Talking To Media Gets Internal Auditor Dumped

Deep in the files of the Boeing Co. there are volumes of proprietary information deemed so valuable that the company has entire teams dedicated to making sure that private knowledge remains that way. One group, dubbed "enterprise" investigators, has permission to read the private e-mails of employees follow them and collect video footage or photos of them. Investigators can also secretly watch employee computer screens in real time and reproduce every keystroke a worker makes, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Boeing workers for years, have been suspicions about being tailed, at least three people familiar with investigation tactics within the company have recently confirmed them. One source said some employees have raised internal inquiries about whether their rights were violated. Sometimes, instead of going to court over a grievance on an investigation, Boeing-who desires to keep investigations details quiet--and the employee reach a financial settlement. The settlement almost always requires people involved to sign non-disclosure agreements, the source said.

"We will not discuss specifics of internal investigations with the media," it said in a written response to P-I questions. "Issues that necessitate investigation in order to protect the company's interests and those of its employees and other stakeholders are handled consistent with all applicable laws." But the tactics used by Washington State's largest employer raise questions about where an employee's rights begin and the employer's end, and how much leeway any corporation has in investigating an employee if it suspects wrongdoing.

In 2006, a scandal erupted at Hewlett-Packard after the company investigated leaks from its board of directors and was ordered to pay $14.5 million to bring its internal investigations into compliance with laws in California. Boeing's internal protection weighs company and legal practices. "To ensure these investigations are conducted properly and in accordance with established company and legal guidelines. We do not comment on individual cases or specific investigation activities," Boeing said about its internal checks and balances organizations.

A Puget Sound-area employee said he was followed, video taped and had his Gmail account monitored said the primary reason for the 2007 investigation was Boeing's suspicion that he had spoken with a member of the media.

The employee was eventually fired after a three hour meeting that laid out the company investigation. That particular investigation was connected with a July article in the P-I spotlighted Boeing's struggles complying with a 2002 corporate reform law and cited unnamed sources and internal company documents.

"I wasn't surprised, but more just disappointed in them, that instead of looking at the problems, instead of investigating that, they investigated the people that were complaining and got rid of them," said the employee, who had been an auditor in the company's Office of Internal Governance, and refused to be identified.

"It's not quite indentured servitude, because you can quit, but when you look at the mortgages and car payments, especially in Seattle, you're not exactly free," said the surveilled former employee. Experts say that tailing employees -- though surprising -- is usually legal, and that corporations have many options at their disposal to monitor employees. An investigator can do most things short of breaking into someone's home.

"It's worse than you can possibly imagine," said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the federation of Public Interest Research Groups.

"Employees should understand that the law generally gives employers broad authority to conduct surveillance, whether through e-mail, video cameras or other forms of tracking, including off the job in many cases."

The problem, Mierzwinski said, is when companies use the surveillance tactics available to them to root out whistle-blowers. "We need greater whistle-blower protections," he said. But, "if you're using the company's resources and you think it's protected because you're using Hotmail, think again." Privacy only begins when the employee steps across the threshold into his or her own home, experts say.

"The only thing your boss can't do is listen to personal telephone calls; that's covered by wiretapping laws," said Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J. As one expert at the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, just as the average Joe could trail his neighbor if he wanted to, companies are allowed to trail employees. "I can't harass the person, but there's nothing that prevents me from just following him," said Doug Klunder, privacy project director at the ACLU of Washington.

Reading private e-mails is "highly questionable." Companies should be able to know that employees are checking e-mail, but should not be able to view the contents of the e-mails, Klunder said.

Boeing employees view a warning upon login to the company network, a screen pops up to tell them that "to the extent permitted by law, system use and information may be monitored, recorded or disclosed and that using the system constitutes user consent to do so," according to Boeing. Workers have few rights if a case is deemed wrong doing. Whistle-blowers are afforded more protection, but only if an investigation is deemed retaliatory.

"There are no employee rights. Employees have little negotiating power," said Bill Mateja, former point man for President Bush's Corporate Fraud Task Force, formed in 2002. "Only if they're in the position of whistle-blower do they have a little more oomph."

Whistle blower cases usually end up dismissed, or not followed at all, "or it can be that the investigation cannot prove that the adverse action was taken for the reason that was complained about," said David Mahlum, assistant regional administrator for Region 10 of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration an agency that investigates whistle-blower complaints.

Robert Ellis Smith, a lawyer and the publisher of Privacy Journal, a monthly newsletter, says that protection for so called whistle-blowers is a "wild card" for employees who report wrong doing.

"Protections against electronic surveillance are virtually non-existent in the workplace," Smith said.

"The one wild card for this is federal protections for whistle-blowers. Aside from that, the privacy laws are quite weak."

FMI: www.boeing.com, www.osha.gov/dep/oia/whistleblower/index.html