Privacy and public employees

If it's not your computer, then it's not your e-mail, your Internet access or your right to privacy in the workplace.

That's the gist of new Carson City government rules on electronic communications for its employees. They apply to voice mail, as well, and the ideas behind the rules are fairly consistent with similar guidelines for private businesses.

In fact, they're not really new rules at all. But the ease with which e-mail and the Internet can be used may make some employees forget they belong to the company and are being used on company time.

So, whatever happens there - racy e-mail messages, logging onto pornographic Web sites - is available to the boss to decide whether the employee is really doing what he's supposed to be doing.

In government offices, employees should remember who ultimately is the boss - the taxpayers. If they're not comfortable with their e-mail message being read in the newspaper or their computer screen being shown on CAT-10, then maybe they should take that into account.

That goes for elected officials, as well. Recently Clark County commissioners tried to argue that phone calls made on cellular phones - provided to them at taxpayer expense - should be considered private. Hardly. Private phone calls should be made on private phones.

The same holds true with the laptop computers the taxpayers bought for legislators. Those hard drives are public hard drives.

It's not difficult to imagine a situation in which every last detail could be exposed to public light. An example was on the Nevada Appeal's front page on Thursday in the article about videotapes shot by firefighters at the Columbine High School massacre.

Lawyers for some families demanded access to them in an effort to determine whether emergency crews acted properly. Though they may be horrifying and intrusive, the tapes are also public fare.

We certainly hope no situation so extreme comes about in Carson City. Yet, the same principle applies. Whatever you're typing on your e-mail, imagine yourself reading it from the witness stand in court.

As long as you're comfortable with that, then no problem.