Quote Originally Posted by Gitsnik View Post
I'm hoping lupin reads this and corrects me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it (at least here in .au), any snooping of this nature without warning both parties without a warrant is a felony and can be prosecuted (it would be a rare thing for it to happen though, unless the admin was someone like me who made a little extra off the side keeping secrets). The same applies to spam filtering (technically any content based filtering breaches Australian Federal Mail tampering laws (mail is a federal crime, but murder is a state crime lol).

It has never stopped me placing content filters or network taps at the appropriate locations, and logging people who the CEO finds... interesting... in case they have to be let go on short notice, but if anyone had caught on and decided to prosecute* then there could well have been a court case on my hands.

*they would have found zero logs and zero evidence and pristine servers
What you're talking about is the consent issue. "Single party" verses "two party" consent depend on how the law(s) is written, the particular jurisdiction, and the parties' location. For the most part, the consent issue resides in the state laws, and state laws in the US usually supersede federal wiretap laws because of the way they are written.

For example, I live in a "single party" state. I can record any conversation I'm involved in, without informing the other party, even if the other party is located in a state that requires two party consent.

BTW, murder isn't a violation of a federal law here either, except under versy specific circumstances (the victim is a federal employee on official business, etc.)

However, under the FCC's interpretation of US federal wiretap law, consent doesn't matter at all if the conversation never hits the public switched telephone network.

Also, you might want to reconsider that the statement about "they would have found zero logs and zero evidence and pristine servers". Unless you're doing monitoring and logging on a machine that is passive and completely sub rosa, and done via a passive tap, such evidence is actually very hard to get rid off. Just think of about all those little files that are getting backed up every night. Unless of course, you're not doing backups, but then you have other problems.