NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS RULES SMS TEXT-MESSAGING HAS PROTECTION UNDER THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

The Ninth Circuit has ruled on an important text-messaging privacy case. On Wednesday, June 18th, the Ninth Circuit held that text-messaging, known as SMS (short message service), has protection under the Fourth Amendment.

More specifically, the court ruled that, under the facts (Quon v. Arch Wireless), an employee is entitled to the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment for text-messages that an employee sends, but an employer claims right to.

As the LA Times has reported, important to the ruling is the distinction between out-sourced and company-maintained email accounts. Regardless of the distinction, the Ninth Circuit decision makes clear that, just because a company finances or "maintains" the email accounts of its employees, that does not mean it has unlimited access to the messages sent within. Now, Fourth Amendment protections attach.

The ruling, the LA Times reports, will require the police to obtain a search warrant before they can access the email or text-messaging accounts of employees. In addition, the ruling gives all government workers Fourth Amendment protection against searches of emails and text-messages by the government employer.

Here is the LA Times article referenced, and another article on the ruling (Your boss shouldn't read your text or e-mail messages) (Let go of my texts--all 75000 of them! The 9th Circuit speaks).