Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Reps. Bob Barr (R-GA) and Charles Canady (R-FL) recently introduced legislation into both the Senate and the House of Representatives that would require employers to notify workers whether or not their communications are being monitored and how the results of that monitoring are being used.

In July, California State Senator Debra Bowen, representing the 28th District, introduced a similar bill into the California senate.

California's Bill 1822 sought to make it illegal for employers to monitor their workers' email without informing employees first. The bill also required employers to obtain "written or electronic verification that the employee has received, read, and understood the notice," informing them their email is being monitored.

"I'm not against an employer monitoring email," said Bowen. "What I am against is an employer secretly reading an employee's email after telling the employee, by giving them a password, that that's protected and private. That's not fair."

It's specifically unfair to people such as the fired plant workers at Dow Chemical, Bowen said. "There are a lot of employees who really don't understand [email], and the goal of the bill was to try and help people get up to speed with what's possible with all this new technology."

Although the bill received bipartisan support, California Governor Gray Davis vetoed the bill in October.

"The veto messages said that... because the computer equipment belongs to the employer, that it can't be used for personal purposes," Bowen said. "And actually that is not the way things work with [the] telephone, with dressings rooms, and so forth. You can't record a telephone conversation that's personal, even if one of your employees is having that conversation on a telephone that belongs to the employer."

It is with this secrecy that Senator Bowen has problems. Requiring employers to tell employees they can monitor email, whether or not they actively do so, would force an open dialogue about a company's email policy, Bowen insists.

"Why not let people know, 'We're going to be monitoring in this workplace with a particular view towards sexual harassment, pornography, and other kinds of things like that, and here's exactly what we're doing,'" Bowen asked. "Then people will just say 'Fine, I won't do those things' and everyone's better off."

While Kamali agrees it is good policy for employers to inform employees that their email is being monitored, she does not think it should be required by law.

"I think there are some real issues with legislation, whether it is state or federal," Kamali said. "I think that every employment environment can be vary different. How I use my email system and how I, as a company, want to be able to put controls on that system can vary dramatically."

Bowen's defeated bill will certainly not be the last such legislation proposed by state and federal lawmakers. As email continues to become an increasingly important part of life in the workplace, more and more incidents such as the one at Dow Chemical will make headlines. Eventually, legislators and employers will have to come to an agreement on just how those incidents should be handled.

Editor's Note: This story was first published on November 17, 2000.

This article is based on original reporting by "CyberCrime" senior segment producer and co-host Jennifer London.