Walter Finley is an engineer employed at Generic Engineering Corporation. Randomly teamed with Erin Cronin in a company golf tournament, the two exchanged stories about each other's department and work. Erin works for the information technology manager, Arch Woodside, and she told Walter of his monitoring activities of employee computer use. Erin said, "He doesn't apologize for it. He tells people, 'You live in a democracy; you don't work in one.' He uses web surveillance software that churns out reports identifying the busiest web sites and all kinds of other data." "That's nuts," Walter exclaimed as Erin finished her discourse on her boss. "They can't do that!" Erin replied, "Now don't get upset. The company has a policy restricting personal use of the Web to lunch-time or before or after work, and the policy states that the company has the ability to monitor all Internet usage." Walter was upset. "I use ETrade and BigCharts.com all the time. That's my business, not the company's. They had better not have invaded my privacy … the bastards." Erin replied soothingly, "The company has called up data logs on ETrade activity of engineers, but they have not taken any action." Walter objected, "That's wiretapping and an invasion of my privacy-intrusion on seclusion, it's called. I may sue the bastards."
Advise Walter as to his rights, if any, against Woodside and the company to bring an action under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the common law tort theory of invasion of privacy by intrusion on seclusion. (See M. J. McCarthy, "Websurfers Beware: The Company Tech May Be a Secret Agent," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 10, 2000, pp. 1-A12.)