ABSTRACT
The labor law and human resources literature of the 1990s was replete with warnings that employers used modern technology to keep an eye on their employees. Computers monitored work performance, we were told; software programs tracked Internet usage; supervisors read employees’ e-mail; and soon “smart badges” would reveal our exact location at every instant. These efforts even touched employees’ lives away from work, as some employers searched the contents of computers they provided to telecommuting workers. Many of these articles and books adopted distinctly unscholarly tones of high dudgeon and alarm (Lee, 1994; Gantt, 1995).
