Supreme Court upholds search of a police officer's messages

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled a search of a police officer's personal text messages on a government-issued pager was constitutional. But it avoided tackling a thornier and broader question: What level of privacy can public employees expect on work-provided communications devices?

In City of Ontario v. Quon, the high court unanimously found that, contrary to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruling, a police department's search of a SWAT officer's texts was reasonable, because it "was motivated by a legitimate work-related purpose, and because it was not excessive in scope."

At issue was the fact the City of Ontario, Calif., police department uncovered hundreds of racy texts by Sgt. Jeff Quon, after it ordered transcripts of his messages to investigate whether monthly limits on texting on department-issued pagers were too low.

The discovery prompted Quon to sue the city and police department for violating his Fourth Amendment right of protection against unreasonable searches and the Stored Communications Act, which prevents the unauthorized access of a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided.

The Supreme Court decision, delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy, noted, "As a law enforcement officer, [Quon] would or should have known that his actions were likely to come under legal scrutiny, and that this might entail an analysis of his on-the-job communications."

The city and the police department had a legitimate interest in ensuring they were not paying for extensive personal communications, and -- at the other extreme -- that employees were not forced to pay for work-related correspondence out of their own pockets, the court ruled.

Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the civil liberties group Center for Democracy and Technology, said, "The message to government employers is that the courts will continue to scrutinize employers' actions for reasonableness, so supervisors have to be careful."

This is the first time the high court has tried to define Fourth Amendment rights in the context of electronic communications.

While some advocates had hoped the courts would make a ruling that established broad privacy rights for federal employees, the justices were unwilling to resolve the hot-button issue head on, instead acknowledging it was uncertain how workplace norms would change in a time of rapid technological advances.

"Prudence counsels caution before the facts in this case are used to establish far-reaching premises that define the existence and extent of privacy expectations of employees using employer-provided communication devices," the decision stated.

In a dissent on only that section of the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia hinted the court should have made a broader ruling. "That we should hedge our bets by concocting case-specific standards or issuing opaque opinions -- is in my view indefensible," he wrote. "The-times-they-are-a-changin' is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty."

Jared Kaprove, a domestic surveillance counsel with the research group Electronic Privacy Information Center, said while he had hoped a stronger framework would be established to reduce the intrusiveness of searches, "the narrowness of the ruling does give cause for optimism."