Classroom Confidential 120 77 37 Should professors have any expectation of email privacy?
An interesting question, I teach businesses classes and privately owned property, like computers and all data within, is of course owned by said business. Interesting to consider that anyone who admittedly says "she probably wrote the email too quickly upon hearing her students couldn't access the site, without sufficient explanation of her political reference." My question is of course why in hell is she interjecting personal political opinion into a geography lesson? Why on earth should she expect a right to privacy? Why should she get a pass on sloppy communication? She is a professor for crying out loud.
yes, consequences.
I am glad our system worked well in this case. give the student who took a pic of her email a journalism degree.
Contrast this with Edward Snowden's "Christmas Message" warning that children born today will grow up in a world without privacy. Is privacy to be limited to what is inside your body, your brain? It is possible to "read thoughts" and record them via machine. "Neuroscientists like Adrian Owen and his team have already used fMRI to assess consciousness in people thought to be in an unconscious vegetative state and thus incapable of thought, and enabled them to respond yes or no to questions." --
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles...
Just enter "medical scan read thoughts" into your search engine and you will have many such hits to follow.
My facility with foreign languages and a couple of other skills let me work for a year as the international editor of an Ohio newspaper. I was one of two editors who was NOT a j-school graduate. As a writer, I knew most of the rules, but it was really hammered home that you NEVER quote anyone without making it clear FIRST that they are speaking for attribution. If it feels unclear, you must ask, "May I quote you?" Sure, if you work for the Washington Post and you are interviewing a senator, they know that they are on the record unless you release them. Most people do not understand that and it is a journalist's professional responsibility to hold to the higher standard.
Those considerations cast different lights on the different facets of this case.
Andrew J. Galambos was famous for requiring his students to sign non-disclosure agreements. His ideas were his property and he controlled its use.
Many of these professors work for PUBLICLY funded institutions. Are they not then responsible to all the people in the state? (On the other hand, we do close public parks after dark. So, some management of community resources is expectable.)
Professors routinely arrange to have their lecture notes, syllabuses, and other materials printed, packaged, and sold. Students just as routinely chip in to buy one set and then copy them. Professors publish textbooks and other materials.
What happens when J. K. Rowling or Toni Morrison teaches a class? Movie and stage directors teach classes. So do politicians. When do they lose ownership of their spoken words or their written words?
This article quotes experts and authorities who refer to "copyright law." In point of fact, American copyright law is the Berne Convention. President Reagan signed it as one of his last acts in office in the winter of 1988-89.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Conve...
1. the right to privacy. emails are a special kind of communication in that once 'enter' is hit, an email cannot be wiped, any user should be ready for permanent public exposure of the content.
2. the opinion expressed in the email. Wrong, right, clever or not, the email was business and should stick with that.
Regardless of 1. There are emails by a Michael Mann that Penn State U is trying very hard to suppress even tho' they are public property.