City of Ontario v. Quon

The Court hesitated to declare that the employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy in this instance. “The Court must proceed with care when considering the whole concept of privacy expectations in communications made on electronic equipment owned by a government employer. The judiciary risks error by elaborating too fully on the Fourth Amendment implications of emerging technology before its role in society has become clear.”

Assuming that the employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy, the Court still found the government’s intrusion as a reasonable workplace intrusion. Quoting O’Connor, the Court held that a search “conducted for a ‘noninvestigatory, work- related purpos[e]’ or for the ‘investigatio[n] of work-related misconduct,’” is reasonable if “it is ‘justified at its inception’ and if ‘the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive…” The city’s “legitimate work-related rationale” was to determine whether the city’s contract was sufficient to meet the city’s needs. Its intrusion was limited in scope because

“reviewing the transcripts was reasonable because it was an efficient and expedient way to determine whether [the defendant’s] overages were the result of work-related messaging or personal use.”