Internet Users Leave Trail Of Information Hard Drive Contents Also May Not Be Protected By Privacy Law

While an employee’s e-mail and on-line activities may be examined at work, most people do not realize the extent their Internet surfing at home can be monitored.

When they flip on their home computers and zap into one of the sites on the World Wide Web, they assume nobody knows where they go or what they do.

They also assume the contents of their hard drive - the computer memory that stores files - is for their eyes only.

Kevin Hathcock, 24, of Boise was charged last week with four felony counts of possession of child pornography after he allegedly saved photos he found on the Internet.

The images were discovered after police received a tip and seized Hathcock’s hard drive from a local computer store.

If convicted, Hathcock could serve up to 20 years in prison.

Many people will be following the case, which is the first of its kind in Idaho and will help set a precedent for how investigators consider on-line activities.

At work, employees’ e-mail and computer files are considered the property of the company and may be legally monitored by the employer.

Hathcock’s case had a twist. As soon as he took his computer to a store, he lost his right to privacy.

“You made your hard drive available to others, put it into plain view,” said Elizabeth Brandt, a University of Idaho law professor and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho.

Snooping by repairmen becomes illegal only if it leads to a crime, such as finding a customer’s bank account information and withdrawing money, she said.

Even if owners do not make their computers available to an outside source, thousands of electronic eyes are watching every move in cyberspace.

“There is no such thing as anonymity on the Internet,” said Deirdre Mulligan of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C.

“Every site you look at, every picture you download - all that information is trackable.”

Mulligan’s organization has a demonstration page at its site at http://www.cdt.org.

Internet users who click on the site will see a lot of information about themselves, such as the town they are in at the time, their Internet service provider, the kind of computer they use, their Internet address and other facts.

An expert with the right technology can obtain an e-mail address, the exact files viewed and other detailed information without their knowledge, Mulligan said.

An Internet user may not mind getting flooded with car advertisements after searching for car information on the Net.

But they may mind that after visiting Internet sites related to cigarettes, their insurance premiums increased due to being categorized as a smoker.