Well, we all must admit there's no right to much privacy in any
organization we don't own.  But enlightened administrators would dare pry
into such things as e-mail only when it's absolutely essential and urgent.
Otherwise, they operate essentially on trust.  Now, some states --
including Virginia -- have forbidden all employees and state university
faculty from accessing porn forums etc. from their desks.  It remains to be
seen how this will be enforced, but no doubt there is a way to do some
random checking of records.  We randomly check our long distance billings.
Once, in another museum, I found our head of security was returning nights
and Sundays to call his mother long-distance, speaking hours at a time.  He
had no idea we got printouts of all calls, their length, etc.  I had the
difficult job of firing him for misuse of government phones over a period
of 2-3 yrs, along with his general behavior toward other staff.  When
Reagan visited the museum, he refused to recommend 2-3 staff for clearance
and they couldn't be on the grounds!  That's when I began checking the
phone records.