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Supreme Court Takes Texting Privacy Case
TaggartAleslayer writes with this excerpt from the NYTimes:
"The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a police department violated the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it inspected personal text messages sent and received on a government pager. The case opens 'a new frontier in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,' according to a three-judge panel of an appeals court that ruled in favor of the employee, a police sergeant on the Ontario, Calif., SWAT team. ... Members of the department's SWAT team were given pagers and told they were responsible for charges in excess of 25,000 characters a month. Under an informal policy adopted by a police lieutenant, those who paid the excess charges themselves would not have their messages inspected. The lieutenant eventually changed his mind and ordered transcripts of messages sent and received by Sgt. Jeff Quon. In one month in 2002, only 57 of more than 456 of those messages were related to official business. According to the trial judge, many of the messages 'were, to say the least, sexually explicit in nature.'"
A work phone, paid for by the workplace, should be allowed to be inspected by the workplace. Just like email. Just like web traffic. Any abuse of this system, however, should be punished harshly and swiftly. If you want to sext each other, get your own damn phones. I'm sure evidence logs don't need a whole lot of, "Lol hang on let me beat this black guy for being black" mixed with "Done beating him here's a picture of my dick" when at trials.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Normally I'd agree with you, but the summary says they are explicitly allowed personal use and were told that the messages wouldn't be read.
From the Summary:
The lieutenant eventually changed his mind
And that's all thats required to know they were in the wrong. If they were going to change their mind, they need to inform their employees that the change is occuring, and that his privacy will then be at stake. They should only be able to check pager transcriptions after that day.
You can't say one thing and then do another, even if it's to stop sexually implicit messages. Deceipt cannot be tolerated at any level of government.
Browsers with "Stealth" (porn) browsing features, schoolkids sending naked pictures of themselves via cellphone, laptops loaded with porn, and you really expect company pagers not to be used to shmooze with others?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Gimme a break. I didn't realise the police were clergy! What law was this guy breaking by sending sexually explicit messages? As for the issue of using police equipment for personal messages, if this was permitted at the time, again what's the problem? If he was breaking a law why isn't this what we're hearing about rather than the fact that he liked to talk dirty?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I think it would if the defense got the right lawyer.
Example:
Your direct supervisor tells you, you can go home early, no need for you today.
You leave.
For one reason or another, HIS supervisor felt you shouldn't have left and fires you.
I'm pretty sure with the right lawyer one can argue, you had a reasonable expectation that it was okay for you to leave and not suffer the consequences, despite what the policy and your supe's supe said.
This isn't really any different, if your superior says its okay for you to do something, and someone over his head comes down on you for it, you have a defense.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
According to the trial judge, many of the messages 'were, to say the least, sexually explicit in nature.'
...and, what? Is there a policy against it? Was the other party a co-worker? Why is this remotely relevant?
The policy states:
The use of inappropriate, derogatory, obscene, suggestive, defamatory, or harassing language in the e-mail system will not be tolerated.
So if I were to exchange sexually explicit messages with my wife, for example, how does the policy apply? It would then be appropriate, favorable, natural, explicit, complimentary, and welcome. What happens now?
“[u]sers should have no expectation of privacy or confidentiality when using these resources.”
And likewise, people peeking in my bedroom window should expect to see my hairy butt from time to time. Don't want to see, don't look. Look, you get what you asked for...
The closest thing I can find is this:
Chief Scharf referred the matter to internal affairs “to determine if someone was wasting . . . City time not doing work when they should be.”
Hey, Chief, they were. Investigation over. Chances are, you were, too, unless you somehow work your entire shift without periods of non-work time. That includes your bathroom time, sir. The salient question should be, were any dollars actually wasted? Was there any SWAT not getting done because of the excessive pager use?
Anybody who knew of rule 1 wouldn't have been able to tell him then would they?
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
I heard this on NPR this morning and the fact that they were using the phrase "grey area" astounded me.
Look, it's simple: if your employer owns a device, and allows you to use it, you are not to ever use it for personal reasons, nor should you ever expect even the slightest amount of privacy for communications using the device. Even (and probably especially) if they give you permission for personal use. That goes for cell phones, pagers, computers, slide rules, everything. That means you do not log into personal Facebook, Google, or Hotmail at work. You do not use the company phone to call home. If you do any of these, you've 1) probably violated the terms of your employment and 2) have given the company/government permission to peer into all personal communications made with your employer's equipment.
You have explicit rights (in most cases) to privacy and use of the property that you actually own. That's it, the line is drawn there. I can't believe there is any controversy over this.
The year is 2002, not 2009. SMS was not very prevalent at the time, and inter-provider SMS was still occasionally glitchy. That was the time of dedicated alphanumeric pagers waning in popularity while the 'cool kids who wanted to be like the drug dealers' were discovering SMS on their phones.