U.S. SUPREME COURT TO HEAR APPEAL ON PRIVACY OF TEXT MESSAGES
On Monday, December 14, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a case from the 9th Circuit (which includes California) to address whether employees of a governmental agency have a constitutional right to privacy in their text messages, sent and received on text pagers provided by the city of Ontario. The Los Angeles Times reported that police officers for Ontario were issued text pagers and advised that there was a limit of 25,000 characters a month, and any text over that limit would have to be paid for by the individual officers. It was understood by the officers that some messages would be personal in nature and not related to their police work. When the police chief learned that some officers were regularly exceeding the 25,000 character limit, he asked for an audit. Arch Wireless, which was the service provider, sent transcripts of the text messages to the chief, and the chief determined that the officer who filed the suit, Quon, had sent numerous personal messages, including to his girlfriend, who was also an officer, and they were sexually explicit. Both the city and the wireless provider were sued by Quon and other officers after they learned that their text messages were read by the chief. The trial court dismissed their suit, but the 9th Circuit overturned the ruling, finding that the reading of the messages was an "unreasonable search" prohibited by the 4th Amendment, and that Arch Wireless violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 by providing the contents of the text messages to the city.
Practice pointer. The Supreme Court's decision in this matter will help define the parameters of employee's privacy in the workplace. Even though this case involves a governmental agency, it ramifications will most likely impact the private workplace as well.
