Privacy Issues in the Workplace

would be “logged on the network” and that certain types of messages were banned from the system.

United States v. Simons 448 This case involved an employee’s use of the Internet. Mark Simons was employed as an electrical engineer within the Foreign Bureau of Information Services (FBIS) which is a part of the CIA. Simons had access to both a computer system, owned and operated by the CIA, and to the Internet. The CIA had an employee who managed the computer network for FBIS and who monitored the Internet traffic. The CIA conducted a search of which web sites were being frequented from their computer network and determined that Mark Simons was frequenting pornographic sites and that he had downloaded 1,000 documents that were pornographic in nature. Simons moved to suppress this evidence claiming that the CIA had conducted an illegal search in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights since the search was conducted without a warrant or other lawful justification. The court held that Simons did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to any Internet use since his employer had an official policy regarding such use which stated that official business use, incidental use, lawful use and contractor communications were permitted and that audits would be implemented to support identification, termination and prosecution of unauthorized activity and that audits would be capable of recording the various web sites visited by employees. United States v. Zeigler 449 A private employer, cooperating with a federal investigation, turned over to the FBI the contents of an employee’s workplace computer hard drive, which was found to contain child pornography. In a subsequent criminal proceeding, the employee sought to suppress the evidence on the basis that it allegedly resulted from a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit rejected the argument, determining that although the employee had a legitimate expectation of privacy in his workplace office, his employer retained the ability to consent to a search at that office and the employer-owned computer. The employer’s IT department had complete access to all employer’s computers; the company had a firewall that monitored internet traffic; the company advised employees of its monitoring activities through employee training and an employment manual; and the company told all employees that computers were company-owned and not to be used for activities of a personal nature. Wasson v. Sonoma County Jr. College Dist. 450 A terminated community college district employee asserted a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 claim against the district for allegedly invading her privacy by accessing her computer files, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court determined that the claim lacked merit because a computer policy giving

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