Electronic Mail

A federal appeals court Wednesday sharply limited the ability of employers to obtain e-mails and text messages sent by employees on company-financed accounts. The text message portion of the ruling, issued by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, will affect all employers who contract with an outside provider for messaging, as most do. Access to e-mail would be barred if the employer contracts out its e-mail service rather than maintaining an internal server to handle it.

Employers and workers Thursday were trying to understand their rights in the wake of a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that narrowed the circumstances under which a company could obtain the electronic communications of its employees. A three-judge panel held that the Ontario Police Department wrongly obtained the contents of text messages sent by an officer via a wireless provider, even though the department paid the bills for the messaging service. The ruling applies to California and other Western states.

From Rose Mary Woods' tape recordings in the Nixon White House to Karl Rove's e-mails during the Bush administration, congressional investigators and political historians are forever seeking records of White House communications, often against the wishes of the sitting president.

A fired Philadelphia TV newscaster was charged with hacking into the e-mail of his glamorous younger co-anchor hundreds of times for more than two years. Leaked information about her personal life helped lead to her downfall. Federal prosecutors say former KYW-TV anchor Larry Mendte, 51, gained access to Alycia Lane's accounts from home and at work about 537 times between January and May alone, and shared some information with a reporter. Lane, 36, was fired in January after the revelation of a series of embarrassing off-camera incidents, including a scuffle with a New York City police officer.

It happened with cigarettes. It happened with red meat. And carbs. And SUVs. And now it's happening with e-mail. The preferred communication channel of millions of Americans is no longer cool. According to a growing number of academics, "technologists" and psychologists, our dependence on e-mail -- the need to attend to a constantly beeping in-box -- is creating anxiety in the workplace, adversely affecting the ability to focus, diminishing productivity and threatening family bonds.

One of the few remaining Internet-free havens vanished Wednesday as American Airlines launched airborne e-mail, Web and other online services on some of its longer nonstop flights. The move could create a new stream of revenue for an aviation industry facing high fuel prices and other challenges. But it also could create new headaches as passengers retrieve sensitive e-mails and websites in confined quarters.

Hackers broke into the Yahoo e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate. "This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement.

THE STILL-HAZY story of the hacker who broke into Sarah Palin's e-mail account is an excellent case study in the powers and perils of digital communities and why it can be hard to tell which is which. I for one got caught up in the whirl of hype and slippery half-truths that surrounded this story, so I'm counting it as a teachable moment. Much of what we know -- or think we know -- about this story comes to us from its only primary source: a semi-anonymous written confession the hacker may have posted on an underground Web bulletin board.

The woman behind the infamous e-mail that aired criticisms of Sarah Palin to millions across the cyber-globe sat at a computer screen scrolling through unread messages, as dozens more popped into her inbox. "Let's see, what is the next one?" Anne Kilkenny said with a smile, killing time before her family attended a Saturday evening church service. She clicked and skimmed the words: "Hateful liar." She opened the next one: "I think you are nothing more than disgruntled and jealous in some way!!

Gov. Sarah Palin maintained a private e-mail account that she used to communicate with a small circle of staff members outside the state government's secure official e-mail system, according to the Wasilla company that established the site. The account was separate from the Yahoo e-mail address that was abruptly abandoned by the McCain campaign on Sept. 17, the day hackers penetrated the account and posted pages from it on the Internet.