Supreme Court

Last Updated: June 17. 2010 1:07PM
Supreme Court ruling on pagers may hurt Kilpatrick's lawsuit

Washington --The Supreme Court today upheld the search of a police officer's personal, sometimes sexually explicit, messages on a government-owned pager, saying it did not violate his constitutional rights.
The court was unanimous in reversing a federal appeals court ruling that sided with the Ontario, Calif., SWAT team officer.
The narrow ruling is not helpful to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who is suing former city paging company SkyTel Corp. over its release of steamy and incriminating text messages between him and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

Kilpatrick, who is in prison for a probation violation arising from his earlier obstruction of justice conviction in the text message scandal, filed an amended complaint against SkyTel in March in Hinds County Circuit Court in Mississippi. The case is pending.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court that the officer, Sgt. Jeff Quon, could not assume "that his messages were in all circumstances immune from scrutiny."
But Kennedy said the court purposely avoided a broader ruling about employees' expectations of privacy when using equipment provided by their employers because of rapid and unpredictable changes in technology

[[a portion of the article)

http://detnews.com/article/20100617/...462/1020/rss09

************************************************** *****
I would have to say this is another blow to the kwamster.

Yup, and a lessen for all. Think twice before you send that text message, e-mail, or open your yap.

I've always held that if it's paid for with company funds, it belongs to the company and they can do with it as they will.