Supreme Court to Decide Privacy Rights of Texting Government Employees
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether police officers have a constitutional right to privacy in their personal text messages sent on city-owned pagers.
The Supreme Court will review a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found the officers have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the messages, the Associated Press reports. One officer, Ontario, Calif., police Sgt. Jeff Quon, had sent and received hundreds of personal messages, including some that were sexually explicit, according to the city.
Quon and three fellow officers allege a Fourth Amendment violation by the city of Ontario. They say 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, according to a preview of the case in the Los Angeles Times.
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 city’s petition for certiorari (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) says the 9th Circuit decision “literally ‘wowed’ privacy advocates, and it surprised more mainstream media.”
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the city’s appeal, but turned down an appeal by the text messaging service, USA Mobility Wireless Inc. The 9th Circuit had ruled that USA Mobility violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when it revealed the contents of the text messages.
The case is City of Ontario v. Quon.
