It probably goes without saying that if you’re planning to sue your employer, you shouldn’t use your work email address to contact your lawyer. However, if you did do that, according to a California court, that email is not protected by attorney-client privilege. I don’t find this to be all that surprising (or really, problematic). It’s quite common that employers control the rights to your work emails, so it’s hard to see why that wouldn’t extend to emails you send your lawyer. All it really makes me wonder is why someone would use their work email for sending those types of emails.

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Techdirt Mike Masnick

     After my post about privacy yesterday, it’s nice to know that there are entrepreneurs out there who seek to make sure that our government—which generally has little problem with how private industry treats and shares our personal information—is as transparent as possible when it comes to its own information.  According to a story in the Washington Post, congressional staffers are outraged by a website, LegiStorm, which posts public information about the financial affairs of senior congressional staffers.       

     Under federal law, congressional staff members who earn more than $110,000 per year are required to file disclosure forms which list, among other things, their detailed financial holdings.  Why shouldn’t such staffers be subject to almost as much scrutiny as their bosses?  If they have the ear of some of the most powerful politicians in the world and serve as their handlers and gatekeepers, it only seems fair that the voters know if their financial interests may perhaps be influencing how their bosses vote on certain issues.  (Like issues involving privacy, for example.)  We sometimes forget that behind any politician is a group of people who write these influential laws.     

     And therein lies the irony:  Congress wrote these disclosure laws to help prevent public corruption and instill a sense of confidence in our public officials.  All staffers are obviously aware of them when they took their jobs.  So disclosure doesn’t seem to be the issue—it is the law, after all—but the dissemination that’s problematic.  Oh well, welcome to the internet age.  If congressional staffers really live in that much of a bubble where they think that they’re somehow exempt from close scrutiny in these politically polarizing times, then perhaps they’re as out of touch as some of the people they advise.         

     But the staffers have some legitimate concerns as well.  Some of the documents, which have since been redacted by the site, reportedly contained social security and bank account numbers.  Given the prevalence and ease of identity theft, this information obviously has to be removed prior to posting.  And if there is an instance of identity theft that can actually be traced back to the site (which is very unlikely), the site could conceivably be held liable.  There is such a thing as being too transparent.  While I may want to know if a staff member for a senator on the Finance Committee has large holdings in Fidelity, I don’t need to know the account numbers.  And we don’t want to dissuade smart, talented, and motivated people from joining the government if every conceivable detail of their financial lives is made public and widely disseminated.  Beyond these obvious concerns, however, sites like LegiStorm may help to keep Big Brother from getting too big . . . at least for a little while.

      There was an interesting consumer protection suit filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General (“AG”) recently.  It seems that Waltham, Massachusetts resident Areg A. Sakanyan, who was operating a website,  www.unclaimedmoney.us.com, to supposedly help people locate unclaimed money, didn’t provide the advertised service.

     According to the AG, the site lured consumers to conduct an initial free search and then enticed them to purchase a “membership” for $24.95 which would give them the details they needed to claim any assets that the search uncovered.  The problem was that everyone apparently qualified for unclaimed assets—even superheroes and cartoon characters.  When the AG’s undercover investigators input names such as “Batman” and “Wily E. Coyote,” the site stated that they had multiple unclaimed assets waiting for them.  Not surprisingly, no details or information about a person’s supposed unclaimed assets were ever provided by the site once the $24.95 fee was paid.

     In many ways, this is a standard type of consumer action that one would expect an AG to undertake:  A service was advertised, money was paid, and nothing was provided.  What was interesting, however, was one of the disclosures that the site allegedly failed to make.  According to the AG, the site—among other things—failed to inform consumers that its unclaimed money database is based upon publicly available sources which could generally be accessed without charge.   

     While this was just one part of the AG’s complaint, it’s somewhat troubling if the AG is attempting to establish precedent that a for-profit content or database website would have to make disclosures that its information is available from free public sources.  The internet is replete with such services.  For example, while many lawyers can find cases, statutes, and other public records for free, for-profit services such as Westlaw and Lexis provide the same service for what can sometimes be a hefty fee.  Would a disclosure be warranted in this instance?  Perhaps not just yet . . . .

      Again, given some of the overtly fraudulent conduct alleged in the AG’s complaint, this is only one small part of the action.  But all AGs are given a great deal of discretion when deciding to pursue those businesses that it deems to be engaging in unfair or deceptive practices.  And most businesses settle or fold once the AG has them in its sights, especially given the lengthy and expensive proceedings that can ensue, as well as all of the negative publicity that such actions generate.  The proverbial “slippery slope” gets even slipperier if aggressive and politically-motivated AGs (i.e., those seeking higher office) are specifically looking for “high value targets” upon which to focus their energies.  And failure to put appropriate disclaimers on a site are particularly easy targets to pursue.