What Gets an Email Flagged at Goldman Sachs (And What Doesn't)

Goldman Sachs' compliance department conducts surveillance of employees' email. It's an automated process: Software monitors the emails for certain phrases that are flagged for specific scrutiny. Human employees at Goldman then review the flagged emails and decide whether they represent a problem.

CNBC has obtained a document detailing more than 180 phrases flagged for scrutiny by the monitoring system. The document was produced in 2008, and the firm has updated its search terminology since then. But the list gives a rare peek inside a large bank's real-time compliance surveillance operation, and reveals details of how that process works that even veteran Wall Street executives may not know.

I wonder why these phrases aren't flagged:

• Janet Yellen told me
• Bill Dudley said
• Jack Lew just called and  
• Just met with Stanley Fischer
• Spoke to Hillary and she needs
• Who should we use as the fall guy

Oh yeah, forgot, only lower level workers get monitored.

 -RW