22 Federal and State Law Enforcements Role to Enforce Computer-Based Crime Term Paper

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Law Enforcement and Computer-Based Crime

Before beginning any discussion regarding the consequences of employee monitoring, it is crucial to first develop a working knowledge of precisely what this blanket term actually entails. Simply put, employee monitoring is deliberate surveillance by an employer which is used to track various behaviors, such as a worker's visitation rate to certain websites, as well as to transcribe and archive written correspondence in the form of emails while continuously observing their actions. It is the responsibility of each employer to decide where their business will lie within the gamut of employee monitoring philosophies, with many companies simply banning visitation of "cyberloafing" sites such as Twitter and Facebook while others methodically scan and document each touch of a workplace keyboard. While there are literally hundreds of types of employee monitoring available to businesses, from transparent voluntary programs to the most invasive reconnaissance campaigns, almost all major American corporations elect to make use of the practice in one manner or another. The majority of scientific study as to the efficacy of employee monitoring suggests that companies have long been disposed to track the behavior of those in their employ, and "a 1996 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 36% of responding companies searched employee messages regularly and 70% said employers should reserve the right to do so" (Schulman 1998). The overwhelming expression of support for recording employee's emails and private messages, given as it was during the infancy of the online age, was a telling prelude to the mounting legal and ethical uproar which has embroiled the corporate world regarding its use of employee monitoring.

Judging merely by the level of rancor which has surrounded the employee monitoring debate in this country, it is evident that the practice arouses strong opinions for both employers and employees alike.

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Recently concluded research of employee monitoring conducted by business ethicists Kirsten Martin and R. Edward Freeman concludes that "each advocate has its own rationale for or against employee monitoring whether it be economic, legal, or ethical," before concluding, "no matter what the form of reasoning, seven key arguments emerge from the pool of analysis" (Martin and Freeman, 2003). The scholars determined that there are seven main areas of dispute concerning employee monitoring which they term the privacy, productivity, security, creativity, liability, paternalism and social control arguments. Serious study of the effects that these seven components have on employers and workers is the only to properly ascertain the necessary role of employee monitoring while also assessing its worth to an ever adapting corporate structure.

The matter of productivity lies at the center of most employee monitoring debates, simply because most employers consistently assert that use of the internet and communication with peers via social networking serve as a constant source of disruption, often resulting in a mutual decrease in productivity and office efficiency. Advocates of employee monitoring base their support on statistical evidence like that compiled by internet research firm WebSense, whose polling found that "in 2001, 60.7% of employees surveyed said they visit Web sites or surf for personal use at work" (Martin and Freeman, 2003), to bolster assertions that tracking employee behavior is indispensable. The term cyberloafing has even been added to the American vocabulary, describing "the act of employees using their companies' Internet access for personal purposes during work hours" (Lim, 2002). Employee monitoring systems devised to eliminate internet abuse by workers inherently involve the restriction of an employee's access to only screened and approved….....

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