The Decline of Privacy in the Workplace

Paper Summary:

This paper briefly examines the increasing invasion of privacy in the workplace as a result of technology advancement and employers' efforts to keep responsible, honest, and professional employees. It discusses Fourth Amendment rights and employers' practices in telephone, computer and email monitoring, polygraph and drug testing, and background investigations.

From the Paper:

"The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution's Bill of Rights protects people against unreasonable searches of their persons or homes and seizures of their personal possessions. Although the Constitution does not mention the word "Privacy", it was thought that the Bill of Rights covered certain privacy rights. The invasion of privacy can be thought of on two levels. The first level involves events that can be seen and observed. The second level includes information that generates permanent records and can therefore be searched. When the Bill of Rights was written in 1791, it was during a time when people learned about each other from what they observed in public. Permanent records consisted mainly of private letters and journals. The protection offered by the Fourth Amendment seemed adequate at the time."

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