Disciplinary and Harassment Investigations

United States v. Bunkers, 89 : Employer Rules and Policy Can Diminish Expectation of Privacy Employees’ reasonable expectations of privacy can be diminished by the employer’s rules and policies regarding the privacy of specified areas. Thus, it is advisable that employers clearly indicate in their policies that they maintain the right to search employees’ offices, desks, and files. The court, relying upon existing postal regulations allowing locker searches, found searches of employee lockers permissible. United States v. Ziegler, 90 :Employer Had Common Authority Over Employee Computer and Could Consent Its Search by Law Enforcement The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that although an employee had a subjective expectation of privacy in his office and workplace computer because the office was not shared with other employees and was kept locked, his Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when his employer consented to a warrantless search of the contents of his workplace computer during an FBI child pornography investigation. The employer exercised common authority over the computer and could consent to its search because it had complete administrative access to all computers, it had installed a firewall to monitor internet traffic, and it apprised all employees through training and its employment manual of the monitoring and that computers were not used for personal activities. Leventhal v. Knapek 91 : Reasonable Search of Employer Computer The United States Courts of Appeal, Second Circuit held that a search of a public employee’s work computer did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Leventhal worked as an Accountant for the New York Department of Transportation. The employer received an anonymous letter alleging that Leventhal was neglecting his duties. The employer searched his computer and discovered a personal tax program on the office computer, in violation of department policy. Levanthal was transferred to a lower-grade position as a result. Levanthal filed a civil action, alleging that the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The Court held that the search was reasonable, that the anonymous letter provided reasonable grounds for initiating the search and it was not overly intrusive. City of Ontario v. Quon 92 : Reasonable Search of Employee Text Messages on a City Provided Pager The United States Supreme Court held that a city’s search of employee text messages on a city-provided pager was reasonable and did not violate the employee’s Fourth Amendment rights. The City of Ontario acquired alphanumeric pagers able to send and receive text messages. Its contract with its service provider, Arch Wireless, provided for a monthly limit on the number of characters each pager could send or receive, and specified that usage exceeding

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