Workers resisting the monitoring of their e-mail, insisting on their right to a private sphere in the workplace and refusing counselling are seen as a problem by employers. By simply defending their right to privacy and trying to preserve a sense of inviolable personal integrity in the workplace, they are seen as being obstructive.

More acceptable are workers who do not stand up for their right to privacy and who willingly accept interventions such as e-mail monitoring as a necessary price for freedom from harassment. In short, workers who are prepared to surrender a greater proportion of their sense of selfhood.

The inevitable consequence of monitoring e-mails is an erosion of freedom of expression in the workplace. Workers knowing their e-mails are being monitored exercise self restraint in what they say. Whether it is self censorship practised by workers fearful of censure, or direct intervention to terminate an offending message, freedom of expression suffers.

This is a situation where technology, far from having the potential to be used as a liberatory tool, is instead being used to erode people's privacy and their sense of self, denying them basic freedoms. Yet there is an alarming degree of acquiescence in this erosion of privacy. The informal and often creative relationships between workers which provided a degree of autonomy and independence are increasingly being sacrificed in the name of 'safety' and 'freedom' from harassment.