[cm2187]

I must say that seeing the SEC’s handling of internal emails in the Tourre affair taught me a lesson about internal corporate communications. Some personal emails which were unrelated to the affair were published in the SEC report (clearly for the benefit of the front page of newspapers). The extract contained jokes where the sentence had been edited to alter the meaning of the sentence.

The published extract was “whole building is about to collapse anytime now. Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab […] standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications”

Out of memory the […] that was left out by the SEC said something like “as kindly calls me xxx, but there is nothing fabulous about me, just a tender... etc”. And that was an email to his girlfriend, nothing to do with any transaction.

Morale of the story: no jokes, even innocuous, they will be weaponised against you in bad faith. Stick to boring, neutral language. And no personal communications on corporate systems. Write everything on the assumption it will be published with bad intent.

[Balgair]

Si vous me donnez six lignes écrites par la main de la plus honnête des hommes, je vais trouver quelque chose en eux qui le ferai pendre.

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

- Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu and Fronsac (1585–1642)

[rusk]

It amazes me in this day and age that people don't realise that anything they say on these systems can be dug out and read by anybody, anywhere at any time ...

[chopin]

You're not thinking about this with every keystroke even if you know this. I certainly don't.

[noelsusman]

I do. I've only ever worked for public universities or state owned organizations, so every work email I've ever written is theoretically accessible via an open records request. I write every email as if it's going to be published on the front page of my local paper.

As a result I don't use email very much.

[rusk]

I absolutely do. If I'm typing it I'm checking myself just as if I were speaking across an open plan office.

The only way you'll ever know what I actually really think about something controversial is if you ask me face to face, or maybe, on a phone call.

[chopin]

> If I'm typing it I'm checking myself just as if I were speaking across an open plan office.

I do this, too. I would call this good manners. But that's wildly different from being aware that the contents might be used in discovery or being published out-of-context. Especially the latter provokes the Richelieu citation.

[rusk]

what?

[EvanAnderson]

I'll echo the other comments here, too. I never put anything in writing that I'm not comfortable being published publicly. Working in the public sector and being subject to public records requests, and working in the private sector and having my emails quoted by opposing counsel to a judge during a lawsuit both taught me the value of being exceedingly careful in what I write.

[Wheaties466]

I know I do and im sure others that are often under regulatory scrutiny do as well.