The third exception, called the “consent exception” says that
if communication from a personal computer is intercepted or filtered
through a company’s email system, the employees can be fired over
remarks made in that communication. These exceptions to the ECPA
make it clear that under federal law a company can spy on its
employees and fire these employees if the content is unlawful or the
employee is stealing money by being unproductive and using company
resources (Nord et al., 2006).
A company is protected under the ECPA to search an
employee’s computer. The company that does this, does need to develop
a policy that informs employees of the ECPA and, by extension, should
inform an employee of any policies related to social networking sites.