What Should Be The Appropriate Privacy Expectations Of A Public Employee When Text Messaging On the Job?

In City of Ontario California et. al. v. Jeff Quon et. al. the U.S. Supreme Court is wrestling with the issue of whether public employees are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages transmitted on their workplace pages or similar devices without such messages being subject to review from recipients public employer. The city of Ontario, California is asking the justices to overturn a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, holding that it violated the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of Mr. Quon, a member of the Ontario police department SWAT team, when it reviewed transcripts of his and another offiicer’s text messages on their department pagers. Below are links to the argument transcipts and other docuemts related to this case:

Argument: City of Ontario California, et. al. v. Jeff Quon, et. al. 08-1332

The Scotus Wiki contains links to other useful documents related to this case.

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