As more corporations continue to be discovered as unethical in one way or another, employees are now finding a new need to evaluate the liability of employment. Certainly, this doesn’t apply to every company or every situation. The insinuation of which would be overly naive.

However, anyone that works within a company that notices illegal activity being committed in accordance with corporate strategy, is in a very precarious position. As an employee and professional, your reputation is tied to your employer. Should they be found guilty of illegal activity, it tarnishes your professional image greatly and, often, you can be made the ’scape goat’ (for lack of a better term). In which case, the company will often claim no knowledge of what you were doing and quickly release you from employment all the while continuing their practices in a quiet manner.

Companies can also often essentially ‘destroy’ a worker that has discovered the illegal nature of their practices. This seems especially true on the local level where the company may carry a lot of weight in a local municipality or area of a state.

It’s a well-known problem that remains unaddressed and it appears indiscriminately in many industries. The depth of this issue is unknown. I don’t claim any expertise in the cases of Enron, or the other companies that have in recent memory been discovered to be acting illegally but I attribute the length of time they were able to continue these practices to this very issue.

On the technology front, take the current case of Chip Salzenberg whose claim that he discovered his employer chose to use servers that belonged to others, on the scale of tens of thousands, to collect personal information on doctors, nurses, veternarians and other medical personnel. Bringing this issue to his employer’s attention received the reaction from his employer to have the police seize Chip’s entire household’s computers, routers, CD’s, DVD’s and other personal property.

He has yet to receive his or his household member’s belongings back. It’s an uphill battle where decisions appear in the company’s favor due to lack of knowledge about the internet.

To fully understand this situation, it would be best for the reader to visit the originating website for the legal battle of Chip Salzenberg, long time leader in the Perl and Open Source community. Please consider donating to his cause while you are there.

One of the main obstacles in this case is that, likely, the police, judge and magistrate simply don’t understand what the company was doing. Therefore, they can’t understand the illegal nature of the actions and have no tools to find out if it’s true. Another is the remaining societal fear of technology due to lack of familiararity. Parts of the claim by Chip, a well respected technology professional, include misdemeanors, felonies and government computers warranting an investigation.

Allowing the company possession of Chip’s belongings, including his and his household member’s computers also puts personal information in the hands of the now threatening ex-employer. Can anyone say ‘Where’d my identity go?’. All the company had to say to get his belongings was “He’s been downloading more than uploading and we’re afraid he’s going to sell our secrets.”

Chip was one of the senior developers for this company…most developers download more than upload. It’s how we work. Without it, we twiddle our thumbs…we would be paid to drink coffee and send jokes via email.

So what’s next? How far will this situation go before some sort of sanity check is put into place? And what would that check be without ringing of Orson Well’s book 1984? When will logic come into the equation and some checks on big business be made?

Some effort has been made, see Sarbanes-Oxley, a legislative reaction to Enron and the like. But ultimately, it’s up to the company…more specifically the owner and management of each company to maintain the integrity of the corporate strategy. And it’s up to the employee to decide when employment is just too great of a liability and, at this point, hope that they don’t get caught in the quagmire. Sadly, even after you leave the company, it is still possible to be pulled back in to legal woes.

Appropriate legislative action to protect employees and internet users is so far out that it is barely discernable on the horizon. Pieces of legislation that do come to vote are often like small boats adrift in an uncharted sea, small, alone and unsupported. Also known as ’special interest’.

Is our law enforcement sufficiently overburdened that it would be beneficial to increase support for cyber crime units? My opinion is “yes”. We need specially trained law enforcement in the area of technology and they need more of a presence. For situations like this one, identity theft and the many other legal quagmires that revolve around technology. It may take another, more technology savvy generation to push legal standards forward. Until then, employees beware…and let’s hope I don’t get legal action due to simply posting this. :(