Boeing bosses spy on workers

Within its bowels, The Boeing Co. holds volumes of proprietary information deemed so valuable that the company has entire teams dedicated to making sure that private information stays private.

One such team, 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, the Seattle P-I has learned.

For years, Boeing workers have held suspicions about being surveilled, according to a long history of P-I contact with sources, but at least three people familiar with investigation tactics have recently confirmed them.

One company 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 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'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.

A recent case at another large company highlighted that investigations can go too far. In 2006, a scandal erupted at Hewlett-Packard after the company investigated leaks from its board of directors.

The company was ordered to pay $14.5 million and to bring its internal investigations into compliance with laws in California, the company's home state.

The investigation included reviews of internal e-mails and instant messages, the physical surveillance of a board member and at least one journalist, and the illegal use of deception to obtain telephone records of employees and journalists.

For its part, Boeing says that it has multiple internal organizations that provide checks and balances "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."

Recently, a Boeing investigator told a Puget Sound-area employee that he was followed off company property to a lunch spot, that investigators had footage of him "coming and going" and that investigators had accessed his personal Gmail account.

The primary reason for the 2007 investigation, the employee said, was Boeing's suspicion that he had spoken with a member of the media. The employee learned the details of the investigation during a three-hour meeting, in which investigators laid out some of their findings. He has since been fired.

That particular investigation was connected with a July article in the P-I that brought to light 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 asked that he not be named.

"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.

For example, under Washington's stalking law, licensed private investigators "acting within the capacity of his or her license" are allowed to repeatedly follow a person. Boeing's internal investigators are exempt under state law from having to obtain a private investigator license, but contracted investigators must hold licenses.

"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 law grants companies the right to protect themselves from employees who break the law, such as by embezzling money or using the company warehouse to run a drug-smuggling ring.

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 laws ask whether a reasonable person would be outraged by a particular act; reasonableness is an oft-cited concept in law, explained Bill Covington, a University of Washington professor on technology law and public policy. Washington is a "will-to-work" state, meaning employees can be fired without reason, he added.

"We cannot write laws that cover every circumstance," he said. "A jury can apply a community standard of what they deem to be fair and right. There are just too many other situations."

"I don't think we have made up our mind which way we want to go with these particular laws," Covington said. "You are having a classic clash between business ... and privacy groups."

So when does privacy begin? When an 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.

Companies following workers typically do so to check on the legitimacy of workers' compensation claims. A company needs to know if a worker who claims injury is actually mowing his lawn, Maltby said. It is "completely inappropriate" to trail employees to see if they are talking to reporters, he added -- but it is legal.

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.

Klunder said that 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.

"We certainly don't believe that an employer should be able to read private e-mail content just because it's accessed on a work computer," he said.

However, "it's a tricky area because there aren't a lot of legal protections in Washington and in most states where we have employment-at-will. There are some privacy rights of employees, but they are limited relative to the employer."

When Boeing employees sign on 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.

If a corporate investigation discovers employee wrongdoing that merits discipline or dismissal, workers have little recourse, experts say. Whistle-blowers, on the other hand, 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 can be dismissed for many reasons -- the employee might not have understood the law, or the employer's retaliation is not severe enough to merit fault, "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. That agency investigates whistle-blower complaints.

Robert Ellis Smith, a lawyer and the publisher of Privacy Journal, a monthly newsletter, called whistle-blower protections the "wild card" in employee protections.

"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."

P-I reporter Andrea James can be reached at 206-448-8124 or andreajames@seattlepi.com.

My point is... we do need some new privacy laws. It may be a legal right to snoop, but that doesn’t mean that it is RIGHT. Like I said, our personal lives are now intertwined with our work lives now that employers have many employees (like me) on 24/7 on call status. I NEED to be able to conduct some personal business in the office at times, just as I NEED to work at home at times. Things have changed. The way we work has changed. And privacy laws need to be changed to accommodate it.

On an emotional level, I agree with you 100%.

But then again, I don’t.

It sounds to me, like we both work in large companies. I happen to like my job. Quite a lot, actually. I have only ever had two bosses who actually made me uncomfortable, and both have since moved on. For the most part, I have found our management to have almost been overly concerned with what we, as the staff, think about things.

In a large organization, it’s easy sometimes to lose sight of the chain of ownership.

So we start thinking not like employees, but like citizens.

Management becomes a sort of government. We, as citizens of a free country with the best darn Constitution history has ever seen — expect certain rights.

Except we’re at work.

Someone ELSE owns the company. They’re the one, with the rights.

If you or I were to decide we’ve had enough of the corporate bureaucracy, and go open a coffee shop, or a hardware store — we would own it.

Then, we could decide the rules.

Don’t know about you, but I don’t own the corporation.

I’ve got a couple shares of stock through an employee participation program, but basically I’m just a hired hand.

That’s reality. I’m ok with that. If ever I am not, I’ll leave.

How about most of us knowledge workers get paid over-time then? Times have changed, many of us don't work hourly. We work at home, we work on vacation when needed, and should be able to buy our wife an anniversary present online during lunch if we have no choice.

Companies that spy on salary employees and/or harass them about incidental non work usage of the internet or time, should be made to pay over time to those employees when they work during "non work" hours.

You’ll get no complaint from me. Salary workers should have a different level of expectations from their employer. If that hasn’t been worked out ahead of time, it’s time to do so now.

I’m salaried, I’ve worked at home, and I’m conscientious. My boss knows I’m delivering more than what is expected. It works out because neither of us abuses that trust. Bigger corporations don’t have that luxury, but bigger corps can offer better benefits, etc.

You gotta make it work, or just realize that until you start your own business, work sucks. After you start your own business, work sucks even more.

Win the lottery.

Imho the fair and reasonable approach is full (and I mean completely full) company disclosure of its privacy practices.

If they are going to engage PIs to follow you around if they suspect you are leaking secrets to a competitor or are a whistleblower they should be required to disclose that is their practice.

If they don't disclose and _then_ fire you imho that would be grounds for a wrongful termination suit.

In the case of government contractors this would make their life unpleasant since they are not allowed to persecute whistleblowers but do have a right to protect company secrets. They should disclose their policies in such difficult circumstances, and stick to those policies.

I expect privacy only in the restroom.

LOL. I’m pretty comfortable about that. But there have been a couple times I’ve glanced up at the vent grates, and just wondered...

I myself, don’t even presume the restroom is private.

Well, luckily most managers are smart enough to bend the "rules" for employees that are overworked. But then, there are always those idiots who would rather nitpick about something minor like a private email to one's wife, and neglect to consider that the employee has been at the office for 70 hours.

And really that's the key to my whole arguement. The "stupid" managers don't own the company either, yet they make decisions that can negatively hurt the company (like harassing a top performer over something petty... and thus drive them away). Large companies are full of backstabbers and idiots who over enforce rules or twist tules to the detriment of the shareholders, and perhaps to their own personal benefit like getting rid of a rival.

Rules can be abused both ways, in the gross violation of a rule and the absurd enforcement of a rule.

Now I feel differently about a privately owned business. I have no problem with them making any "rule" they like. If a private business owner is dumb enough to harass his best employees because they email their wives occasionally, then he will pay for that anyway. His best employees will move on, and he/she will go out of business. Corps are different obviously as the dumb managers don't have as much at stake by making bad calls.

It has gone too far. With many salary employees our personal lives are very intertwined with our work lives. I work from home all the time to assist my employer when needed... I think that justifies some amount of privacy while in the office as well.

Unless you have that privacy guarantee in writing, all you have done is sold the company all of your time and all of your privacy at a very low price.

Why do you think the government will stand up for people who are probably unwilling to stand up for themselves?

Restroom probably isn’t either. But anyone who finds such bodily functions fascinating will likely be caught sooner rather than later. I hope.

But if I think too much about all the ways my personal sovereignty can be violated in a day, I won’t leave the house.

So, I just make sure to keep my conceal-carry permit up-to-date.

Oh, I do stand up for myself. I left a former employer because they abused my personal time to a large extent. Most of my comments here reflect my FORMER employer not my current one. And my current manager knows that I will walk if I get grief over petty garbage (like using the internet to buy a present during a massive personal time consuming project) like my former employer did.

That said, employees shouldn't have to leave an employer over silly things, losing pension benefits and seniority. Managers in corporations should have some restrictions on how they treat their employees. Remember, they don't own the company, countless shareholders do. Thus, I believe new privacy rights legislation is a reasonable desire.

You do not have a right to privacy in your cubicle.

This isn't about cubicle privacy. This is about being followed around town, having your personal e-mail hacked into, and people watching your house. I understand the work e-mail and work computer monitoring. Where I have a problem is monitoring personal computer use, personal e-mail use, and following people around off company property. Knowing this, I'll never work for Boeing.

Yes, but "buyer" beware. Since companies don't explicitly spell out how they invade your privacy its a little hard to decided which firm to work for. I agree with the other poster who said that employers should be required to spell out exactly how they spy on their employees, and this should be before someone accepts a position with them.

As for work for myself... I've done that and hope to do it again. I'm not in the position to do so right now due to the inability to get private insurance due to my wife having had cancer. So I'm kind of in a bind.

What you say is true however, we find that friends are spending a LOT of time at their workplace surfing for “cutsie” FWDs to send to their block email friends. Very annoying. I can only imagine how much inefficiency this causes, plus the waste of money on salaries that are paid for what?

There is a friend of my wife constantly sending that stuff and with our ancient ISP we delete them upfront without reading (don’t have the time) by going to the ISP website and ambushing the FWDs. I remarked that she sure had lots of time on her hands being retired and I was told that she’s not retired (we are but have picked up other jobs) but is doing that at work! Pretty bad.

You're right - you never will work for Boeing. Trust me, they don't want you anyway. Interesting how you accept without question the unsubstantiated claims of a neo-socialist writing yet another tiresome anti-corporate hatchet-job article. All because you were lulled into the perception that somehow people's "rights" were being trampled upon by nasty big business.

Until you spend some time off your @ss actually working for the company in question, instead of living your life through a computer website, what you think or have to say is just so much wasted electrons.

This particular company, and its over 255,000 employees world-wide have accomplished amazing feats, changing the world as we know it. But no benefit of the doubt for them, though, eh?

Think about that the next time you climb on an airliner and safely travel the breadth of the country in less than half a day, or think about it the next time you hear of a Super Hornet or Strike Eagle precisely placing a JDAM up some terrorist's @ss.

Companies like this don't need people who sit around all day worried about their "privacy" or their "rights". We need people who can actually accomplish something beside make snap judgments that conveniently fit their class warfare-based world view.

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