Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Text Messaging Case
The U.S. Supreme Court held arguments in City of Ontario v. Quon. The Court will determine whether a government employer can review the contents of private text messages sent from an employee's pager through a private communications company. EPIC filed a "friend of the court" brief arguing that data minimization practices should be applied to public sector searches and that the search was therefore unreasonable. EPIC urged the court to apply the standards set out in Comprehensive Drug Testing v. United States, which allow a government agency to undertake appropriate searches without unnecessarily violating privacy interests. For more information, see EPIC: City of Ontario v. Quon.