Finding the Facts - Disciplinary and Harassment Investigation

United States v. Ziegler, 117 :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 118 : 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. 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 that number would result in an additional fee. The City issued the pagers to respondent Quon and other officers in its police department (OPD). When Quon and others exceeded their monthly character limits for several months running, OPD's chief, sought to determine whether the existing limit was too low, i.e., whether the officers had to pay fees for sending work-related messages or, conversely, whether the overages were for personal messages. After Arch Wireless provided transcripts of Quon's and another employee's August and September 2002 text messages, it was discovered that many of Quon's messages were not work related, and some were sexually explicit. The police chief referred the matter to OPD's internal affairs division. The investigating officer City of Ontario v. Quon 119 : Reasonable Search of Employee Text Messages on a City Provided Pager

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