The action by the NSA, however, starts the ball rolling on another issue -- standards of care for the people and enterprises that are delivering the electronic document. But with the U.S. government now having defined specific procedures for ensuring that confidential information is not inadvertently 'leaked,' a definite threshold is apparently set for negligence purposes. Damages on such negligence claims are likely to be difficult to prove in most cases, but I would not be surprised to see some cases starting to be brought over the next few years. |