RICHMOND—
A controversial email has gotten the attention of the Virginia NAACP.An employee upset about it says she was fired.
The NAACP says the email was sent out last month, by an Assistant Vice-President at Sun Trust to employees in the Mortgage division in Richmond. The terminated employee says she found the email offensive but never complained to the company.
The email entitled "Bumper Stickers that make sense" which criticized President Barack Obama and referenced slavery. She now says she's filed a complaint with the NAACP and the EEOC, saying she was wrongfully terminated, denied due process and suffered retaliation. But it's unclear why Sun Trust fired her.
The NAACP says the email was completely inappropriate for a multi-cultural workplace.
"We've been calling this actually the Obama backlash. It's right wing. It's neo-con. It's all those things and obviously it was acceptable. And so, I think it was the implied position that she was sending it to someone who was going to send it to us," said Virginia NAACP Executive Director Salim Khalfani.
Sun Trust Corporate sent a statement to CBS 6, saying, "While we cannot discuss confidential employee matters, we are committed to ensuring that our employees are treated consistently and fairly. We do not endorse or condone the views expressed in the email cited by the NAACP and have already taken appropriate action to respond to the circulation of the email.
"A lot of them actually are advertisements for pornography websites and such and just trying to get you to sign up," said Mike Burke.
"I really start my morning by delete, delete, delete, and get rid of it and I don't let it bother me too much," said Jenni Sauer.
But one certain e-mail did bother some Suntrust employees when it began circulating throughout computers at it's Richmond Mortgage division last month. We wanted to know just who can see those e-mails and why you should watch what you send?
"I know they are some workplaces that filter e-mails based on certain terms they look for, so, realistically when you send out an e-mail. It's like sending out a post card. Anyone who handles that can see it," said University of Richmond Computer Science professor Doug Shada.
And Doug Shada says it's like opening Pandora's box. Because he says once you send it out, it's out there.
"Whenever you put something in digital form, you don't know how many copies have been made of it because it's so easy to copy things. So, you really should consider these permanent," said Shada.
Permanent e-mails and messages can be traced back to the sender. Shada says up to 80 percent of junk and spam e-mails take up an enormous amount of space. Not only that, he says you need to be careful about what you open...because many of these spam emails have viruses attached.
"It makes it sound like they're your friend and when they open it. It's actually a virus that just attacks them like information about your latest contract. So on, and so forth."
Experts say employees can face anything from a reprimand to suspension. They say companies like Banks, Insurance, Legal firms, and hospitals tend to be much stricter. And most companies restrict emails that are "chain messages," as well as content that's sexually or offensive in nature.
They say inappropriate emails reflect poorly on the company and can cause serious damage to their reputation in the community. Read your company handbook so you know the rules. And if you're caught doing it, you really have no rights because they're company issued computers.
