Supreme Court to Hear Arguments in Text Messaging Privacy Case
The Supreme Court will hold oral arguments on Monday, April 19 in City of Ontario v. Quon, a case in which the Court will determine whether a government employer can search the content of text messages sent from an employee's pager. EPIC's has filed a "friend of the court" brief arguing that data minimization practices should be applied to public sector searches because of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness requirement and the fact that communications devices today collect and store detailed personal information, including internet search history, text messages, emails, and locational data. EPIC urged the court to apply the standards set out in Comprehensive Drug Testing v. United States[4], which allow a government agency to undertake appropriate searches without unnecessarily violating privacy interests. For more information, see EPIC: City of Ontario v. Quon.