"I am reasonably sure that there is no Dr. Evil at work here. Instead, I believe that this incident is a case of human nature running amuck -- a legitimate investigation that got out of hand.
Based on the stories I read, this seems to have two components: 1) monitoring and recording of phone calls between Wal-Mart’s PR department and a New York Times reporter; and 2) intercepting message traffic from portable devices.
In my estimation, the initial monitoring of PR calls seems very targeted -- so that may have very well been part of an official internal investigation (though it may or may not have been authorized appropriately). Indiscriminate monitoring of wireless traffic for both employees and non-employees, however, seems to be clearly out-of-bounds. This is probably the result of the "systems technician" being over-zealous." (more)
