Harvard is Shocked and Appalled that Emails Aren’t Private

We have noted that at public universities such as UC, emails you may consider private might be demanded as part of a public documents request.  At private universities, of course, those external rights of the public to see such material doesn’t exist.  However, in this day and age, nothing online can be assumed to be private.  Recently, Harvard faculty and deans were shocked and appalled to find out that the powers-that-be in the administration were snooping in deans’ emails to find a leak: 

From the Boston Globe: Harvard College issued a partial apology and a lengthy statement this morning offering its explanation to the search of resident deans’ e-mails as part of a leak investigation. In its statement, Harvard said the e-mail search was prompted by an investigation into a leaked e-mail and other information that described an Administrative Board case involving the university’s cheating scandal that became public last fall…