Can you point to any specific cases where an employee was dismissed for improper e-mail conduct? Alana Shoars was in charge of the Epson Torrance, Calif., plant e-mail system. Ms. Shoars assured Epson employees that their e-mail was private. She discovered later that her supervisor was reading all employee e-mail in the Torrance plant. [Shoars v. Epson America]

Air force machinist Donald Thompson is placed under investigation [in 2004] by the Office of Special Counsel for forwarding an e-mail lampooning the president's qualifications. "To me, sending it was just an electronic version of water cooler chit chat," he said.

Heidi Arace and Norma Yetsko, two employees of the PNC Bank were terminated after forwarding jokes on their company's e-mail. Such letters had been regularly sent in the past by fellow employees with the attention of the employer and they had previously never enforced any monitoring policies.

More importantly, though, for every employee that has been reprimanded or terminated for an e-mail message, there are literally millions of employees whose personal communications are being read everyday without their knowledge.

Sandra Gittlen is a freelance technology editor near Boston.