Update: U.S. Supreme Court Decides Texting Case

Last week, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision on the texting case we blogged about here and here. We will not recount the facts here, but in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld a police department's search of a police officer's personal text messages on his department-owned pager. The Supreme Court held the search did not violate his constitutional rights because it said the police department's search was reasonable. Most importantly, the Supreme Court did not outline any rules about privacy of workplace electronic communications. It seems this issue will be a case by case determination moving forward. Was this decision right?

UPDATE: Supreme Court Hears Arguments Regarding Workplace Privacy

At the end of last year we asked whether an employee should have an expectation of privacy regarding emails, text messages, etc. that were received and sent on company-owned equipment (previous post). The majority of reader responses favored the employers' right to monitor employees' communication. Luckily we should have an answer to this question from the Supreme Court in June. According to one report, the Justices appear to side with the employer. However, this same report indicated Chief Justice Roberts criticized the employer's decision to look at the text messages. Until June though, we can continue the right of privacy debate.