Employer Monitoring Employee's Computer Usage

[mtrahan1974]

I have been doing some research, and looking into this and that. I know this may not be related to this forum. But, is there any privacy laws regarding employees and employers. Because the owner of this company, as I was told was "monitoring" our computers as we were using them. Now I was not looking at porn sites or doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing. But I really felt violated knowing that he was monitoring our every moment on the pc even when we weren't actively using them. Meaning if we were doing other things like packaging supplies and our pc's were left on just the desktop or the company website. We were told that he was inquiring if we needed things to do. If he would walk thru our office he would have known we were packaging supplies. Is there any laws out there to protect employees privacy.

Also considering that when I copied and pasted an IM and sent it to my personal email. I was fired less than 10 minutes later. So someone knew what I was doing.

So are there any privacy laws that protect employees regarding computer?

[aaron]

Generally speaking, the employer owns the workplace computer and has a right to inspect it. The employer also has broad rights to monitor employee computer use, particularly where the employee has consented to the monitoring (either expressly, or by continuing employment following the notification by the employer that monitoring would occur). There may be restrictions on monitoring as a result of employment contract, union contract, or state law (although the exception for consent typically again applies).