Thursday
Jun172010
Supreme Court Approves Search Of Police Officer's Pager Messages
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 1:35PM
The Supreme Court today said that it was reasonable for the Ontario, California, police department to read the messages from a SWAT team member's official pager, even though the pager contained personal messages.
The police sergeant whose pager was searched, Jeff Quon, had been told that no one would look at the messages if he paid any overage charges, even though official department policy forbid him from using the pager for personal matters.
After Quon repeatedly exceeded the message limit, supervisors checked the messages and found sexually explicit personal messages the officer had sent to his estranged wife and another woman. Quon was then disciplined.
The case had been expected to settle questions of privacy expectations in electronic communications, but Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a unanimous court, said that the search of the pager had a reasonable, work-related purpose—to determine whether the message limits were high enough for official purposes.
"Because the search was motivated by a legitimate work related purpose, and because it was not excessive in scope, the search was reasonable," Kennedy wrote.
Therefore, Kennedy said there was no need to consider whether Quon had an expectation of privacy in the messages. Kennedy additionally dismissed privacy claims by the senders and recipients of Quon's messages, saying that the other parties had not argued that they had independent claims to privacy.
In a part of the decision criticized by Justice Antonin Scalia, Kennedy wrote that courts should be careful when making decisions about privacy rights in electronic communications. He noted that "rapid changes in the dynamics of communication and information transmission are evident not just in the technology itself but in what society accepts as proper behavior."
Kennedy suggested courts should wait before making broad pronouncements, since "it is uncertain how workplace norms, and the law’s treatment of them, will evolve."
The police sergeant whose pager was searched, Jeff Quon, had been told that no one would look at the messages if he paid any overage charges, even though official department policy forbid him from using the pager for personal matters.
After Quon repeatedly exceeded the message limit, supervisors checked the messages and found sexually explicit personal messages the officer had sent to his estranged wife and another woman. Quon was then disciplined.
The case had been expected to settle questions of privacy expectations in electronic communications, but Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a unanimous court, said that the search of the pager had a reasonable, work-related purpose—to determine whether the message limits were high enough for official purposes.
"Because the search was motivated by a legitimate work related purpose, and because it was not excessive in scope, the search was reasonable," Kennedy wrote.
Therefore, Kennedy said there was no need to consider whether Quon had an expectation of privacy in the messages. Kennedy additionally dismissed privacy claims by the senders and recipients of Quon's messages, saying that the other parties had not argued that they had independent claims to privacy.
In a part of the decision criticized by Justice Antonin Scalia, Kennedy wrote that courts should be careful when making decisions about privacy rights in electronic communications. He noted that "rapid changes in the dynamics of communication and information transmission are evident not just in the technology itself but in what society accepts as proper behavior."
Kennedy suggested courts should wait before making broad pronouncements, since "it is uncertain how workplace norms, and the law’s treatment of them, will evolve."
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