The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether employees have a constitutional right to privacy in their personal text messages sent on employer-owned pagers. The case involves text messages of a police officer in Ontario, California, Sgt. Jeff Quon, who sent and received hundreds of text messages on his city-owned pager, some of which were sexually explicit. Quon and three fellow officers claim their Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the city of Ontario. According to the officers, they were told they could send personal messages on the pagers, but they would have to reimburse the city for messages over a 25,000 word limit. The officers had signed an acknowledgment that they had no expectation of privacy when using computers or other devices issued by the city of Ontario.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the officers, finding that the phone service provider violated their rights by revealing the content of the messages. The Supreme Court will review whether the officers’ rights under the 4th Amendment, which forbids “unreasonable searches” by the government, were violated. The Court’s ruling, expected by June, could set new rules for the workplace in public agencies, and be extended to apply to private companies as well.
Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-court-privacy15-2009dec15,0,5684529.story
