A bill to protect Internet and e-mail use privacy on the job ran into a red light from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier this week. He vetoed the bill, saying businesses must keep their prerogative to monitor their workers' activities.
"For business purposes, employers should have the ability to monitor employee activity in order to ensure [online] access is not being abused," the governor said in a statement late September 29.
The law in question would have required employers to give clear, conspicuous notice before they could monitor staffers' email or Net use – just as California law now requires regarding on-the-job telephone use. Not posting such notices would have been classified a misdemeanor under state law. But Schwarzenegger also said the proposed law was too broad and didn't define the required notification clearly enough.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, and other privacy groups backed the bill, but its major opponent, the state Chamber of Commerce, argued that the clear, conspicuous notice language was broad enough to be seen differently by employers and workers and thus encourage litigation.
The bill's sponsor rejected the idea that the bill was too broad. "It's not that complicated," state Assemblywoman Debra Bowen said in a statement after Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill. "The bill simply required companies that want to monitor their employees' email or Internet use to give them a one-time notice saying, 'Your computer use may be monitored at any time.' That's it. How complicated is that?"
