about the "damn slackers" around the water cooler, I'm working my ass off and I WILL have your job.
Quit.
Sure, it might be hard to get a job, sure, it might mean a change of career, but you have to weigh those things. Its all very simple. Either its worth it to quit or not. If its not, quit your bitching, it could only be worse, right? If its not a big deal to quit, or its not a BIGGER deal to quit put more appropriately, quit.
People just get in a rut and are too scared to think for themselves and go find a new rut.
Esperandi
Oh, no, i wasn;t saying give over your PC or be happy about this, i was just commenting about being unhappy with your job in a more general fashion, ie the thing that made these people mount the sick-out, a complete act of cowardice which they should be fired for.
When it omes to giving up the PCs or data or hard drives or whatever, I say fight that to the death. Takeit to the Supreme Court and you will win. You could defend this one yourself and win it, you don't even need a lawyer... ignoring the fact that the EFF would probably donate one or a lawyer would donate his time, this would be a high-profile case that would be easy to win, wouldn't take many lawyer-hours... the otherside will waste millions fighting a fight they have no chance to win. The courts have already ruled that free speech applies to email like it does to every other kind of speech so this is a no-brainer.
Esperandi
It helps to have a book on Federal gun laws, which I don't right now, but I do have one it home and I have read it.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
I could see this being the employees' fault due to their own stupidity if the computers were paid for/donated/given to them by the company, but even so. This is ridiculous. How do companies think that people will work for them if the company is constantly monitoring the employees, and slapping their hands when they do something that doesn't please their boss? Obviously there needs to be some kind of control - but this should be the employees' self-control and pure considerate behavior, not the companies' overbearing control. If the employees aren't wise enough to figure out that some things just shouldn't be done (like sharing trade secrets with competitors, bad-mouthing your company on company time/property, etc.), then they shouldn't be working for anyone.
Nowadays everyone is so quick to regulate other people, make new laws governing people, punish people for not doing what is expected. DeCSS, Northwest, gun laws, drug laws, patent & trademark suits - all this is just plain stupid. My opinion is that if we don't realize that regulation leads to nothing but discontent, rebellion and more regulation, we're going to be a dead country (even a dead world) within the next century.
Let people have at the least basic freedom to do what they want on their own time with their own lives. Things that aren't dangerous to others shouldn't have to be regulated. If we regulate everything, we're doomed to extinction.
Just my $0.02
Eruantalon
The Annals of Middle-earth
Bzzzt. Not if you're using a half decent PGP program. The one I have (straight from Network Associates - they bought out the guy who invented PGP, he works for them now - PGP Freeware - personal use free ) encrypts my keys using triple DES, whose passphrase is whatever long long easy to remember string I come up with(*).
I go a step further of course, storing them on floppy, so if my home system gets penetrated even these triple DES encrypted files aren't there to work on. Of course remembering to insert the floppy each time I go to use a key is a pain...
(*) - I thought it was cool, analyzing the passphrase as I typed it in telling me how secure it thought it was, via a slider bar. Each time I completed a simple word and started a new word, it moved forward a bit more, and whenever I used a non-standard character ( punctuation, hyphenation, numbers, etc ) it would leap forward even more. )
One thing that has been little discussed is the nature
of the actual decision by the judge. Searches of private
property by employers aside, the decision was made in the
context of a lawsuit by the company against one of it's
unions. The specific intent of the search was to find
people who were responsible for organizing a sick out
at the airline (the union in court denied that there was
an organized sickout, just that a large number of employees
happened to call in sick on a given day).
The bill of rights gives protection to speech, but the
protections given are generally interpreted in a limited
sense. There are the obvious examples of limitations,
such as shouting fire in a crowded theater, libel/slander,
criminal collusion, etc. Generally, political and religious
speech are very protected, but advertising speech, say,
is much less so.
I am not very familiar with the legal precidents regarding
the freedoms (or lack thereof) which employees have when
discussing their employers or their employment outside of
the workplace. It would not suprise me, however, if the
rights of the employee are far less broad than the average
person might imagine. It should be remembered that legal
prescident is very important in the interpretation of
things like this, as it as much as our law and our
constitution, governs the ruling of judges in these matters.
If there's a lawyer in the audience, with any understanding
of how these things work, I think a post about this (perhaps
even a whole story) would be very educational and useful
to the community at large.
Last month, however, Northwest sued the flight attendants union and some of its members, alleging they had violated federal labor laws by orchestrating a sickout. Judge Frank agreed with Northwest and issued a temporary restraining order that prohibited the union from advocating any work disruptions.
:). If Joe Shmoe did this at his company that makes boxes(the cardboard kind) they probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
Well they are flight attendants, so if they do something like this, it is breaking federal law. This is so people like us won't miss our flights, or die because we don't get our tasty airplane food
easy fix: don't be a flight attendant.
---
http://www.spiderinteractive.net
It doens't matter if they owned them or not. according to federal law, it's illegal for flight attendants to strike or walk out, or sick out, or whatever out.(please correct me if i'm wrong)
the airline filed a suit stating that they did break federal law, obtained a search warrant, and searched the attendants belongings. Whether or not it's a computer or a file cabinet doesn't matter.
---
http://www.spiderinteractive.net
If standing up to growing multinationals means making the rest of society pay for the unions' fattened paychecks and absurd "job-for-life" demands, then I guess I'd agree.
Ask yourself -- why did the employees organize an illegal sick-out? Because strikes have been made illegal!
Uh, no they haven't.
Imagine -- you're not allowed to miss work, even to protest, and if you do, you get thrown in jail!
No, you'll get fired. There's a difference.
And in response to the multiple "anywhere in the world but the USA" remarks, I'd also point out that the USA happens to have the strongest, most dynamic economy in the world. There just might be a correlation there...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
IANAL, but I believe this has to do with the contract between the union and Northwest. These contracts clearly spell out the conditions under which the union has a right to strike. I believe the UAW has the right to strike based on safety concerns, for example. Unless the union has filed a grievance and gone on strike, however, they're supposed to fulfill the obligations of their contract with Northwest, meaning that they need to show up for work and do their jobs. Organizing a "sick-out" is a means of circumventing their contract with Northwest and trying to establish unfair leverage in negotiations. To that extent, the government's responsibility is to enforce the contract.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Good idea. It falls a little short in that there might be somebody who understands linux. The solution: don't use lilo for booting linux, have it default to dos/win3.1 (with no prompt!) and use a boot disk for linux. Pop the boot disk, and they'll never know linux even exists on the machine!
Demonstrant's Open Source Tools
"The best quote is from a corporate lawyer who redefines commercial speech to be speech about a corporation rather than speech by one: "Business speech is not subject to the same protections as political speech," said John Roberts, a Minneapolis attorney who specializes in cyberlaw. "You can't say whatever you want about a company." "
This is a clear implication of the idiotic distinction between commercial and non-commercial speech. If purely commercial speech doesn't have the same protection as non-commercial speech, then speech such as "Microsoft products suck" don't have the same protection as "Bill Bradley's policies suck."
The idea of "commercial speech" is an idiotic invention of the Supreme Court that thankfully it has moved away from in recent decades.
At work we are forced to use my favorite M$ product (Windows), so I use PGPdisk, which is part of the commercial PGP package distributed by Network Associates. It basically takes a big (you pick the size) encrypted file and mounts it as a disk. You need to type your passphrase to mount the disk and it automatically un-mounts after a specified period of time. On this disk I keep all of my documents, Eudora (Windows Mail Program) and my Quicken. I back the file up often to ensure I don't lose data, and all of my documents are safe. At home I use the same scheme. I scan in all of my paper documents I need to save (Bank Statements, important bills, Stock transactions, etc.) and put them on a PGP disk as .JPG's. I do normal backups, etc. but when the disk gets full enough I burn a copy of the encrypted volume to CD. One copy stays at home, while the other goes to a safety deposit box. I know this may sound rather cumbersome, but it makes things very convienant. I don't have vaults of paper lying around at my house, and when I do need to look up something it is very easy to find. For example, when I bought my house last year, my mortgage company decided they needed to see all kinds of stuff at the last minute. I would have never found the documentation I needed if it were on paper, but I was able to print off the pages I needed from my encrypted CD. If you were a real conspiracy theorist I guess you could mix in some audio tracks and label it as audio. 29843983493289th Post!!! Whee...
Their homes were not searched and the police did not show up on their doorsteps demanding their computers. Most likely, as part of the discovery process, subpoenas were issued
Nope. Read the story again. The plaintiffs showed up in their doorstep and searched their computers. This is apparently permitted in civil suits. And the plaintiffs themselves do the search and seizure (accompanied by deputies). It isn't the same thing as a subpoena, which is a court order to turn over evidence to the court - it's a search conducted by the plaintiffs.
It surprised me too when I first learned this was possible - during the Scientology raids. I'd always thought that searches were only done in criminal cases and always by the police. But not so, a civil plaintiff can get permission to seize the personal property, business records, personal correspondence, etc. of defendants. In some of the Scientology cases, head members of the CoS showed up at people's houses and conducted the searches personally. The judge can limit the scope of the search but is not required to. Scary but true.
this has no relevance to either the FIRST (free speech) or FOURTH (search and seizure) amendments, since this is a CIVIL lawsuit.
Eh? So I suppose the MPAA's suit agianst 2600 has no first amendment relevance, since it's a CIVIL lawsuit?
Most of the bill of rights applies as much to civil defendants as to criminal defendants. Orders of a court in a civil case are just as much government action as orders in a criminal case and they are subject to the same constitutional scrutiny with respect to violation of rights.
Some of the commentary so far has been overheated, yes, and much of it is more about the morality of this action than the legality of it, but the question of the legal rights of these defendants doesn't become irrelevant just because it's a CIVIL case.
You cant say just anything you want about a company....it just isnt right.
;)
By the way, Microsoft suck big ones....
Simon
The real linux_penguin has Slashdot ID 101961. Anyone else is an impostor. Including Bruce Perens.
Up here in Canada (which is, at times, different from the States), the high-tech industry seems to be fairly sane about working hours. I've been searching for a job recently and all of the firms have said that the work week rarely goes above 40 hours/week. If it does go up, it's usually right before a release. I can cope with wacky hours for a few weeks every eighteen months or so :)
From what I've heard, though, this wasn't always the case. One of the companies, for example, had a reputation of being a sweatshop -- 60 hour weeks were the norm for most of the development cycle. Then they found out they couldn't hire anybody, so the hours went down to sane levels.
I guess it goes to show you that if people refuse to work under certain conditions, then the conditions will improve.
Just my 2 cents.
Unfortunately, the employees obviously lacked a basic understanding that whatever they send in an email gets stored on their HD, perhaps stored on a server HD somewhere and surely stored on the recipient's HD as well. Yes we all have rights, but if they did break a law, even unknowingly, and the courts find sufficient evidence to suspect so and issue a warrant, then the mistake was their own. In this day and age, one cannot be too careful how one treats sensitive information.
Hence the main subject of my post, which is strong encryption and digital "shredders" that are easy to use and should be seamlessly working in the background. Such systems could be designed to:
1. Automatically encrypt and wipe user document directories, mail directories, etc.
2. Automatically wipe all data securely when deleting files.
3. Automatically encrypt and wipe all email communications (GPGP and other encryption programs for email work great, but are still too complicated for the average home user)
All of the above features should be easy and seamless to use, and BUILT IN to all email client and OS distributions. Hopefully, the OpenSource movement will come up with solutions to these "user" problems and incorporate such features in future versions of opensource software.
There should also be a big push by ALL OF US to educate the uneducated when it comes to using encryption and wiping techniques to store, erase and transmit sensitive data. I am still amazed at some of the email I receive from clients who complain about their bosses or companies to me through email going through their company servers!
Ciao
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Please monitor this for us. Thanks, bkbk
You have to appeal, and appeal, and appeal.
Courts RARELY give appeals. And the other side can argue against you getting an appeal. And if that other side is Northwest Airlines, you have a mountain of a battle ahead of you. The hardest part is when you realize that the average person doesn't really even care, basically only because it wasn't their rights that were trampled on.
Man you're like that lame perky guy in the Dilbert comic. Stop being a goody two-shoes. Don't worry one day corporate america will own the rights to your soul, then you'll feel what it's like to fight a company with the resources of Northwest.
Dude, I'm not talking about simply quitting. Companies should not have the right to comandere(sp?) your home computer and look at whatever they simply for "suspecting something".
What makes it so frightening is that a company like Northwest can hire HUNDREDS of lawyers and put infinetly more resources into a lawsuit than you can. That's what makes it scary. And they're slowly winning.
Open your eyes, if you can't see it happening your bland. Corporate America is becoming America plain and simple.
A way around this might be Rivest, et. al.'s "winnoning and chaffing" encryption method. In this case, I'm thinking of two passphrases -- one decrypts some innocuous message (e.g. "Bill Clinton was on the grassy knoll with a sniper rifle") and the other produces the real message ("walk out on Northwest today at 2pm").
This advice is probably worth what you paid for it.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
it's about encryption stupid.
its scary that a corporation thinks they can go around violating your rights just because you work for them. It's not like these computers are company property or anything. Also, I can't see why anybody would choose to work for a corporation that tries to control their life away from work, but I see it happening more and more often. Company's claim that they can do all this and restrict your free speech because they are not a government entity, but they own the government and all the politicians so I don't really see the difference.
Northwest's behavior went unchallenged. They now know how far they can go.
So do other corporations.
This is going to happen again.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
only the US Government has a right to gun down civilians in cold blood (see: Waco, and Randy Weaver's wife), and Pinkerton would be infringing on this monopoly.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
It's interesting that corporations - which are given status of legal persons by the states - are being granted far more rights and privileges than individuals, who are also legal persons.
When have you heard of (e.g.,) a plumber operating under a d/b/a seeking a court's permission to check the hard drives of some of his assistants or subcontractors to see if they really were sick last Friday, or just wanted to hit the beach?
On the flip side, it is possible for states to revoke the corporate status of corporations. There was a campaign against Philip Morris in New York state prior to the last US Senate election, led by AdBusters. The rationale was that Philip Morris had lied to the American public on issues such as tobacco/cigarette safety, and had tried to hook youth on cigarettes, and as such did not deserve to operate as a corporation in NY State. I think we need to emphasize that the legal status of corporations should not grant them greater powers over individuals than individuals themselves have with respect to each other; we also need to pierce corporate veils more often and hold individuals responsible for crimes against individuals and public safety.
-Dave
This is definetly a case of big brother is watching you. They'd get their filthy hands on my box when they pried it from my cold dead fingers. Besides the fact that if they were wanting to do anything like that they needed to use something called Hotmail. It would be illegal for them to touch thier addresses at hotmail, as it would be considered "hacking". They also needed to get crypto. That's the only way to get any privacy on the net any more. They could crack the crypto, but the likelyhood would be very small with the right program. It's just evil that they can acess thier worker's computers like that. Aren't there laws against doing that anyways? I mean, like cyber tresspassing? This is taking the net way too far.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Sirs/Madames,
After reading of your recent decision to investigate the personal computers of your employees in an attempt to win a lawsuit directed against your employees I can only conclude that any air transportation business I have for at least the next year will be conducted with others in the marketplace. In the future, please consider that in addition to taking my own business elsewhere, I would be inclined to advise others to do likewise unless this type of practice is abandoned. Sincerely, [snip]
Where do I go to let Northwest airlines know they just lost me as a customer? I may also add that I will spend 1 month actively advising others I know to use alternative carriers for their air-travel needs. -CS
And will it stop with companies if price is right? If I register dot-com and hire a rabid lawyer does that mean no-one can badmouth me?
This makes me sick. It seems losetup -e with a well-hidden backup is more important than ever.
People are complaining that this violated the employees 5th Amendment rights. Not so. The 5th Amendment (and for that matter the whole Constitution) protects people from the government and has nothing to do with private companies. There are laws against this sort of thing, but the constitution has nothing to do whit it whatsoever.
#include "IANALdisclaimer.h"
;)
in that the systems were home computers. Whilst we have seen that large companies can bully smaller individuals through the courts (DeCSS et al), for this to be upheld in the courts...
Still, next time I feel that a checkout operator is a little slow, or a cabbie isnt taking the most direct route, its nice to know that I can request the contents of their harddrives for my examination (as long as I dont spread the information.)
If only those silly employees had used something sensible like PGP, then agreed amongst themselves not to give out their keys (or more importantly, passphrases) to anyone else. Then the company can search their computers to their heart's content.
Of course, that would be using PGP to carry out an illegal action so if they had done the sensible thing the publicity from this case would easily have turned into a massive 'encryption is evil' media bun-fight. It could also have provided a way for law enforcement to bring key escrow issues back to the forefront.
The moral of the story... don't pull a sickie then leave evidence lying around (isn't a phone call just as good??).
PGPi is available from www.pgpi.org
There is no conspiracy
As a Minnesotan, I know that Nortwest and it's employees are always at each other's throats. FYI, Norwest employees are under contract negotiatons, always have been and always will be. Since they are employees of a company essential to the infrastructure of Minnesota's economy and the well being of the state's citizens in general (airmail, travel, organ transplant delivery, you name it) they can't legally just go on strike whenever they feel like it. Anyway, the mediator in their contract negotiation said NO STRIKES! so instead employees used their generous allocation of paid sick leave to bring airline travel to it's knees in Minnesota during the busiest time of the year.
This is not how you play fairly.
So why are these people getting their computers searched? Because Nortwest knows damn well which employees are the troublemakers and a federal judge agrees with them. I don't like the idea of a corporation checking out my filez anymore than the rest of you, but these employees sabotaged, and essentially stole from their employer. I agree that it's very unethical of Nortwest to read their employees email, but it's damn unethical to organize a sick-out.
I hope not. My low opinion of Northwest is even lower now. Last winter I spent 3 hours sitting on the runway in Detroit waiting for the pilot to arrive. Seems he was in a car accident on the way to the airport. Since Northwest had people backed up all over the terminal they just push people into planes to wait. 20 degrees F and not heat in the $*)$#@ plane. If I can help it I will never fly Northwest.
When Michael mentions free PCs, he is talking about the recent Ford story. Ford is giving it's employees free computers. There is no correlation to this article. The PCs that the airline is searching are private property, and a company has NO fscking right to be looking at private property.
Munky_v2
"Warning: you are logged into reality as root..."
Jay
this scares the HELL out of me! The part I like best is the quote about how you can't say anything derogatory about a company! THE FSCK I CAN'T!?!?!?!
This article brings up alot of very important and controversial issues, the most important of which, i believe is that of freedom of speech. I am all for the illegality of slander and libel. If you purposefully spread FUD about a company or person in order to cause them trouble or ruin their reputation - then we have a problem. However, if you believe what this guy's saying, it should be illegal to say that Kleenex sucks and your switching to Puffs. The day public opinion/freedom of speech can be regulated by legislation is the day i get a gun, some hunting gear, and join a militia!
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Or, in the Official language of Northwestern: this whole scenario is "doubleplus ungood".
-Hypr Geeque
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
This makes it impossible to memorize your passphrase (a bad thing if the file gets deleted/corrupted, or if new versions of your command-line tools produce slightly different output), but it makes it possible for you to honestly say to the court that you don't have the passphrase in your possession (and that the other side already had the passphrase in its possession, since they've got your box), and that you could only provide the passphrase if you were given full access to your computer (which they sure as hell aren't going to agree to)!
(Of course, I'm not advocating using this method for illegal activities, but am merely providing a way to protect your Constitutional rights from the heavy hand of Government and Big Mean Corporations, and to protect your sensitive, personal data from prying eyes ;-)
-Hypr Geeque
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
You seem to be quite unimaginative as to how far the imagination can stretch.
Here's the connection I see with the feudal system:
First off, under the 1886 (I believe) case County of Santa Clara [sound familiar?] vs. Southern Pacific Railroad (if I've got my history correct), the Supreme Court somehow held that, under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, corporations are "persons" and are entitled to the same legal protections as real people.
Unfortunately, under this guise of equality, these bodies of legal fiction known as Corporations managed to lie, cheat, swindle, bully, muscle, and bribe their way into being considered a greater entity than the individual, no longer a subservient body.
This, of course, means that despite the U.S. Constitution's clause prohibiting it, the United States does grant certain "individuals" a title of nobility; it's called "Inc." .
Just my paltry offering of worthless babble.
-Hypr Geeque
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
With my next pc I'm going to invest in a cd writer, imaging software and the biggest electromagnet I can get my hands on. Maybe companies should start this as a package for the paranoid masses.
Working for the (other) man
They have every right to if they provide the computers and they are located at their office building.
I don't know what you all are arguing about, its cut and dried...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
This seems to be an effective attack on freedom of assembly. The balance of companies versus unions has a body of law associated with it. Here we have individuals rapidly assembling and deciding on a plan of action amongst themselves (an action legal for any one of those individuals.) The court seems to have declared them a de facto union, and therefore in violation of laws applying to unions. This lets the company treat these people as a union, and search for evidence of violation of laws concerning union/company relationships.
Under this reasoning, any on-line group of people could be considered a legal entity. E.g. members of Slashdot discussing DeCSS could all be considered felony conspirators attempting to undermine the DMCA.
I am afraid.
I'd be willing to bet the judge who gave the order
just moved into a brand new house and mysteriously
accumliated a large ammount of frequent flyer miles.
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
was a resonable search. I can't believe
any corporation with or with out a
search warrent has the right to go through my
personal belongings based on something
that may or may not exist. I also don't believe there
are only certain types of speach
protected under the 1st ammendment. What is
"Business speach" or "political Speach"? Speach is Speach!!
This judge has given Northwest the power the
federal government legally doesn't even have, and that
is really frightning.
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
This is the scariest thing I've seen in a while.
This is absolutely, positively, wire-tapping, pure and simple. It uses the phone system, and the only difference between this and a voice conversation is that this conversation is represented in text mode instead of analog audio. And that this form sometimes keeps copies. Note that there is absolutely no requirement to keep back-ups, and no guilt could be inferred if the back-ups didn't exist (unless, of course, they were deleted AFTER the search warrants were issued). Period. I refuse to believe that this judge will not get his hands slapped for issuing the order in the first place.
Can anyone honestly tell me that a judge would have authorized audio phone taps on these same people under the same circumstances? For that matter, why didn't he authorize audio phone taps IN ADDITION to the search warrants? Because He can't. The Law won't allow it.
And the precedents for handling this type of 'labor dispute' are many, and they don't include seizing personal property. Fireman and Policeman are prohibited by law from striking or staging sickouts (at least in my state). If an employer (even governmental bodies) suspect an 'illegal' sick-out, the Union gets hauled to court, and if they can't provide sufficient documentation (Doctor's notes, etc.) that the employees were really sick, then THE UNION is penalized for the illegal action. How the Union handles their own individuals is up to them, as long as it's legal. The Union can not selectively decide to be their members' legal representative for labor and contract issues only when it's convenient for them. In for a dime, in for a dollar. How many times have you seen a Union leader jailed when the Union members were on an illegal strike? Too many to count.
The slippery slope this judge's actions lead us down are terrifying. To justify seizing private e-mails from privately-owned property when He couldn't get an audio wire-tap or audio bugs solely because e-mails SOMETIMES have copies leads quickly to other justifications. It's a short step to authorizing full-time audio wire-taps on all of a company's employees JUST IN CASE THEY PLAN SOMETHING in violation of a court order, so that they'll have records of the conversations in case they need them.
And if it's illegal to 'air your gripes' on a computer bulletin board, what's next? The company gets to record all conversations between any two or more employess, no matter if they are on company time or property? Two employees chat in the hardware store, they must provide written transcripts of everything said to the company? And what if two employees are married? They must provide tapes of everything said during sex, with a copy for each of their bosses? The list goes on.
I hope somebody (the ACLU)? jumps on this, even if it is withdrawn, to have the original order declared ILLEGAL!!>BR>
If I read the article correctly...
Yes, the CONTRACT forbade striking. but the CONTRACT is not LAW. If it was JUST a contract violation, then this would be breach of contract, not a criminal offense for which wire-tap and search and seizure laws could be brought to bear.
My understanding is that the Judge had previously issued a Court Order forbidding the Union from engaging in work stoppages, and it is the Criminal Offense of Violating a Court Order that is the basis for using wire-taps and search and seizure.
Off topic p.s.: I don't fly them as often as you, but they are at the bottom of my list also. I'm waiting for the announcement any day now that they have discovered the mummified remains of 176 passengers and crew in a plane in a far corner of the Detroit airport that was parked there 3 years ago in a snowstorm. (SUE ME, NW!)
Sorry if this has been posted before.
Thank you for contacting Northwest Airlines Online Support.
Thank you for contacting us regarding this issue. Please understand the following or allow us to provide you with some additional information regarding this issue.
In the last several days there has been considerable media coverage concerning the process used to discover evidence of the unlawful job action conducted by some members of Teamster Local 2000 over the year-end holidays.
As you know, Northwest's lawsuit against Local 2000 and a number of individual flight attendants alleged that an unlawful flight attendant sick-out over the holidays disrupted our operations and caused the cancellation of some 300 flights. The Federal Judge hearing the case agreed with Northwest and issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against Local 2000 and the individual flight attendant defendants.
After issuing the TRO, the judge instructed both sides to conduct "discovery" or an investigation into the facts of the case. Discovery is a part of almost every lawsuit and has a large set of rules governing how it is conducted, including rules relating to discovery of computer information. Contrary to the media's coverage of this issue, the rules and precedents for the inspection of computers dates back to 1970. Most recently, for example, the government's case against Microsoft heavily relied on e-mails retrieved from the company's own computers.
Using these standard procedures, Northwest sought to discover the identity of the individuals who posted anonymous messages urging unlawful conduct. Before doing so, however, we agreed with Local 2000's lawyers on the procedures to protect individuals' privacy and to ensure that the only computer information reviewed would be related to the sick-out/slowdown campaign. The procedures required the use of outside computer experts to actually conduct the review of each computer and to identify and produce relevant documents. No Northwest employee or lawyer ever saw - or ever will see - the actual computers or any contents except those that are relevant to the inquiry.
As a further protection, the two sides agreed with the Court's direction that once the computer experts identified information believed relevant to the inquiry, such materials would be given to the defendant's lawyer exclusively. The defendants would then produce them to the Court (and then to Northwest) or would object to their production and ask the Court to exclude them.
About 15 computers were actually reviewed; most of these computers were reviewed at the offices of the Union or of Ernst & Young. Where the individual requested it - and only where an individual requested it - the computer specialists went to their homes to inspect the computer. Northwest has not yet seen the contents of any of these computers, and given the recent settlement agreement in this case, that data may never be disclosed to Northwest Airlines.
Sincerely,
Jodi Schott
Northwest Airlines Online Support
WWW.NWA.COM
Suddenly, any personal email that complains about their job and Northwest Airlines will come across as damning evidence, and they're screwed.
I can't wait until the day when I'm dragged into my boss's office for complaining about my day at work in an email to my fiancee. I had no idea Big Brother was so close at hand...
There is a slight chance that this is legal in terms of the lawsuit (still remains to be seen), but this has nothing to do with the status of the property. The computers were obviously private property; Northwest is just unhappy that these computers were used against them.
If they had organized this completely over the phone (as if they were the only organizers, anyway), there would be no records at all, and it's obviously too late for a phone tap. But now they have to basically allow their computers to testify against themselves, because the data is there for the (apparent) taking. It's awfully convenient for Northwest that the flight attendants used modern technology...
There are rights which you CAN NOT sign away. The only exception to this is the US military.
the reason for this, is so you will not be put in a "give up certain right, or you don't work". The fact that they got a federal Judge to ok this makes me shiver, considering that the same judge probably wouldn't have ok'd a search of these persons safe deposit box, or Home for that matter. It just goes to show you how the computer is percieved as a different entity then any other house hold applience.
Oh, an EULA is a contract, so I hope you never violated that, or , by your own words, you REALLY need to be jailed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
..said John Roberts, a Minneapolis attorney who specializes in cyberlaw. "You can't say whatever you want about a company."
Northwest Airlines sucks. ha!
the sick out was illegal, and if those people used equipment owned by the company to organize an event intended to hurt the company (and consumers) I'm all for it.
this is not a free speech issue. This is a stupidity issue. Don't use company property to hurt the company. Buy your own damn computer if you want to organize an illegal event against your employer.
I'll say it again, I know it's not the slashdot mentality, but I think in this case it's a good thing.
Honestly this scares the crap outta me. If this kind of idea is ever supported in a court room, large companies would basically be able to do wahtever they want, and if you complain, YOU'RE the bad guy....
That is against privacy laws insn't it? Welll anyway that tou look at it, it is f*cking stupid, cause what if one of the non-union emplyees had personal stuff on his/her pc, like nude pics of his/her spouse, well then the company sees them I guess
I'd like to see how long this is going to hold up. In the mean time, anyone have any suggestions for a "Sampson Option" for the following:
1. Windows
2. Linux
3. BeOs
By Sampson Option, I mean some kind of program that will trash the hd.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
A company may not automatically be not a public figure. But a non-public figure may be a limited public figure if they are in a controversy of public interest. Employment issues, discrimination, etc. are issues of public interest. Especially since government agencies were created to deal with them.
I have also read some cases where labor dispute issues are protected from being considered causes for a defamation action.
There is more information on my website and and the summary judgment motion goes into great detail on libel.
Fight Spammers!
Fight Spammers!
This could set a very, very dangerous precedent. If I understand correctly, the employee's hard drives are being copied and poured over on the suspicion that there could be some incriminating evidence there. This sounds to me to be like a search and seizure; however, there was no mention that the police seized the hard drives or that a warrant was acquired for the search. If the computers were company property, I could understand; however, since the computers are private property, should they be able to do this? I think not.
On a side note: let's say that incriminating email exists and that it was either a) wiped from the hard drive or b) it is in an encrypted portion of disk. Is it possible that these employees could be prosecuted for suspicion of eliminating "evidence" that may or may not have been there?
Just a thought. IANAL.
as we can see nothing is ever free. as much as we would like to trust our companies when they say " here, take this "free" computer and have it at home" things like this pop up and we all see that nothing is free. It becomes free at the loss of some security. There is always a cost. we must remember that before we go on in our lives
A week ago many of us were drooling over the thought of plugging our heads directly into hardware. This type of interface while very exciting is something I would initially dread (over time I would learn to accept that paranoia like all the others I have accepted).
The descision to search private individuals personal computers for edivence of co-ordinating illegal acts is barely a step away from plugging someone into a thought scanning machine for whatever crossed thier mind at any time. A little power surge and "Oops there goes your memory for the night in question. Sry, but now you have no defense"
As a paranoid person might have once thought "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to reformat my wetware"
sig? never touch 'em.
"He's a real midnight golfer"
As an honorably-released-former-member of the teamsters I deplore NW airlines clear disdain for its highly trained and loyal flight attendants. As a resident of Minneapolis I can attest to the cities love-hate relationship with the company, and support for the employees of this heinous corporation.
On a more interesting note (that I do not have linkable evidence for) the airline allegedly tried shipping parts to mexico for repair, where mexican engineers simply replaced the entire part to be on the safe side at greater cost. Instead of using local union labor to refurbish the part to new or better than new specifications for less money.
sig? never touch 'em.
"He's a real midnight golfer"
Someone should track down the web sites they mention here and tell the nice mechanics and flight attendants about Scramdisk
ScramDisk Web Site
It's a lovely virutal disk tool for windoze with strong encryption. I use it for all my MS data.
Personally I'd be awfully careful after getting my computer back from the nice lawyers. Who knows what trojans might have 'accidently' been transferred to my disks?
Compare this to the nwe 35h law in france
I must say that 40h is OK (IMHO) but I wouldn't want to do much more unless this is my own business of course.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I have just been fired from a merchant bank for abuse of my internet account. I made the mistake of downloading a LOPHT program out of boredom to see what it was. Next thing I know security phone my manager and demand that I be sacked immediately. So here I am at 4.00am CET typing on slashdot instead of getting a good night's sleep before joining the corporate treadmill. Companies can do what they like to you, because we all made the mistake of electing too many pro-business governments. Remember that the people that really run the world are highly-paid corporate dictators and view democracy and labour rights as an obstruction to making money, so why should their political stooges be any more interested in this. Just my little whinge about absolute power.
The "free pc" is presumably a reference to Ford and not directly related to the story. It was not mentioned anywhere at http://www.s tartribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory= 81364200. The point of the poster bringing up the free PC by Ford was the same as yours.
At the end of the day, it's people who think the way that you do, Brento, that we all need to be afraid of! People who equate illegal with wrong or immoral. Once someone does something "illegal" their rights are gone, I see. Doesn't matter if they killed a couple of nuns, or were carrying a half ounce of marijuana, right? Bottom line, it is an UNJUST law for workers to not be able to organize a sickout or walkout! Who is harmed by such a walkout? Oh yeah, it would prevent the rich corporate types and their stockholders from making loads of cash while running roughshod over the worker. You see, we live in a country where laws exist primarily to perpetuate inequities so the rich can get even richer without too much fuss. I think that is why most of the people on this forum are having such a problem with this, even if it is technically allowed under law. People like you don't get it. Maybe someday they will come by to haul you off, a la Brazil, and you will go calmly along with them telling yourself that it must be all well and legal, right? "Freedom? Yeah, right! The freedom to choose Nike or Reebok, or to cheer for the RAMS or the TITANS.
"My freedom may very well cost you your life."
Hey Clueless! Read up on some of this (or any other country's) labor history! If this is truly what employment is, then we would all still be working in labor-camp like factories, 60 hours a week, for $20 a day, maybe even being beaten or worse if we complained! If the workers of the world weren't fighting and dying, and using violence to resist voilence, and striking and wlaking off the jog 60 or 70 years ago, you wouldn't have that comfy 40 hour a week job with insurance and all the perks that you take for granted! Tell your bull$hit to a sweatshop worker in Burma and see what they think of you. Fool! Some people's ignorance is astounding!!!
"My freedom may very well cost you your life."
Lawyer commented that this search presents no privacy concerns that are absent from other civil discovery questions. But if my wallet were stolen, no judge should issue a warrant to search the entire state in hopes of finding it. The search which took place seems to be extraordinarily broad relative to its target. Searching even one entire computer for an email which might or might not exist is a stretch. Searching hundreds is an abuse of judicial discretion that should have been appealed and overturned.
Randy Hudson
I have two of my favorite steganographic tools available at http://house.ofdoom.com/~hungerf3/steg/
I have Jsteg (as patches against version 4 of the Independent JPEG Group's software, and a prebuilt windows version), as well as White Noise Storm. They both, in my opinion do excellent jobs of hiding data.
So not only can you boycott Northwest, you can boycott in comfort.
Did you even bother to read the article? It says that they were searching the HOME computers, not the WORK computers. Not supplied by the company, paid for by the company, or used for company business.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
You must have read a different article than the one on the Star-Tribune page, then. The Slashdot description talks about free pcs, but the linked article does not. I just read it again to be sure. At no place in the original article is there any implication that the company provided the PCs for any of the employees.
Are you one of the computer users that feels "powerful and excited" when using a computer?
Amusing. Lame, but amusing.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
We have to keep in mind, we are (largely) techhies who could go work wherever we choose, and could easily jump from employer to employer should such a clear injustice occur to them...
but upon reading this story it looks like many of the people affected here were not technology people, who were perhaps in roles not so much in demand (the airline industry)..
...and much more easily victimized by this sort of behaviour. the corporate masters know damn well the employees can't do very much, it's not like there's 8 other airlines down the street they can run off to.
Perhaps the best way to help these folks is to call your friendly Northwest Airlines office and explain why you don't plan on flying with them anytime soon.
Of course you could also book a flight with them and take the oppurtunity to pass out pamphlets on the flight.
Disclaimer: I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice. If you need legal advice, see an atrorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
This one needs hip-waders to get through.
This is not an employer searching employees. It is a litigant going through the normal discovery process in civil litigation. The other litigants just happen to be a group of employees (not all of the employees) of the airlines.
There are *no* privacy concerns here that are not present *every* time civil litigation looks at private papers or other materials of a litigant.
In this case, there was a very large number of "sick" employees during a labor dispute. Not just a little above average, but so many sick employees that it is beyond belief that they were all sick. *someone* organized this violation of federal labor law. The airline has sued those it believes to be impossible. If these people did it, it is probable that they exchanged email (which for some reason, people don't tend to delete). The litigant is entitle look.
> "If Northwest succeeds in gaining access to the hard drives of the
> home computers of its employees, it will certainly put a chill on the
> uses employees everywhere make of their home computers," said Beth
> Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego.
*duh* If criminals belongings can be sorted through, it will certainly chill the stolen things they keep. In *no* way is this a general search of employees by an employer. To prevent this, we would have to create a special right for employees in litigation with their employer to withhold relevant evidence.
Note that the search was done only after getting a warrant from the court, which required a judge to review the search.
Also note (if you actually read the article) that it is not Northwest, nor even their attorneys, that are looking at the data. An accounting firm has been hired, and will only turn over data covered by the warrant.
hawk, esq.
I haven't read the article again, but wasn't it
eleven employees? All of whom were either organizing the activity,
or running "related" websites?
Assuming that all of them really are defendants, and that there is
enough evidence for the suit to have gotten this far, there's
really nothing unusual about a search this intrusive.
Maybe that should be changed, but given the current system, the
protections offered (third party review) seem to have been well done.
hawk, esq.
The Cold Cash War, by Robert Asprin. (Same guy who edited Thieves' World and wrote the Myth series of fantasy-humor novels, BTW).
The plot starts out as a nice, easy-reading story: wargames, a little bit of intrigue... Corporations doing financial battle with each other, in both legal and "gray area" ways. Then they decide that the governments (of various countries) are getting in the way of their little games. The logical solution, of course, is to get rid of the power of said governments. That's when it starts to get interesting (and more than a little scary).
Now if you're already concerned about corporate abuse of power, you'll be thinking ahead as you read the book and it won't catch you completely off-guard. But just recommend it to someone else, then casually mention (after they've read it and been shocked by the ending) "Hey, did you know the corporations are already trying to take over the power of the government?" Then when they answer, "No way, I'd have heard something about that," you can explain about the RIAA, the MPAA, Northwest, that quote by that lawyer about "Business speech isn't protected like political speech. You have the right to bad-mouth the government, but you don't have the right to bad-mouth a corporation." I mangled the quote, I'm sure, but that was the gist of it. Be sure to quote that one, then if they don't believe anyone ever said that, pull out the source and show them!
As has been pointed out time and time again, there are several key components to keeping your rights, and one of them is mindshare. Corporate PR tricks would be much less effective if more people saw through them. Educate your friends!
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
As I understand it, in the US to win a suit on grounds of slander or libel you need to prove actual damage to the plaintiff by the speech or writing. The courts have made it extremely hard for public figures of any kind to prove these damages since they have to show that people believed some nobody with limited access to the media were believed more than a well known public figure with media access and that there was actual harm done. Theoretically normal people have an easier time sueing for slander/libel since they have less power to defend themselves outside of court.
In England I think it is easier to sue for slander/libel because in most cases the defendant has to demonstrate evidence to justify what he/she has stated.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
If your contract includes a non-disclosure agreement and a trade secret is released somehow, does your employer have the right to tap your home phone and read home mail? I hope not.
Criminal investigations conducted by an appropriate government agency with a legal warrant should be the only searches of private property allowed in a free society.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
As for the tied-to-the-land thing, okay, I'll grant you that (given the admission that it's often practically different) but it's a nitpick and doesn't really change the situation.
--
from encyclopedia britannica:
Hey look, "personal and freely accepted links". I think the first part is very clearly what we've got today. And the "another aspect" mentioned is becoming more and more true, as this story demonstrates.
--
The problem with--and relevance of--Free PC's is that most non-formal computer communication is still log-based, whereas most informal non-computer communication is composed of realtime communication.
Consider: It's illegal to tap a phone line proactively, and it's impossible to tap a phone line retroactively. The speech was either recorded from the realtime source or it was lost to the passage of time. Similar considerations affect person to person contact.
However, email is based upon my message staying on your machine until you see it. AIM, ICQ, and other instant messaging systems also are based on the concept that your text remains for as long as the client desires. The courts have ruled--correctly, incidentally--that you should not have the same rights against recording of an email as you should of a phone call because of this.
That's not to say that email shouldn't be private material not dissimilar to any other form of non-realtime communication--a paper letter, a video tape, or whatnot. But it's intrinsic in the format that it gets recorded.
And that's why corporations love the concept of informal communications shifting to email.
There are many protections on informal speech that have gone unspecified because they've been implemented by the protections against recording realtime communications. As everything shifts to non-realtime, an individual's informal communication profile is far easier to track, maintain, and correct.
Give your employees free PC's, and start logging not just the memos but the chatter. Start watching the buzz, not the hype. Start attacking the quiet dissidents, not the martyrs.
Don't get me wrong--I personally think Ford Motors is embarking on a bold and honorable step in giving 350K free pc's to their employees. But as we shift towards a society where informal communications are intrinsically non-realtime and logged, we need to be aware that the separation between public and private speech needs to be maintained. If the Free PC's are given in a cynical attempt to fund a employee monitoring infrastructure, or even if that becomes the unintended consequence, the harms to business will be significant.
It's the ability to speak privately that has maintained most of business's immunity from free speech codes. Should Americans start needing to go to onerous lengths to be able to speak without fear, there will be a backlash and Corporate America will be hurt by the resultant votemongering. I am not convinced that this would be a particularly good thing.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
A finer point of labor law - there is a tradeoff here. Because airlines are a critical industry, airline employee unions are not allowed to go on strike without permission of federal labor mediators. But by the same token, if they DO go on strike (legally), then the employer cannot fire them.
In this case, the employees did not have permission to strike, or to stage quasi-strikes like a sick-out. So, if it turns out that the employees DID organize an illegal sick-out, NWA would be allowed to fire them as no-shows. They weren't sick, they were bullying the company, in defiance of the orders of federal mediators.
---
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
But even still, three things about that.
1) Consider how recent it is. It certainly took the government there some time to get a clue. It's there, but it took long enough.
2) Look at the wording difference between the two. The CCRF guarantees the right. The U.S. Constitution guarantees that this right cannot be taken away, something which the Charter you've linked to does not do. It grants the right but does not guarantee it.
3) All right, the US is one of two nations. If anyone else can find another nation with a free-speech clause, I'm sure we'd all be glad to hear it. I stand by the assertion that while other nations might practice it for the time being, there are now only two nations which speficically grants that right, and is the only nation to actually guarantee it.
I hope the employees go for a class-action lawsuit for privacy violations.
If a business wants to search its own computers for evidence that's, well, its business. The computers are its property, and it has the right to search it.
But going for employees' personal computers is way out of line. This is not cool. And this bit about abridging free speech to only poitical matters: no way. I'm sorry; the US government is bad in a lot of ways, but it's done one thing I'm proud of: it's the only nation with a free speech clause in its Constitution. And no, that doesn't mean just political matters. It means all speech. Whether or not a few fat-cats in penthouse corner offices like it. Whether or not a few crazed zealots like it. Whether or not perfectly reasonable, sane people like it. It doesn't matter. It's all speech.
Yeah, if you're using speech to commit a crime (like shouting "Fire!" in a theater) that's one thing; the right to swing my fist ends at the other man's nose. But this is hardly such a case. No crime was comitted, and no one has the right to cause such a gross privacy invasion on those grounds.
Come to think of it, is this even legal?
I think the actions taken by the company in this case are intrusive and generally reprehensible, but there are some interesting issues here:
"Business speech is not subject to the same protections as political speech," said John Roberts, a Minneapolis attorney who specializes in cyberlaw.
The statement is true, but obtuse. You can say or print some pretty evil, nasty things in a political context, and not be sued for slander, libel, or defamation of character. But the issue here is whether business speech is differently protected from common speech. IANAL, but the comparison to political speech seems irrelevant.
"You can't say whatever you want about a company."
Again, it's true, in the strictest sense. You can say or print things that are slanderous and libelous, and most likely you'll get sued. Is this different from saying similar things about your neighbor or co-worker? I don't think so. How does this relate to the search and seizure of private email? If private, personal email was used to broadcast a message (i.e. multiple copies sent to a broad range of recipients) and that message can be shown to be legally actionable, then maybe they do have a leg to stand on. It's not private email anymore. However, the implication of Roberts' statement is that companies enjoy some sort of special protection or extension of slander/libel definitions. Such an implication is just silly, unless you take into account that Northwest Air has enough money to form a protective barrier against critical speech based on litigiousness.
I think not...(*poof*)
As a person who often deals with privacy issues, I am not exactly sure how to take this.
In my mind, this is akin to a company getting a court order to examine the calling records of employees home telephone lines. I can't say that I have heard of that happening, and perhaps it isn't all that unusual.
However, Northwest may be setting precedent only in the fact that we can point out and say "this is what badly run companies do."
It is unusual to hear of an airline so disliked as Northwest is, and the reason many point out is Northwest's management, which has been extremely effective at demoralizing its employees. A demoralized work force is not a good work force, and I hope that any idiot manager knows this. It's why many people refuse to fly the airline, and the biggest loser is the state of Minnesota, which is beholden to Northwest's high fares and bad service.
The reason for examing the computers had to do with illegal union action. While I am not necessarily the biggest fan of unions, illegal union action in the airline industry isn't all that unusual. The reason it occurs is usually because airline management is doing something stupid or not answering employee demands (which admittedly may be unreasonable.)
Illegal union action has generally been viewed as not as severe as, say, stealing something from the airline. Most airlines get the picture, or they just continue to let the situation worsen (a la Frank Lorenzo and Eastern airlines...a good example of bad management turning a good airline into crap and then destroying it.)
It surprises me that the union isn't as concerned about this, but perhaps they are trying to take the high road, letting the airline discover nothing, and then mocking it's attempts later.
"Northwest defended the search, noting that a federal court had authorized it." What is the judges name and address?
It seems to me that at least it's semi-clear.
If the employer owned the machine, they can do whatever the hell they want with it. If the employee owned the machine, it should be illegal. (I didn't see in the article whether the employee definitively owned the machine or not - correct me if I'm wrong)
It's the same reason why when you work at an office, and they give you an email account and a computer, most real companies make you sign something that says "This is our equipment that we are letting you use, don't ever be fooled into thinking that you can't be monitored" -- in other words, generally speaking, when the company owns the machine, they give you fair warning that you have no privacy on their equipment. Even without the warning though it makes sense that they would have that right.
But all of that assumes that they in fact own the machines, which I'm not sure about. Please post below if you know.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
All of you that are fed up with this crap, go to the nearest window, open it (with something large and heavy if needed) and scream "I'm mad as hell and you try this shit I'll stab you with a protractor!"
Karma be damned.
Sorry boy, check your terms of employment again. Unless your HR needs a clue stick you should have clause on that you are not supposed to say anything potentially harmfull to your company
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Use debian. Besides its master boot record being a major pain it can do most of lilo's casual jobs. And it does not show aything meaningful while running. So unless you actually check the boot sector and partitions on the machhine you have no idea what's going on. That is besides using encrypted filesystems.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Ok, let me re-state my argument for the inherently slow.
They have every right to search anything they own.
You're not allowed to speak badly about or take actions against your employer and expect to keep your job (obviously sexual harrassement and cases of the like are different).
They can search your home computer if they have a court order.
They can search your work computer whenever they want, and don't need to tell you shit.
now.... how I've swayed from my argument is beyond me, but these are the breaks. I wouldn't even call this an argument, because these are facts.
end of story.
The company is your *employer*. They do not need a reason to fire you, they just can. If you say something nasty about the company, then you're 100% liable if you get fired, regardless of how insane it may sound. Now chances are they won't fire you criticizing your boss about something. Organizing a sick-out however is plenty motive.
Those are the breaks in a capitalist society.
I never said they were fired, I'm merely stating the fact that, you _can't_ say whatever you want about your employer and expect to keep your job. You're wrong that sick-outs force people to work. Nobody is forcing you to go to work in the morning and get paid. By organizing a sick-out, you revoke the privilage of having a job. Just because you don't want to work one weekend and you fake sick, doesn't mean you have the right to work at that job ever again. Especially if your company is reliant on you to do your job. You can't expect to screw your company, who pays you, hence allows you to eat and have a secure job, while faking sick and not working. Just because the job is there this week doesn't mean it'll be there next week. Its not your God-given right to have a job, its a privilage that nobody forces you to undertake. Nobody has to hire you. You talk about me being a bad capitalist, well you're nothing but a socialist. If you don't like the system, which seems to be in favor for everyone right now, then you can move to France and see how things chugg along over there. Socialists need not respond, because we're talking about this capitalist country.
cmuncey touches on a number of excellent points! Many of the posts are indeed WRONG: this has no relevance to either the FIRST (free speech) or FOURTH (search and seizure) amendments, since this is a CIVIL lawsuit. Not only are the rules of evidence different from a criminal trial ("preponderance of the evidence" vs. "beyond a reasonable doubt" -- remember how OJ lost the wrongful death lawsuit?), but the rules of discovery PERMIT subpoenas of practically anything that might be tangentially related. Since there are no criminal charges -- nobody can go to jail -- the same protections DO NOT APPLY.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled misinformed Slashdot rant-orgy.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
The story doesn't talk much about email, it's all in reference to some web site. Probably a messageboard or something. My guess is that they're looking for temp files left behind by textbox editors, or they're looking at browser caches and URL history logs. PGP isn't going to help with that sort of thing.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Read the details here.
--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
What disturbs me the most about Northwest's action is that they were able to get away with it. As the article states "most such searches usually have been limited to cases involving workers who've been accused of stealing company files, passing on trade secrets to competitors or using insider information to profit on the trading of company stock." What Northwest is attempting is nothing less than intimidation of union activity, and it appears that Northwest will use any means to crack down on union activity, rightful or otherwise.
But the more frightening aspect of this story is how Northwest was able to get a court order allowing them to seize information on home systems in a period of discovery. In spite of what I've read in some Slashdot comments, Northwest did not supply those systems. Stretching to the limit the court's willingness to stop "cybersmearing", Northwest was given legal permission to essentially trample over the right to assembly and free speech.
In this age, assembly can be physical (as in a rally downtown), or electronic, as in a chat room or a on web site such as Slashdot. The same First Amendment rights that allow physical assembly and free speech can and should apply equally to their virtual equivalents. We've got to push this issue and make people understand there is no difference between the two.
While I wish it was otherwise, Boyd is (all but?) dead. It was decided over 100 years ago, and has been whittled down to (next to) nothing.
In Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886) the Supreme Court stated that private papers are an owner's "dearest property." Id. at 627-28. Relying on both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, the Court found that allowing the state to compel production of that property would be "abhorrent to the instincts" of an American and "contrary to the principles of a free government." Id. at 632. The rule in Boyd has been criticized. For example, Judge Friendly called it "ringing but vacuous" because it "tells us almost everything, except why." Henry J. Friendly, The Fifth Amendment Tomorrow: The Case for Constitutional Change, 37 U. Cin. L. Rev. 671, 682 (1968). Nevertheless, as recently as Bellis v. United States, 417 U.S. 85 (1974), the Supreme Court reemphasized that the Fifth Amendment protects "'a private inner sanctum of individual feeling and thought', an inner sanctum which necessarily includes an individual's papers and effects to the extent that the privilege bars their compulsory production and authentication." Id. at 91 (quoting Couch v. United States, 409 U.S. 322, 327 (1973)).
Nevertheless, it seems very likely that a majority of the Supreme Court would hold that the rule found "abhorrent" in 1886 is now the law because the rule in Boyd has been whittled away to irrelevance: First, only natural persons can find shelter under the Fifth Amendment, and only for papers they both own and control. Thus, corporations can never claim the privilege, and neither can natural persons with regard to corporate records, even if they created and now control those records. Braswell v. United States, 487 U.S. 99, 109-10 (1988). Second, once papers are handed to another, the legitimate expectation of privacy needed to maintain a claim under either the Fourth or Fifth Amendments disappears. (The attorney-client privilege is an exception to this general rule.) Third, records required to be kept for legal or regulatory purposes are outside the privilege. Shapiro v. United States, 335 U.S. 1 (1948). Fourth, persons can be forced to perform nontestimonial acts such as giving handwriting samples. Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 266-67 (1967). This rule has also been applied to voice samples, United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 222-23 (1967). and blood samples. Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 767 (1966). Fifth, aliens outside the sovereign territory of the United States do not ordinarily enjoy Fifth Amendment rights. Finally, in Baltimore City Department of Social Services v. Bouknight, the Supreme Court, analogizing the mother's care of the child to a required record, held that producing a child was not testimonial, and therefore the Fifth Amendment did not apply. See also Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 472-73 (1976) (holding that a legal search of the petitioner's office resulting in the seizure of voluntarily recorded business records authenticated by a prosecution witness was not a violation of the Fifth Amendment); Bellis v. United States, 417 U.S. 85, 101 (1974) (holding that a dissolved law partnership had its own institutional identity, and its records were held in a representative capacity; therefore a grand jury subpoena for those records could not be ignored on Fifth Amendment grounds); United States v. White, 322 U.S. 694, 698-99 (1944) (holding that an officer of an unincorporated labor union could not refuse, based on Fifth Amendment protections, to produce the union's records); Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 56-58 (1906) (holding that a witness who, because of statutory immunity, cannot invoke the Fifth Amendment as to oral testimony cannot invoke it against the production of books and papers).
In light of these decisions it is fair to ask whether the Fifth Amendment applies to anything other than oral testimony. The odds are that the Supreme Court would hold that it does not, that Boyd has therefore lost all its vitality, and that Justice O'Connor was correct when she stated that the exceptions have now swallowed the rule: "[T]he Fifth Amendment provides absolutely no protection for the contents of private papers of any kind." United States v. Doe, 465 U.S. 605, 618 (O'Connor, J., concurring).
A. Michael Froomkin,
U. Miami School of Law,POB 248087
Coral Gables, FL 33124,USA
I have a blog.
I mean, should I laugh at the stupidity of corporate America or should I be crying that someone at the airline actually thought this was a good idea?
All I gotta say is that I am glad I am running an alternative OS. I know for a fact that nobody at my company could even figure out the whole lilo: thing, let alone get inside my machine and poke around.
Under a feudal system, the serf was tied to the land and could not leave. However, you can leave you job anytime you want. Sure, it will be extremely inconvenient, and possibly an enormous financial burden, but you have every legal right to leave. No one came and made you employed. You had to accept the job offer by yourself.
As to the potential evil of meganationals, show me their armies, their police, their courts and their jails, and then I'll worry.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"Bottom line, it is an UNJUST law for workers to not be able to organize a sickout or walkout!"
It's even more unjust for a law to require an employer not to fire an employee who fails to clock in.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I'm sorry, but until you provide me with proof, I refuse to believe that those arresting policemen had MPAA badges on their shoulders. Sounds more like a corrupt Norwegian government selling out to the highest bidder. Who's more evil, the junkie or the pusher?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"They don't need their own armies, police, courts, or jails when they're powerful enough to make governments do the dirty work for them."
So you would use the same governments bought by the corps to fight the corps with? Crazy! Sort of like summoning demons to perform an excorcism with.
"As for the tied-to-the-land thing, okay, I'll grant you that (given the admission that it's often practically different) but it's a nitpick and doesn't really change the situation."
A nitpick!?! The feudal lord WAS THE STATE! He had the power of summary EXECUTION! He threw into the gibbet any serf that QUIT! Don't give me any bullshit that your boss has anywhere near the power over you that a feudal lord would. That's just delusional.
Hey Rob! Does Larry get first night rights?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"I'm sorry, but until you provide me with proof, I refuse to believe that those arresting policemen had MPAA badges on their shoulders."
<EM?That's fine, because the badges are totally unnecessary.</EM>
Careful, you're starting to step over the line into the lunatic fringe of conspiracists.
<EM>if you've got a better idea that prevents this, let me know</EM>
Simple. And you already said it: "<EM>I think being able to use them is what matters</EM>". Take the power away from the government. Only if the government first has the power to enter your home and perform an illegal search and seizure could it possibly sell that power to Northwest Airlines. Only if it already has the power to prevent you from reverse engineering your DVDs could it ever hope to sell that power to the MPAA. Limit government to only its legitimate functions. Don't let it have so much power that it feels compelled to sell off the excess to the highest bidder.
Of course, this means we have to keep a closer eye out on the government. We can't go to sleep like we did during the fifty years or so. And we will also have to stop demanding new laws and start demanding that a lot of the old ones get repealed.
Apropos the junkie and the dealer analogy, if we keep yelling at the junkies and keep ignoring the pusher, we will never solve the problem.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"It may be a less extreme form of feudalism, but it's still feudalism."
If that's true, then every nation in the past, present, and as far as I can see, the future, has been a fuedal nation. Every employer would be a manorial lord. Even you, if you hired someone, would be a tyrant.
When you redefine a word to mean everything, it will end up meaning nothing. Study what feudalism, particularly the manorial feudalism, and you'll see that it is not just a quantitative difference between it and modern employment, but they're radically divergent in every area.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
And if Pinkerton did that today, they would be out of business with every responsible person at Pinkerton in jail.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"Yes if AOL is pissing you off you can go work for CNN. Oh wait a minute they are the same company maybe you can work for Time oops that wouln't work either."
Sheesh! Is your world so small that you can only find one corporation in it? Within walking distance of where I sit there are VA Linux, SGI, Microsoft, and Sun. There are also several dozen computer and internet related startups. And if I wanted to get out of computing, there are Alza and Acuson. Those poor sots working at AOL/Time/Warner's Netscape building down the street are hardly bound to their employer like a medieval serf.
"Oh yea the corps have first amendment rights granted to them by the Supreme Court so it follows that they MUST have second amendment rights too. You can bet your ass they are going to raise armies soon."
Are you actually imagining that a company would raise and arm their own army?!? Sir, either your brain has short circuited or you've been at the wacky-tabacky again. You scenario might make a good Tom Clancy novel, but a plausible occurance it is not. Remember, every one of their employees (who incidentally outnumber them) also have the same second amendment rights. Ooh! That's another difference between feudalism and employment. Here is the US, employees and employers have identical legal rights.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This is absolutely unbelievable! You guys are so nuts you believe your own propaganda! You actually sound like left-wing John Birchers. What really scares me is the possibility that you might actually be old enough to vote...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Those employees need to sue their employers for everything they can. Employers have absolutely not business even *asking* to look in someone's house.
When drug testing began, no one objected, since they didn't do drugs themselves. Then they refused to hire smokers and no one complained because they weren't smokers themselves. Now they want to base employment on your opinions. You let the camel stick its nose under the tent, and now it's all the way in.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Wake up Brento, according to the article "Business speech is not subject to the same protections as political speech,". No? I wonder if your real name is in fact......................Pollyanna?
The implication of the placing of the quote in the article was that the criticism of a business is not protected by the same rights as any other form of speech - it specifically mentions recent court rulings against criticism of companies and management. This is different to your definition of commercial speech and far more irritating.
Sorry to trivialize. I agree totally with your point, we seem to be moving further and further into the corporatist model of society - wouldn't Benito, Adolf and Josef have been proud.
Others have abused you sufficiently and justly for your inattention to the words printed in front of you - I'd like to abuse you about something else. So, even given that there are laws that say that the company that employs you can read your email, monitor your phone calls and read your mail, do you think that is good and right? Do you not think that it inhibits the ability of employees to organize effectively to maintain or improve their working conditions? In short, are you a manager or a fool?
If there is
1) Law that has potentially been broken
and
2) Reasonable evidence to suggest that evidence would be found on people's home PC's, and the 'data' being looked for can be specified clearly.
then I can see how this can happen. The law probably allows it.
Personally, it seems totally wrong. It's private communications.
Another reason why encryption is necessary.
What about the judge that issued the search warrant? Or the police that served the warrant?
Is NorthWest to be blamed for aksing, and receiving permission from the justice system to do it? What about the lawyers? Who's to blame?
What about the employees who decide to rebel out and all call in sick for new years... gee... that's really grown up.
I believe you are misreading the case. The court ruled that, in this case, it was an 'unreasonable search and siezure', therefore, against the 4th, and that, as the material the court *forced the person to either produce, or be marked as having 'confessed' to his charges*, violated the 5th. (and was also used improperly)
Having just read the document you reference, can be summarized as follows.
If you read the whole thing.. the supreme court ruled that:
1) Forcing defendant to either bring his papers in voluntarily, or to be considered having confessed to the charge at hand violated the 5th.
2) That the act used to obtain the warrant did not in fact give any power of search and siezure, and therefore that search and siezure constituted a violation of the 4th.
It does not in any way say that you can never have your personal papers admitted to evidence. Specifically, the act in question, that was used to obtain a warrant, dealt specifically with *NON-CRIMINAL* matters, mainly customs.
My computer uses a Microsoft operating system and you know how unreliable those are. It seems that my computer running Windows 95 crashed last night and I lost all the data on my hard drive. So sorry. :(
This is un-fscking believable! Reagan spent us into a 4 trillion dollar national debt and near bankruptcy to beat the "evil empire" (USSR, now Russia and assorted components) and now we have adopted the same governmental intrusions and lack of freedom that we tried to eliminate.
You may be absolutely sure that I will not be flying this airline and I will let them know exactly why.
Russ
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
that they didn't provide the computers and they weren't located at their office building.
Far from cut and dried...
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Not so fast, speedy.
When you enter into a contract with a union, they do your collective bargaining for you. They agree to certain terms in exchange for a more favorable wage and benefits package.
One of the things they agree not to do is organize a sickout, where employees are directed to take time off with pay in an effort to cripple the employer. The employees signed the agreement saying they wouldn't do a sickout, and therefore, Northwest has a right to sue for breach of contract. In order for them to prove breach, they have to prove the sickout was organized, and this is a step along that line.
Here's a quarter, old man. Go getcher self an education.
What's your damage, Heather?
That's exactly what gets so many users in trouble, man. Why would you think that no one at your business would be smart enough to figure out how to boot Linux when you can stroll down to any major bookstore and pick up a copy of Linux for Dummies?
What's your damage, Heather?
Northwest asked the court for permission to check the computers for evidence of an illegal activity. Wake up, folks, it's no different than any other search & seizure.
If you deal drugs, The Man will get a search warrant and comb your house looking for evidence.
If you call a sickout at work when it's illegal, The Man will get a search warrant and comb your house looking for evidence.
In both cases, computers are just as fair game as your answering machine, your fridge, or your trash can. Why are you all suddenly so paranoid? Don't you realize they've had this same right for a long, long time? Nothing's changed about this. Even Al Capone had to let the feds look through his cooked books, and this is no different. He owned his accounting papers, you own your computer, but if you use it for illegal activities and The Man gets a warrant, you're wide open.
What's your damage, Heather?
Come on, man, if you use your phone to plan to murder the President, and you leave a message on somebody's machine about it, don't you think the Secret Service is going to look into that?
If you drive down the highway with five keys of coke on the back seat, don't you think the cops will search the rest of your car?
And if you participate in an activity that is blatantly illegal (a union sickout), don't you expect to get prosecuted? If we were talking about handwritten notes on somebody's fridge ("Call in sick on next Monday") would you still be horrified? The employee owns the paper and pen, but that's still subject to search and seizure.
Relax, stop being a knee-jerk. They did something illegal, and their stuff got searched. It doesn't matter who owned the computer, or that it was even a computer. They did something illegal, and that's what happens when you do something illegal - or even look like you did. You get seached. C'est la vie.
What's your damage, Heather?
What is the reference to the "free pc" from the company then? I -did- read the article. Are you one of the computer users that feels "powerful and excited" when using a computer?
The free PC thing is something provided by ford motor company for its employees. And it has nothing to do with Northwest Airlines. Really, I'm surprised your reading comprehension is so low.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
um, so if I talk bad about my company, they have the right to come into my home, steal my diary, personal correspondence, violate copyright law (by copying mp3s, games), and basically take all my "intellectual property"?
I don't think you read it right, they weren't using company property, they don't even work on computers, they're flight attendants.
This is a bad precedent, downright scary if you ask me (which you didn't).
+&x
In the MS antitrust case, e-mails on Microsoft's network were a critical element and most people felt it was fair for the JD to use them.
Now, before everyone jumps on the obvious difference, let me point it out: MS is a corporation, these were private individuals on there personal computers.
In the US there is no legal difference between a corporation and a person. It is obviously absurd, but that's the law as constituted by our elected officials and within our power to change if we're sufficiently motivated. Also, I for one use my "home" computers almost exclusively for work (well, and Slashdot), and would expect them to be searched in the case of a lawsuit just like my paper records. If Union officers and members use their home computers for union activities, they probably should expect them to be treated the same way that paper records in the union office are.
Somebody asked how this is different from wiretapping. This is an interesting question -- are getting private e-mails like wiretapping, or they like subpeonaing paper records? I think the issue with wiretapping is that it creates a fixed and permanent record of something people expect to be ephemeral: conversation. In the case of web forums and e-mail, their very operation involves creating a fixed record. Even if you encrypt your messages, you may be reasonably ordered to unencrypt them, or be held in contempt. Furthermore, if you delete them under the expectation that they can be used against you, that is obstruction of justice.
This reminds me rather of the Watergate tapes. Nixon recorded everything that went on in his office and foolishly assumed that it would not be used against him. The Senate subpoenaed the tapes, even though he considered them personal and private, and was within their rights. Obviously, he felt his rights were violated because they were his personal records. But records are records; once the records exist, they are fair game to be searched for specific evidence that can reasonably be expected to be there. You are not completely without protection: records cannot be searched in fishing expedition style for embarassing tidbits or for evidence of unrelated misdeeds. Obviously this isn't much protection unless you get yourself very good lawyer pit bull insticts.
The bottom line is, don't conspire my means of (or within earshot of) any medium whose very operation requires creating a fixed and permemant record (what about IRC?). If you do use such a medium, make sure that it does not record any kind of information that could be used to identify people.
As James Michael Curley, the convicted felon/many time mayor of Boston used to say: "Never write when you can speak; never speak when you can nod."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Just so we're all talking about the same thing, a corporation talking about political issues is political speech, not commercial speech. Many of us are concerned at non-natural people getting involved in the political process, but that's another matter.
The issue of commercial speech comes up when you're discussing the right of some bozo to call you during dinner every night. Or the right of his friend to cross your fence and walk onto your property to leave a flyer on your door. Or the right of another chum to start up a loud rally next door to your house.
If the purpose of that those acts is to collect like minded people to march down to the next town council meeting to air their grievance, that's the heart of democracy. If the purpose of the acts is to remind you that Billy Bob's Bag 'o Boots is having a special 9/10th price sale for only one more week (just like the sales they've had for the past three years), then that speech is interfering with your right to "peaceful enjoyment" of your property to such an extent that most jurisdictions say "enough!"
Never forget: nobody went out looking for reasons to restrict commercial speech until the local equivalent of Herb Tarlek made it clear that it would take a court order to make him shut up and go away. It's easy to ignore a newspaper that's nothing but ads, ditto a tv or radio station. It's a damn slight harder to ignore the ringing phone, jammed email box, or minivan with loudspeakers on top.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If a company is a candidate for political office, would "northwest sux" then qualify as political rather than 'business' speech? Northwest for dog catcher!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Ofcourse you can't say whatever you want about a company.. just like you can't just say anything you want about a real person. This doesn't make it corporate speech though..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
There's several - I believe I saw one called "scramdisk" once - a search on yahoo should find it pretty fast, I guess.
I seem to recall that you can be required to produce your passphrase if subpoenaed. This makes some sense, because otherwise it would leave a big gaping hole for companies to hide behind. "Well, sure we'll provide you with those documents about possible insider trading. Oh, did I fail to mention they are encrypted?"
On the other hand, you can make a good case that this falls under the 5th amendment protection against self incrimination.
The constitution does not prohibit seisure of evidence with a warrant, and common law definitely permits it; but is it really evidence before they decrypt it? That is, is subpoenaing a passphrase the same thing as saying, "tell us where you buried the body or we'll throw you in jail", which is prohibited by the 5th amendment.
I don't know if which I think is more "correct" from the two conflicting views. I hesitate to say that it should be decided on the grounds of what is preferable in most cases, because I think there might be a clear reason one interpretation should be preferred, but I just haven't figured out what that reason is.
--Kevin
I think we're all pissed because:
1. We don't think the government has the (moral) authority to make a sick-out illegal. Do these people have contracts that say their employment is not at-will? If not, then the government has no business sticking it's nose in.
2. It sounds awfully similar to the church of scientology seizing computers with the assistance of various law enforcement agencies, which was clearly a free speech issue, and also a due process issue -- is the standard procedure to have the f-ing PLAINTIFF seize and inspect the defendents computer?
--Kevin
It pains me to see people supporting capitalism with their foot so firmly embedded in their mouth. They were not fired for organizing a sick out. They were not fired at all (well, they probably will be, but that's beside the point). The point is that their computers are being search for information about the sick-out because organizing a sick-out is illegal.
A consistent capitalist would have to maintain that outlawing sick-outs is only different in degree from slavery. (Both are instances of forcing someone to work against his will.)
--Kevin
This question cannot be answered from the article because they chose to focus on the computer angle, as if it added anything new to the story. Had they done so, and if it's indeed true that a company could have obtained federal court authorization to go through employees' personal papers just as readily as their computers' hard drives, then this story could have been a great springboard to a serious discussion of privacy rights in general, and possibly a spur to political action. But they didn't.
And if it's not true, and the court considered data stored on a computer less worthy of protection than someone's personal papers, it would have been interesting - and possibly a cause of outrage - to know why. That question wasn't answered either. I don't think that reporter understood the issues well enough to report on them effectively.
And the brethren went away edified.
That way, regardless of whether or not the encrypted files are considered self-incriminatory, you'd be safe.
:)
Best regards,
SEAL
P.S. IANAL and under the f-ed up U.S. legal system, I would still expect to get held in contempt of court for a stunt like this...
I'd hate to see another knee-jerk privacy reaction to this article when there's not really anything here to be concerned about.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
That said, this is neither unconstitutional nor an invasion of privacy. This is subpoenaed information. A court can subpoena anything a plantiff or defendant requests, if the plantiff or defendant convinces the court that it is germane to the case.
Attentive followers of national politics may recall that Monica Lewinsky's hard drive was subpoenaed, and delivered to a data recovery specialist. Or, alternatively, note that the contents of the really.bad.attitude mailing list at Netscape were subpoenaed by Microsoft. Now, this was all private on an "employee's home computer, but it was evidence in a civil case, and so it was open to subpoena.
-- Support Ometz le-Serev.
The computers in question were not owned by Northwest Airlines-- they were owned by the union and/or employees! Read the fricking article..
I am _very_ curious if the judge would have allowed this to happen if it didn't involve national transit...
Remember Reagen firing the Air Traffic Controllers?? I don't either, but they were disrupting traffic.
Remember President Harrison? sending in the Army to break up the great Pittsburg Rail strike during the late 1800s? I don't either, but they were disrupting traffic.
It's not _really_ the same thing, here-- because it is already over with. However, the judge might have made the conenction and decided that it was "legal."
What can we do about this! Isn't this America?
It is going to make me start using encryption, though-- and I hope that everyone else with the know-how does too..
Pinkerton was known for sending security forces out to break up strikes with bullets. Also, the Pullman Strike was an excellent example of how corporations would get the Government against you. Go here to read more about how corporations would bring the big guns against the people.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I would say that the personal computers fall under the category of "private papers" which the Supreme Court has already ruled upon in Boyd vs US, 116 US 616.
As such, Northwests action constitutes a violation of the people's constitutionally protected rights.
The oppinions expressed in this message are my own, and in no way to be considered legal advice.
The Supreme Courts oppinion is considered law.
Business speech is just as protected as political speech. It's things like this that make me *very* angry.
Another manifestation of the same attitude that makes MPAA think it's invulnerable.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
Sure getting crowded in here.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
It's the same as if you got a court order to turn over documents that you happen to keep in a safe, in a room that is normally locked. It is implied that you must unlock the door and open the safe and/or give the authorities a key to the door and the combination to the safe in order to be in compliance with the order.
As far as self-incrimination, IF you can make a successful argument against turning over information because of self-incrimination, it doesn't matter if they are encrypted or not. One has nothing to do with the other.
If they had probable cause, it's a valid search. The problem is that an anonymous posting on a message board they frequent, and quite likely did not post (and I'm sure there's no evidence they did) is certainly not probable cause. Yes, it IS true that business speech is not as protected to the same degree as business speech (breach of loyalty), and certainly a conspiracy is not protected, but that is a far cry from justifying a search of private materials under the suspicion that they may contain documentation of such speech. Yes, it is generally illegal to organize a sickout, but without probable cause, you can't go through peoples' stuff looking for the evidence.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Most workers do have a right to strike, but this right is limited in some cases (like this one),
Well, actually, it's so restricted that it's not really much of a tool any more. It would be more accurate to say that "have a right to strike, but only in such a way that it's going to be damned ineffective"
This is not a story about corporate bullies,
Oh , I think it is - just because they are acting legally doesn't mean that they're acting morally.
The post said:
Still eager to take that "free PC" from your employer?
But these computers were not provided by Northwest. So this story has no relevance for employer-provided computers.
Second, this action does not seem that unreasonable in the context of a lawsuit. I think that framing it as a free speech issue is pretty misleading. These people are being sued for allegedly organizing an illegal sickout; their computers (and presumably paper communications) are being searched as part of the discovery process in the lawsuit.
No one (other than that idiot talking about "business speech") is trying to take away their right to say whatever they want. But as they always say on cop shows, "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
After all, not very many people seem to complain about the internal Microsoft emails that were used as evidence in the antitrust trial. The same principle is at work here, except in this case it's poor little union members on trial.
One important distinction to add here is that it apppears that this is a civil action by Northwest for damages against the union and two individual flight attendants that ran a web site. (Much of the rhetoric about this story here seems to be invoking issues such as warrants that apply in criminal cases.) Their homes were not searched and the police did not show up on their doorsteps demanding their computers. Most likely, as part of the discovery process, subpoenas were issued by the judge for information on the computers. Since Northwest had been able to show that it had a basic case that it had been improperly damaged (according to the story), the judge ruled that the company had the right to have reasonable access to the information they needed to make their case. The two flight attendants in this case, probably on the specific advice of counsel, turned their computers over to an (allegedly) expert party, Ernst and Young, at that firm's offices. This is normal procedure in civil cases.
A previous story that is linked to has the following quote:
Most workers do have a right to strike, but this right is limited in some cases (like this one), and the kinds of things you can do in support of a strike are limited. As the government itself is not a party here (beyond supplying a judge) this is not a First Amendment issue. In fact, the judge appears to be concerned that his ruling not become one:
This is not a story about corporate bullies, or invasion of privacy -- it is about the liability of web site operators for the actions of people who post anonymously on their sites. In that way it is like the DeCSS case.
Yep. I agree this is going to be a bigger issue. Here's why:
As more and more "telecommuting" and things like corporations buying computers and real videoconferencing to the home (sponsored by the corporation, of course), become a reality, the boundary between "work" and "home" will fade even more. What if you have your own computer, but your employer provides a high-speed ADSL line as a fringe benefit and to help you telecommute? Are they allowed to sniff packets?
Of course, here in the U.S. we already work more hours a year than in any other industrialized countries. And yet people look at me like I'm nuts when I say I'm not interested in working more than 40 hours a week (especially in this industry) because I have to get home to my real job -- being a husband and a father. An engineer friend of mine recently said "You're just gonna have to learn that you're just gonna have to work 45 or 50 hours a week, 'cause that's what professionals do." This from a guy who is having serious marital problems.... anyway,
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
The scary thing is that it really might be the whole story. This doesn't suprise me at all, knowing about this particular corporation. They've been going after people ever since the sick out started.
I've lived in Minneapolis all of my life so far, and since Northwest is based here, I know them all too well. This will sound like flamebait twords them, and, well, it probably is. All the things I state are from my recollection of news reports over a number of years, so my comments won't be 100% accurate, but you'll get the picture.
If you were to put all corporations out there on a scale from best to worst, as far as how they treat their employees, and their customer service, Northwest would be VERY close to the bottom. They are truly horrible. The people who run the company are arrogant bastards. They've proven this again and again.
They are at perpetual war with their unions. Now you could probably say that about any company who has unions, but I think the situation at Northwest is worse than it is at, say, the big 3 automakers. A strike by one of the mechanics unions in the summer of 98 shut them down for almost 2 months if I remember correctly. The flight attendants have had the worst situation of all the unions there the past year or two. I beleive they haven't had an official contract for three years. After years of watching the news, it became obvious how much seething anger the executives have for these damned peon workers who dare ask for a raise. If they didn't care about PR, this is what they'd be saying.
Here in Minneapolis they control about 90% of all the gates. The Metropolitan Airport Commision (I beleive) controls who gets which gates, and for some odd reason, they decided to give Northwest a near monopoly! Hmm, I wonder what kind of money was being passed under the table....
So of course, what happened to airline prices? They went up, up, up! If I compare a flight from Minneapolis to any given city, and a flight from Des Moines (few hundred miles away) and that same other city, the Des Moines flight will usually cost less.
They've used public money before for their own good as well. They're the largest employer in the state, so the government here always caves into them. In 1994 I believe, they were on the brink of bankruptcy. The government gave them something like 50 to 100 million of MY tax dollars. A few years later, they were highly profitable again. Did this money come back to us? Of course not.
While this makes me sick (I have venemous anger for the northwest executives because I know people who work for them) this isn't that suprising. It isn't that the people who run them are a lot more evil than everyone else, this could happen anywhere. It's the state of the world that allowed them to become what they are, just like microsoft or hitler, for that matter.
So like I always say, get out there and protest, becuase we don't have many other options...
If anyone else from Minneapolis has more accurate figures on what I've stated here, please reply.
The whole deal is sorta blurry though (coming down with flu and haven't had very good sleep.) Does anyone have further data confirming/denying that NW stepped away from this PR nightmare?
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
If these people just stepped aside when a private investigator said "move, I'm searching your stuff on behalf of your boss" and it was THEIR personal computer, then they're really, really less informed about their rights than they ought to be.
If these people just stepped aside when a cop said "move, I'm searching your stuff on behalf of your boss" and DIDN'T have a warrant, they're really, really less informed about their rights than they ought to be. And somewhere there's a cop who misused his badge and needs disciplined.
If they stepped aside when a cop with a warrant said "move, I'm searching your stuff on behalf of your boss" then we've got bigger problems. This is what the article seems to say. The day a company can order a judge to grant a warrant with no evidence is the day we've started a slide into some Orwellian fantasy. It seems to me that either these folks did something dumb to raise suspicion, in which case a warrant could have been issued for correspondance, or this "federally authorized" search is actually not. The fact that they say it's just like taking a deposition makes me wonder if in fact it was authorized. I'm not a lawyer, but hell, I don't think you can enter someone's private residence and take their stuff under the guise of "fact finding".
My question is, WHY THESE PEOPLE? And what was the grounds for granting a warrant for getting their correspondances? Was one actually granted, or is this just a big mess that's slipping under the nose of some local judge who's busy with an overly full docket? Any attorney out there care to tell me if a "search warrant" covers anything and everything, or if a separate order has to be obtained to wiretap or monitor correspondance?
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Just lurking, thanks!
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(disclaimer: my spouse is a non-union NWA employee working in the IT department)
NWA obtained a legal court order to search for evidence of an *illegal* action by the flight attendants. If this was searching for paper rather than computer records, would Slashdot even fucking care? Speech may not be less free because it happens on a computer, but it isn't MORE free, either.
Some background on this case, since the media usually fails us... NWA has been in contract negotiations for i think three years now with the flight attendants, who are represented by the Teamsters. This fall, NWA and the Teamsters negotiators agreed on a contract, and the Teamsters took it to the flight attendants. The flight attendants voted it down. They responded with their list of demands, which would make NWA the industry leader in every single area of employee benefits for flight attendants, and refused to budge from that. The federal mediator then cancelled negotiations, on the grounds that the *flight attendants* were not negotiating in good faith.
Now, federal law prohibits airline employees from striking without court permission. Obviously, if the flight attendants were booted from the negotiating table for acting in bad faith, they aren't going to be allowed to strike. This includes actions like sick-outs. So, when they staged a sick-out, it was basically an illegal action. However, union officials have denied that it was officially organized or sanctioned, because they realize it will further undermine their position.
So presumably, NWA went to court to get the order to search personal computers for evidence that union officials were indeed behind the sick-out - a big win for NWA in court, and a deserved one.
I could make a lot of other points here, but i'll close with this one - speech should be no more or less protected on a computer than on any other media. If union officials stage an illegal action and then deny it, the company has a right to get a court order to search for evidence to the contrary, whether those records are on paper or on computer.
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Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
That being said, I'm disgusted that Northwest is being allowed to search the home computers of the employees. If Northwest owns the computers, that's one thing. But if they're searching employees' private property, they need to be stopped. Even if the workers did organize a sick-out in violation of their contracts, they should still be entitled to privacy on their own computers.
Moral of the story is, use PGP religiously, and don't trust anyone. Especially the people you work for.
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