Here is an interesting one that some of you may have missed: =20 In the mid-90s, a Hawaiian pilot started a personal website to document = his concerns with management, specifically over wage concessions the airline = was seeking. He protected the site with a password. The password was given = to various other employees so they could view the site. Hawaiian management = got word of the site and forced another pilot to give management the = password (they had him access the site on a management computer and required him = to divulge the password). Management accessed the site several times. Union leaders told the site's owner about the access and he sued for privacy violations. He lost on a fairly technical (formalistic) interpretation = of the Wiretap Act. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear his = appeal. =20 =20 >From www.boston.com.... =20 Appeal in wiretap case denied=20 Pilot says executives monitored his website=20 By Lyle Denniston, Globe Correspondent, 2/25/2003=20 WASHINGTON -- Secure sites on the World Wide Web that are open only to approved users with passwords appeared to have lost some of their = privacy yesterday when the Supreme Court passed up its first opportunity to = shore up a legal barrier against electronic intruders.=20 Without explanation, the justices turned aside an appeal by an airline = pilot claiming that the company's top executives, targets of his frequent criticism, had eavesdropped on his private website by gaining = unauthorized access and monitoring it.=20 By denying review, the court left intact a federal appeals court's = decision that limited the use of the Wiretap Act of 1967 as a shield for communication via websites and e-mails. Lower courts have reached conflicting interpretations of a newer law that some privacy advocates = had hoped would bring the Wiretap Act into the digital age.=20 The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public interest organization = seeking to protect civil liberties in the high-tech arena, had joined the = airline pilot in urging the justices to clarify the scope of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The old Wiretap Act has been absorbed into = that 1986 law.=20 ''This is a case,'' the foundation told the justices, ''where the courts have shrunk statutorily guaranteed privacy by rewriting a law that by = its terms does not do so.''=20 At issue in the appeal filed by Hawaiian Airlines pilot Robert C. Konop = of Playa del Rey, Calif., was whether the Wiretap Act protects the privacy = of digital communications stored on a server or personal computer, or only = when messages or data are actually being transmitted to a storage site.=20 Unlike a live telephone call, privacy advocates say, digital = transmission occurs in mere seconds, at most, so protection against intruders only in that phase does little to block eavesdropping. Privacy advocates contend that storage of messages or data is an integral part of communication in = the digital realm.=20 In Konop's case, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco ruled last August that it is illegal eavesdropping on a = private website only when the information is intercepted during transmission. It ruled that way after the Justice Department and state prosecutors voiced concern that restricting interception of stored messages would hamper = law enforcement.=20 The airline pilot was a dissident in the Air Line Pilots Association, = and was using his website as a platform for attacking management requests = for financial concessions by the union -- concessions that union leaders supported.=20 Executives of the airline, his lawsuit claimed, used the sign-on name = and password of other pilots to enter Konop's site and view his stored = messages. He learned about it when union leaders said they had heard from = management about his criticism. Konop sued, claiming illegal eavesdropping, but he = lost in both trial and appeals courts.=20 The Supreme Court denied review of his appeal amid a long series of = orders it issued after returning from a four-week recess.=20