The most important thing to realize and always bear in mind is that business equipment and services such as telephony and computer equipment is to be used for business and not personal use. Keeping that overall principle in mind should help you a lot.

Second, you can always meet with your human resources representative at work to discuss company policy and the appropriate laws governing workplace monitoring and privacy. There is nothing to be ashamed about in having such a discussion, as you are rightly concerned about understanding the appropriate use of company equipment and resources. Note that each state has very different laws governing workplace monitoring, privacy laws, and employer disclosure. Therefore, having this discussion can allow you to ask specific questions tailored to your specific company in that particular geographical location.

Third, always be aware that every communication you make can be monitored, even if you think you are not being monitored. Phone calls always go through exchanges where they can be recorded, and email and Internet traffic go through a large number of servers where information about the traffic is recorded in logs and in many cases directly filtered. Most of the traffic on the Internet flows unencrypted, so at every stage monitoring equipment and logging can easily detect not only where a user is going but also what the person is typing or sending.

Fourth, suspicious traffic and patterns always attract attention. Therefore, making phone calls at odd hours, browsing specific sites during business hours or after hours can always flag attention. Note that many of these monitoring systems have information on millions of URLs and sites, so they can easily correlate and flag suspicious activity. Once alerted, a company can build a good case for further investigation into a specific employee's behavior.

The bottom line is that employers have a right to monitor employees (under specific circumstances), but the boundaries between personal privacy and a business' need to monitor its employees isn't always clear. Therefore, it's important to make sure that you always err on the side of keeping your personal communication separate from your work.

Note that current techniques and advances in technology have made it possible to monitor almost every aspect of an employee's behavior, and in many cases, to go beyond the workplace and into the home and external activities.

Additional resources

Here are some informative sites worth visiting.

• Technological Surveillance in the Workplace by Brent T. Johnson -- takes a look at various federal laws and court judgments in cases involving workplace monitoring
  
• Workplace Monitoring -- short Q&A on questions regarding workplace monitoring