NU Online News Service, June 24, 11:15 p.m. EDT

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the right of a municipality to examine the text messages of a public employee has created speculation that the ruling could set a precedent for private employers or others.

In the City of Ontario v. Quon, the court unanimously upheld the right of Ontario, Calif. to examine the personal texts of a city police officer, Jeff Quon, on his city-provided pager. In this case, the city was examining the messages because it was considering increasing the amount employees could send.

Police department officials found some inappropriate texts sent by Quon, who sued Ontario and said the search of his texts was a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The ruling was specific to government employees who use government equipment and who have been warned they could not expect privacy, but Jack McCalmon, of the Tulsa, Okla.-based risk management firm McCalmon Group, said the case could create questions for employers in the private sector. Employers, he said, may begin to cite the case.

"There is still a void there because the court intentionally did not make itself clear," Mr. McCalmon said. "It wasn't going to use this case to address privacy issues everywhere but someone will need to soon."

This issue--the impact of technology on employees and employers--is moving fast, Mr. McCalmon said.

"Here [Mr. Quon] was warned that his emails could be read, but he didn't think that applied to his texts," Mr. McCalmon said. "Now you can equate the two...on the public level."

The Supreme Court ruling overturned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld an earlier ruling that Mr. Quon's rights were violated.

Justice Antonin Scalia said the court did not need to address whether its ruling applied in general to employees with employer-issued pagers because the city's search of Mr. Quon's texts did not violate the Fourth Amendment in the first place. Yet the court brought up the subject without stating its stance, something Justice Scalia found "indefensible."

"The-times-they-are-a-changin' is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty," he wrote. Justice Scalia said he worries lower courts will read into the decision as a "heavy-handed hint about how they should proceed."

Mr. McCalmon said government employees should get a private phone for private texts.

Special Reports /

Supreme Court Privacy Ruling Creates Precedent Speculation

Related Stories

Recommended For You