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"You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby? Maybe Not."

For the first time ever, I've read a really good piece on National Review Online.

Before we both have a heart attack, note that it has nothing to do with politics.

"Exorcising Toyota’s Demons" . . . is recommended reading.

"Hawaii considers legislation to ignore birthers."

From "Your Boss Can Secretly Film You in the Bathroom -- The Countless Ways You Are Losing Privacy at Work" at AlterNet:

Privacy is dead. Get over it. So says Scott McNealy, former president of Sun Microsystems.

He's right. Workplace privacy is dead and buried. Employers can and do read e-mail, eavesdrop on telephone calls, monitor Internet access and watch workers with hidden cameras (even in bathrooms and locker rooms). Virtually all of this is legal. Technically, employers aren’t supposed to listen to personal telephone calls, but it happens all the time and you have no way of knowing. Some judges have found bathroom cameras to be an invasion of privacy, but other judges allow it.

That's a pretty striking claim, but author Lewis Maltby doesn't back it up with so much as a link. I found that a little hard to believe. Although I find fault with his lack of documentation, I can't fault Maltby for correctness, as The National Workrights Institute provides proof:

Only three states, California, New York and Rhode Island, have statutes that explicitly prohibit employer video monitoring of bathrooms, locker rooms and areas where employees undress. Employees in 47 states have only the protection that weak or non-existent common law privacy protections offer them.

Many cases of egregious video monitoring brought by employee/plaintiffs have been unsuccessful. Courts across the country have traditionally found the expectation of privacy in the workplace to be so low that even cases of such extreme privacy abuse do not offend courts’ sensibilities.

In Thompson v. Johnson County Community College, a Kansas court held that employees could not have had an expectation of privacy in a locker room because the room contained air conditioning and heating pipes that required occasional maintenance. The constant possibility that someone might need to enter to service them was enough for the court to allow the employer to continue video monitoring. In Brazinski v. Amoco Petroleum Additives Co., the court, employing a balancing test, found that since the video camera installed by an Illinois employer was pointed towards the door of the locker room the invasion of privacy was minimal enough to warrant the intrusion. In fact the court declined to comment seriously on the plaintiff’s contention that the camera could have reasonably captured images of employees in vulnerable positions. Indeed courts have often found in favor of employers without even offering an accompanying explanation. In Benitez v. KFC Natl. Mgt. Co., the court dismissed claims against an Illinois employer with prejudice after the employer’s agents used peepholes to monitor the women’s restroom and gave no explanation of its reasoning.