Law experts were correct in expecting the Supreme Court to rule against public employees who claim that their privacy was violated after officials from an Ontario, Cailf. Police department read text messages sent on their employer-owned phones.

A majority of the Justices said earlier this week that the Ontario police department acted reasonably by monitoring the text messages of employees using phones supplied by the department. All Ontario police department employees who are issued phones are given a written policy warning that they have no guarantee of privacy in the use of office computers or other electronics equipment.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said he didn’t see “anything … unreasonable about that.”

The decision could have broader privacy implications than those of just government workers as courts continue to determine the boarders of privacy issues in the digital age.

“The concept of reduced rights of privacy on the job is not new. The court seems to be heading toward a 21st century extension of prior rulings involving the expectation of privacy in the work place,” said KMFM Senior Partner Andrew Morrow. “We have seen time and again the court weighing an employee’s expectation of privacy in company issued lockers and desks, generally finding it does not exist or is severely limited. I would expect a similar holding by the majority given that these were department-issued phones ostensibly for police business. But as the line between our work and personal lives blurs even more over time the court is going to have to grapple with how to deal the further erosion of this important right.” Morrow added.

The case arose when the police department ran an audit of text message usage by its SWAT team to see how often they were being used for personal reasons. The audit found they were – with some messages being called by the department “sexually explicit.”

Three police officers and another employee complained that the department improperly snooped on their electronic exchanges even after one Ontario police official informally told officers that the department would not look any further if officers personally paid for charges above a monthly allowance.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the informal policy was enough to give the officers a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their text messages and establish that their constitutional rights had been violated. The court also said the text-messaging service provider was wrong in turning over transcripts of the messages without the officers’ consent.

However, the Obama administration is backing the city; arguing that the written policy, not the informal warning, is what matters, and that the employees using the provided phones had no expectations of privacy.

Many expect the highest court to take a narrow path out of the case because the employees involved are police officers.

“I mean, wouldn’t you just assume that that whole universe of conversations by SWAT officers who were on duty 24/7 might well have to be reviewed by some member of the public or some of their superiors?” Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said.

However, Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned the timing and the motives of the department; adding: “Let’s assume that in this police department … knew … that the police department people spoke to their girlfriends at night. “And one of the chiefs, out of salacious interest, decides: I’m going to just go in and get those texts, those messages, because I just have a prurient interest.”

Law experts have chimed in and say the case could cast a long-reaching net and also shows the naïveté of the land’s highest court to information and technology in the digital age.

“I thought, you know, you push a button; it goes right to the other thing,” Justice Roberts said.

“You mean it doesn’t go right to the other thing?” Scalia said.

The case was City of Ontario v. Quon, 08-1332.

Update: The Supreme Court ruled, in its first case on whether employees have any right of privacy in the text messages they send on company devices, unanimously that even if there is only one text message, employers can read the contents of these messages sent on company or government-owned phones when they have a reasonable need to do so.

“Cell phone and text message communications are so pervasive that some persons may consider them to be essential means or necessary instruments for self-expression, even self-identification,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court. “On the other hand, the ubiquity of those devices has made them generally affordable, so one could counter that employees who need cell phones for similar devices for personal matters can purchase and pay for their own,” he said.

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