5-1 Discussion: Workplace Privacy

In the case of Ontario v. Quon, 560 U.S. 746 (2010), a city police department read personal text messages sent and received on a pager that the employer owned and issued to an employee, a police officer. Some of the text messages were to the employee's wife and some were to a fellow officer with whom he was having an affair. The employee challenged disciplinary actions taken against him, arguing that the privacy of his messages was protected by the ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures" found in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Based on this description and the information about the case provided in the module Resources area:

• Should employees who utilize their work computers to store or send personal information, or to surf the internet, have an expectation of privacy for personal information, data, and emails generated, accessed, or stored on their work computers? Explain your perspective.

In your response posts to your peers, offer your own perspectives and experience.