Who owns the equipment? bandwidth? Your employer does.

Who is liable for any misuse? Your employer is.

They have every right to snoop.

In my opinion, the monitoring can go to extremes. While I can see clamping down on usage while a worker is supposed to be working, so long as the company is NOT paying them for their lunch hour, the company has no gripe when the worker uses part of that lunch hour to go web surfing (although I will grant that they do have some justification in wanting the worker to not use that lunch surfing time to go to the aforementioned scantly clad pictures sites [since such usage can leave an IPN trace record in the site's log]) or conducts other PERSONAL business during the lunch hour. If they want to restrict what I do during working hours, then PAY ME for all these hours (including my lunch hour) or STFU about what I do during my unpaid time.

US employers are currently downsizing in most job areas. If you lay someone off then its a bit like making someone redundant in the UK -- it can cost, especially in states like California. If you fire them "for cause" then its way cheaper.

'nuff said?

The Inquirerr has nonesuch of that here, folks; please move along!
GSTQ - er something.

"misappropriate e-mail usage"?

Have you been attending the George W Bush School of English?