And as promised in our last post, here is the latest Client Advisory on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Quon case.
Showing posts with label Quon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quon. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Breaking News: Supreme Court Issues Decision in Employee Privacy Case
Written by Martha Zackin
As we’ve blogged in this space,, back in December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear City of Onatario v. Quon, a case on the privacy of text messages sent by a government employee on employer-provided devices. Specifically, the Court agreed to consider whether a police sergeant assigned to a Ontario, California SWAT team had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment in sexually-explicit, non-work related text messages transmitted on a department-issued pager and stored by an outside service provider even in the face of the City’s "general practice" of non-monitoring of such communications.
Today, the Court issued its opinion, finding that the City’s search of Sergeant Quon’s text messages to his colleagues and the woman with whom he was having an affair was reasonable. Although the Court did not reach agreement on whether and to what extent government workers have any reasonable expectation of privacy in communications such as those at issue here, the Court did agree that the search was reasonable.
The impact of this decision may be limited to Sergeant Quon and his co-workers; the Court explicitly cautioned against using the facts of the case to establish “far-reaching premises that define the existence, and extent, of privacy expectations enjoyed by employees when using employer-provided communication devices.”
More to come.
As we’ve blogged in this space,, back in December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear City of Onatario v. Quon, a case on the privacy of text messages sent by a government employee on employer-provided devices. Specifically, the Court agreed to consider whether a police sergeant assigned to a Ontario, California SWAT team had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment in sexually-explicit, non-work related text messages transmitted on a department-issued pager and stored by an outside service provider even in the face of the City’s "general practice" of non-monitoring of such communications.
Today, the Court issued its opinion, finding that the City’s search of Sergeant Quon’s text messages to his colleagues and the woman with whom he was having an affair was reasonable. Although the Court did not reach agreement on whether and to what extent government workers have any reasonable expectation of privacy in communications such as those at issue here, the Court did agree that the search was reasonable.
The impact of this decision may be limited to Sergeant Quon and his co-workers; the Court explicitly cautioned against using the facts of the case to establish “far-reaching premises that define the existence, and extent, of privacy expectations enjoyed by employees when using employer-provided communication devices.”
More to come.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Supreme Court will review some issues in Quon Case, denied review to other issues
Some additional information on yesterday's post regarding the Supreme Court's decision to hear the Quon case. The high Court agreed to hear some, but not all of the issues presented by the Ninth Circuit decision in the case.
The Court will consider whether a police sergeant assigned to a SWAT team had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment in text messages transmitted on a department-issued pager and stored by an outside service providerk even in the face of the City of Ontario's "general practice" of non-monitoring of such communications. The Court denied review (known as "certiorari") to questions of whether the surrender to the city in the first instance by Arch Wireless (the service provider) of those messages violated the Stored Communications Act.
The questions for review are limited, then, to three:
• Does a SWAT team member have a reasonable expectation of privacy in text
messages transmitted on his SWAT pager, when the police department has an
official no-privacy policy but a non-policymaking lieutenant announced an
informal policy of allowing some personal use of pagers?
• Did the Ninth Circuit contravene Fourth Amendment precedents and create
circuit conflict by analyzing whether the police department could have used
'less intrusive methods' of reviewing text messages transmitted by the SWAT
team member on his SWAT pager?
• Do individuals who send text messages to a SWAT team member's SWAT pager
have a reasonable expectation that their messages will be free from review by
the recipient's government employer?
The Court will consider whether a police sergeant assigned to a SWAT team had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment in text messages transmitted on a department-issued pager and stored by an outside service providerk even in the face of the City of Ontario's "general practice" of non-monitoring of such communications. The Court denied review (known as "certiorari") to questions of whether the surrender to the city in the first instance by Arch Wireless (the service provider) of those messages violated the Stored Communications Act.
The questions for review are limited, then, to three:
• Does a SWAT team member have a reasonable expectation of privacy in text
messages transmitted on his SWAT pager, when the police department has an
official no-privacy policy but a non-policymaking lieutenant announced an
informal policy of allowing some personal use of pagers?
• Did the Ninth Circuit contravene Fourth Amendment precedents and create
circuit conflict by analyzing whether the police department could have used
'less intrusive methods' of reviewing text messages transmitted by the SWAT
team member on his SWAT pager?
• Do individuals who send text messages to a SWAT team member's SWAT pager
have a reasonable expectation that their messages will be free from review by
the recipient's government employer?
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