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Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Lurker. ()
Date: April 19, 2010 03:13PM

I'll say NO. If you want to send private Txt's use your own phone or encrypt the Txt.

The Supreme Court will hear a case involving personal messaging on employer-issued devices.

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled Monday to hear the case of an Ontario, California, police officer who used his city-issued text-messaging pager to exchange hundreds of personal messages -- some sexually explicit. The case carries ramifications for employee privacy rights in the workplace.

At issue is how far a government employer may go to monitor the private communications of its workers when it believes the right to use such equipment is being abused.

The lawyers for Police Sgt. Jeff Quon argue that he had a "reasonable expectation" of privacy on his official wireless two-way text-messaging pager.

The court will also explore whether service providers can be held liable for providing those communications without the consent of the sender.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/19/scotus.text.messaging/index.html?hpt=C2

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Date: April 19, 2010 03:25PM

There is no reasonable expectation of privacy on equipment owned by an employer...especially for a government employer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: eesh ()
Date: April 19, 2010 03:28PM

This is a really stupid case. It's not your property; just as when you use a company/government computer, you consent to monitoring each time you log on. The same applies to a pager, Blackberry, etc.

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Date: April 19, 2010 03:33PM

eesh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is a really stupid case. It's not your
> property; just as when you use a
> company/government computer, you consent to
> monitoring each time you log on. The same applies
> to a pager, Blackberry, etc.


I think the Conservatives want to take up the privacy issue because it underpins Roe v. Wade. Scalia doesn't believe the Constitution protects the right to privacy. On the flip side, he also doesn't believe a fetus is "a person" as defined by the Constitution, so....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Kenny_Powers ()
Date: April 19, 2010 03:42PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is no reasonable expectation of privacy on
> equipment owned by an employer...especially for a
> government employer.


/agree

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 03:51PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think the Conservatives want to take up the
> privacy issue because it underpins Roe v. Wade.
> Scalia doesn't believe the Constitution protects
> the right to privacy. On the flip side, he also
> doesn't believe a fetus is "a person" as defined
> by the Constitution, so....

Whatever Vince - er I mean WTL. Sorry, I was confused as to whatever it was you were trying to connect here. Unrelated topics and such is usually the Vince forte.

I don't know of "conservatives" who believe there is some right to privacy when using equipment supplied by your employer. Seems like a much more "liberal" position in reality - they are the ones that have issues with property rights and such. (speaking of unrelated topics).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062300783_2.html

http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/04/texting-and-privacy-on-the-job/

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 03:53PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is no reasonable expectation of privacy on
> equipment owned by an employer...especially for a
> government employer.

If you read through the case, the Ninth Circuit is the one who decided the City had overstepped on the privacy issue.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Date: April 19, 2010 04:00PM

RV-I have no idea what you are blabbering on about. Scalia and company don't believe the Constitution guarantees a right to privacy. Are you denying that?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2010 04:00PM by WashingTone-Locian.

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 04:02PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RV-I have no idea what you are blabbering on
> about. Scalia and company don't believe the
> Constitution guarantees a right to privacy. Are
> you denying that?

Right to privacy? As in, your 13 year old daughter has no right to privacy in letting her parents know she is getting an abortion because she has a 26 year old boy friend? Or right to privacy, you shouldn't have texted that message on company supplied materials and systems? Two different issues - two different reasons for the issues. And as far as I know, the ninth circuit is LIBERAL - they are the ones that decided the privacy rights were violated.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Date: April 19, 2010 04:03PM

Registered Voter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> Right to privacy? As in, your 13 year old daughter
> has no right to privacy in letting her parents
> know she is getting an abortion because she has a
> 26 year old boy friend? Or right to privacy, you
> shouldn't have texted that message on company
> supplied materials and systems? Two different
> issues - two different reasons for the issues. And
> as far as I know, the ninth circuit is LIBERAL -
> they are the ones that decided the privacy rights
> were violated.

WTF is your point? We agree on the same fucking thing and you are still trying to pick a fight. And I'm the one who is supposedly like Vince.

Vince(r), indeed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 04:05PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think the Conservatives want to take up the
> privacy issue because it underpins Roe v. Wade.
> Scalia doesn't believe the Constitution protects
> the right to privacy. On the flip side, he also
> doesn't believe a fetus is "a person" as defined
> by the Constitution, so....

Explain again how privacy underpins Roe v Wade dumbshit.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 04:11PM

Scalia on Privacy

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/opinion/essay-scalia-on-privacy.html?pagewanted=1
Quote

WASHINGTON— ''The question we confront today,'' wrote Justice Antonin Scalia in an opinion that places him up there with Louis (the right to be let alone) Brandeis, ''is what limits there are upon this power of technology to shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy.''

Cops in Oregon suspected a man of growing marijuana inside his house. They knew he would have to use high-intensity lamps, so they had this bright idea to place a thermal imaging machine across the street to measure the heat coming through his walls -- enabling them to ''see'' inside the house as if they had X-ray vision.

Unconstitutional, ruled the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision that crossed all ideological lines. To the lower court that held that the thermal search had revealed no ''intimate'' details, Scalia replied, ''In the home, all details are intimate details.'' He refused to ''leave the homeowner at the mercy of advancing technology,'' bottoming the majority's opinion on the original intent of the framers of the Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches.
...

Seems like he was all about privacy here...

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Date: April 19, 2010 04:11PM

Registered Voter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > I think the Conservatives want to take up the
> > privacy issue because it underpins Roe v. Wade.
> > Scalia doesn't believe the Constitution
> protects
> > the right to privacy. On the flip side, he also
> > doesn't believe a fetus is "a person" as
> defined
> > by the Constitution, so....
>
> Explain again how privacy underpins Roe v Wade
> dumbshit.

The whole legal argument for Roe V. Wade is a Constitutional Right to Privacy that Scalia and company don't believe is explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

While the Supreme Court isn't in the business of overturning precedent, I don't think it would be beyond this court to rule that there is no guaranteed right to privacy, thus opening up abortion to state, not Federal, oversight.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 04:13PM

Or maybe this?

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/04/justice-scalia-responds-to-fordham-privacy-invasion/
Quote

...
The professor had chosen Scalia as the target for privacy invasion because of the Justice’s remarks at a January conference organized by the Institute of American and Talmudic Law. Scalia’s views on the privacy of personal information online are summed up nicely by this quote:

“Every single datum about my life is private? That’s silly,” Scalia [said].

(And his views are summed up at greater length here by privacy expert and GW Law Professor Dan Solove.)

Professor Joel Reidenberg and his class now have a 15-page dossier on Scalia, including his home address, the value of his home, his home phone number, the movies he likes, his food preferences, his wife’s personal e-mail address, and “photos of his lovely grandchildren.”

We checked in with the Justice to see how he felt about his online information being aggregated and mined by the professor and his 15 students.

Scalia was far from pleased (though we were pleased that a Supreme Court Justice would honor Above The Law with a response). Check out his reply to us, after the jump.

Here is Justice Scalia’s response, in all its scathing glory:

I stand by my remark at the Institute of American and Talmudic Law conference that it is silly to think that every single datum about my life is private. I was referring, of course, to whether every single datum about my life deserves privacy protection in law.

It is not a rare phenomenon that what is legal may also be quite irresponsible. That appears in the First Amendment context all the time. What can be said often should not be said. Prof. Reidenberg’s exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any.
...

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: King Louis ()
Date: April 19, 2010 04:22PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Registered Voter Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > >
> > > I think the Conservatives want to take up the
> > > privacy issue because it underpins Roe v.
> Wade.
> > > Scalia doesn't believe the Constitution
> > protects
> > > the right to privacy. On the flip side, he
> also
> > > doesn't believe a fetus is "a person" as
> > defined
> > > by the Constitution, so....
> >
> > Explain again how privacy underpins Roe v Wade
> > dumbshit.
>
> The whole legal argument for Roe V. Wade is a
> Constitutional Right to Privacy that Scalia and
> company don't believe is explicitly guaranteed by
> the Constitution!
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
>
> While the Supreme Court isn't in the business of
> overturning precedent, I don't think it would be
> beyond this court to rule that there is no
> guaranteed right to privacy, thus opening up
> abortion to state, not Federal, oversight.

Wow, you are really making one huge fucking stretch there in your flawed legal thinking.

Roe rested its opinion squarely on the Constitution's due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

The Quon case will turn on whether the PD violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Date: April 19, 2010 04:22PM

RV-Scalia objected to what was happening in Oregon because it constituted an unreasonable search. What Scalia and most Conservatives have argued is that there is no blanket Constitutional right to privacy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Date: April 19, 2010 04:32PM

King Louis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> Wow, you are really making one huge fucking
> stretch there in your flawed legal thinking.
>
> Roe rested its opinion squarely on the
> Constitution's due process clause of the 14th
> Amendment.
>
> The Quon case will turn on whether the PD violated
> Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable
> searches.

You don't think that declaring that there is no Constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy isn't going to have implications across the board? I'm not saying SCOTUS will knock it down at once, but the goal is to start eating away at it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: King Louis ()
Date: April 19, 2010 04:38PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> King Louis Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> >
> > Wow, you are really making one huge fucking
> > stretch there in your flawed legal thinking.
> >
> > Roe rested its opinion squarely on the
> > Constitution's due process clause of the 14th
> > Amendment.
> >
> > The Quon case will turn on whether the PD
> violated
> > Fourth Amendment protections against
> unreasonable
> > searches.
>
> You don't think that declaring that there is no
> Constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy isn't
> going to have implications across the board? I'm
> not saying SCOTUS will knock it down at once, but
> the goal is to start eating away at it.

No, this case isn't about a 14th Amendment due process. No justice will go down that path in order to make a broader statement about a constitutional right to privacy emanating from the Due Process Clause.

As I said before, this case will hinge on the 4th Amendment, even more so because it is a state action involved in reading the text messages.

They are two distinct areas of jurisprudence that will not and should not intersect in this case.

I understand the case you are TRYING to make, but it just doesn't apply in this situation.

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 04:46PM

Oh, perhaps this:

Constitutional Interpretation: Scalia vs. Breyer
http://www.jbs.org/us-constitution-blog/5618-constitutional-interpretation-scalia-vs-breyer
Quote

...
When Breyer interjected that Sandra Day O’Connor’s decision in a recent affirmative action case reflected the concerns that businesses, the military, labor unions and universities had in being unable to make good decisions under the current law, Scalia responded, “We’re not here to make a happier society. We’re here to determine what the people were thinking when the 14th Amendment was ratified.”

“The fight is about the Supreme Court inventing new rights nobody ever thought existed,” said Scalia. “Right to abortion? Come on! Nobody thought it violated anything in the Constitution for 200 years. It was criminal.” The same was true of homosexual sodomy, he added. (The Court has struck down state laws that banned both abortion and sodomy.)

For example, in Roe v Wade, a “right to privacy” was invented by the Court. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Potter Stewart noted that "no such general right of privacy" can be found in the express language of "the Bill of Rights" or "any other part of the Constitution."

Scalia went on to point out that if “the Constitution will mean whatever the [majority] of the American people want it to mean, [then] that is not what a Constitution is for. The whole purpose of a Constitution is to constrain the desires of the current society.”

“Originalism”, which is Scalia’s approach, results in finding many of the answers the Court seeks, while Breyer’s approach consists of playing it by ear, and looking up at the ceiling for those answers. This, Scalia said, “yields no answers”.

The trouble with an evolving Constitution, according to Scalia, is that society would be adhering, not to the ideals of the Founders, but instead to the ideals of a revolving group of nine people sitting on the Supreme Court bench.

Scalia pointed out that if the 14th Amendment had a footnote indicating that the meaning of the phrase “equal protection of the laws” would be whatever the Supreme Court decided at the time, the American people would never have voted for it.

Breyer responded that such an approach would make the Constitution too confining and restrictive, too rigid and inflexible, that people won’t be “able to live under it.”
...

Which has nothing to do with how he has ruled or reacted to other court issues regarding privacy or it's application. While they called it a "right to privacy" within the ruling, the overturning of Roe v Wade would have little do with texting issues or related privacy rulings. Instead it would come down to whether or not you believed SCOTUS should re-interpret the Constitution and how it applies to issues regarding sex, going to the doctor, and having medical procedures. Where does "using an employer's provided cell phone/texting device/etc" come into that? BZZT.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: Registered Voter ()
Date: April 19, 2010 05:02PM

King Louis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > King Louis Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> >
> > >
> > > Wow, you are really making one huge fucking
> > > stretch there in your flawed legal thinking.
>
> > >
> > > Roe rested its opinion squarely on the
> > > Constitution's due process clause of the 14th
> > > Amendment.
> > >
> > > The Quon case will turn on whether the PD
> > violated
> > > Fourth Amendment protections against
> > unreasonable
> > > searches.
> >
> > You don't think that declaring that there is no
> > Constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy
> isn't
> > going to have implications across the board?
> I'm
> > not saying SCOTUS will knock it down at once,
> but
> > the goal is to start eating away at it.
>
> No, this case isn't about a 14th Amendment due
> process. No justice will go down that path in
> order to make a broader statement about a
> constitutional right to privacy emanating from the
> Due Process Clause.
>
> As I said before, this case will hinge on the 4th
> Amendment, even more so because it is a state
> action involved in reading the text messages.
>
> They are two distinct areas of jurisprudence that
> will not and should not intersect in this case.
>
> I understand the case you are TRYING to make, but
> it just doesn't apply in this situation.

+1

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: pgens ()
Date: April 19, 2010 07:13PM

Trying to get back on topic, I think if you are using the company's email system they can do whatever they want with it. If you are using their web connection to get to something like GMail to send email from a personal email account I think they should be able to monitor the traffic over their network but be required to make some generic disclosure that they do that. But I don't think a company should be able to force an employee to open up their personal account if their own network or workstation monitoring fails.

To me the rules for phones and email should all be consistent. Call from a company phone, expect to be recorded. Call from personal phone, they can feel free to sit in and listen as long as I'm on company property but they shouldn't be allowed to pull my mobile phone's calling records.

What the guy in the case did should not have an expectation of privacy, that's dumb. Company equipment AND company telecommunications medium = sorry if you are caught. In this day and age if you are stupid enough to send anything you don't want your boss or his/her boss seeing then you are a dummy.

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Re: Texting on Workplace Blackberry to Family Private?
Posted by: MrMephisto ()
Date: April 19, 2010 10:24PM

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is no reasonable expectation of privacy on
> equipment owned by an employer...especially for a
> government employer.

This is generally clearly spelled out every time you use an employer's computer system.

--------------------------------------------------------------
13 4826 0948 82695 25847. Yes.

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