The Supreme Court says worker’s texts aren’t private

I do not, never have, and never will, send text messages. If I did, however, and anyone were to invade my privacy by spying on me, they would find they themselves in intensive care. Invasion of my privacy = pain!

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A company PAYS for your salary, why shouldn't they be able to monitor how you spend it, where, and why?

Think about the logical extension of these cases. If you haven't read 1984 in a while, it's time a WHOLE bunch of you read it again.

We have allowed corporations to destroy our economy, and I don't mean small business, but rather massive global, multi-national, and national, while the leaders get stupid rich while the common man suffers.

I'm not saying that the employer shouldn't have rights, but for the love of god, balance the rights of the employer with the employee at the very least.

A blogger made a comment about entitlement. You are damn right I am entitled. Modern Americans have realized the dollar is not as valuable as the time it consumes to earn it. They have also realized that Employers are not willing to pony up living wages whether you are educated or not. Long gone are the days of pensions and staying in one place for your entire career. Long gone are the days where you felt pride in the work you did. Long gone are the days where being a valued member of the team actually meant something… Welcome to a service nation. In the last century our job security and promise of better has disappeared. Employers have become fascist and employees have become entitled slackers. I am one of those. My time is more precious than the money you are offering since it is not enough to pay the bills or further my education. I am profitable for you and that is all you should care about… Since I live in a right to work state I am not even guaranteed a job tomorrow. Why would I be loyal and 100% PRODUCTIVE? Employers have chosen not to be. I give an honest days work for an honest dollar. No more, no less… That does not mean I work myself to the bone all day... I consume about an hour each of my working day to handle business and communicate with loved ones. Employers need to understand that we spend literally half of our waking hours (the productive ones) at work while life happens. Stop wasting the money you should and could be paying me by buying software and looking at my surfing habits, snooping on my face book, read my emails and texts! You are my employer nothing more, nothing less. We trade time for money. You do not get to know anything else about me that is not relative to my performance or in my case my profitability for you. You are means to an end because that is how you have chosen to treat me. I owe you nothing but my honest effort and time (and not 100% of it either). If you employers are so damn, smart then figure out how to make my job easier instead of harder and more invasive… Stop using the law to invade my privacy like some creepy porn addict. I have no expectation to right of privacy because this company is yours. Go ahead and spy on me though, and see what I think of you after I find out. Frankly, in this era I have no expectation of anything but exploitation of the masses by the greedy elite.

I think Cindy and Kathy are both right and a common ground needs to be reached where the employer is protected as well as the employee's privacy. The question is did Mr. Quon endangered the employer or violated employer policy in any way? And if so, did the employer have enough proof of supposed violation prior to auditing his phone reguardless of the employer ownership? Because as an employee and Citezen you have a right to privacy. The employer does not own you, it mearly provided a tool for you to work with. As long as there is no proof of potetial harm to the employer then the employer should not violate employee privacy. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, DO NOT WORK FOR THESE EMPLOYERS WHENEVER YOU HAVE THESE SORT OF EMPLOYEE RIGHTS VIOLATIONS OR UNFAIR CONTRACTS WHERE EVERYTHING IS FOR THE EMPLOYER AND LITTLE OR NOTHING FOR THE EMPLOYEE. Boycot these money mongers that only seek power and absolute domination of everything and everyone.

Thank You;
Albert.

Cindy... Companies never own you... you had a choice to work there, and you always have a choice to leave. If you don't like the lack of privacy a company gives you, leave. The company expects certain things in return for giving you a paycheck. The company is doing you a favor by giving you a job.

Employees should be doing something more productive with their time

I am with you! When you are on company time, time is not yours!!!

It is about time

There are so many people who are so nasty when they talk.

I will not do business with anybody that uses this nasty language.

I would prefer to sit next to somebody who has not had a bath all year than somebody that is swearing

So..now people get fired about what they do online..how harsh. Kind of reminds me of the pizza girl that got fired cause of her facebook page. I would gripe too if I were waiting on a couple for 3 hours and they gave me a horrible tip. Of course the "Supreme" Court takes stupid cases like that. One question - why are employers wasting their time to find fault with employees and why does the court bother? They should be doing something more productive in their time. Freedom of speech - NO SUCH THING PEOPLE.

When you are at work you should not be accessing social network sites. You should be WORKING. People who spend their time tweeting,texting, facebooking, sending personal emails, surfing the internet are STEALING time from their employer and they should be fired. If everyone worked instead of wasting time (include in that waste of time gossiping about co workers, taking smoke breaks and reading newspapers when they are NOT on break) companies would be more productive, more lucrative and definitely better to work at. Americans have developed an "entitlement" mentality and this is one of the reasons businesses are leaving this country in droves. Employers do not pay you to waste time. Productivity does not allow room or time for popularity. Play on your own time, but give to the company the time they pay you for. Otherwise you are simply stealing.

My thoughts Exactly!

Don't expect privacy when using any company's phone lines, computers, cell phones, etc; and prehaps not even when you're on "company time".

I stopped that years ago. I have MY OWN phone, MY OWN computer, and MY OWN everything else.

My business is my business, and there's not a d@*# thing they can do about it.

No, you're not a robot; you are an employee and you have a duty to work during business hours.

I believe that no one should be allowed to
Tex, make phone calls while they are at work.
This is because they are company time and not their time to preform these task. They should wait until they are signed out of work.

Sincerely;

An-Drew Boger
7/12/'10-Monday
12:31 P. M. E. S. T.

If the company pays for it, you should be using it for work, not for personal items. If you pay for it, they should not be able to monitor what you are texting or talking about.

You people are lucky that all you have to worry about is your company-owned devices. My bosses access our social networking sites and have spyware set up to see what we're doing on our personal devices. We don't have access to internet, just the company intranet, and they don't offer us a discount on our plans so where they have the right to do this is beyond me. What does the Supreme Court say about these things?!

I think it's sh***y but I also think it's a grey area: depends on what you're texting and how often you're texting, for starters. I really don't think that anyone should get their panties in a bunch over a few quick texts every now and then but if it's all the time or something, then definitely. Secondly it depends on who's picking up the bill and how much they're paying of it. Some companies require you to have a certain cell phone and may pick up 80% of the bill, but you have to pick up 20%. Do they have a right to tell you what to do with or review what you do with it that 20% of the time: no. So it just depends...I think that a company should have to outline their policies prior to employment, and that if they do, it's expected that you won't have privacy. If they don't, then they need to butt out.

When you are at work using company provided emails, phones, pages they are to be used strictly for business. Carry your own phone and use it for personal business. The Supreme Court got it right. Anything you write or text is subject to company scrutiny. Keep business and personal texts and emails seperate and use your own device for personal business. Common sense and good business practice dictates your behavior on the job.

Wow Paul, I am REALLY amazed at that! I think that would be an interesting court challenge. After all, there are plenty of other companies that, because of their dealings with a particular cell company offer their employees discounts, but I have NEVER heard of one of them saying that they have the right to audit those personal cell phones for calls or text messages! I think Verizon should go down for that one - BIG TIME!!! I also think that YOU handled that incident perfectly - just move the phone beyond their grasp. You are indeed a wise person.

Bob

>>>>>It gets even more interesting when you work for a cellular phone company!

I am a former Verizon Wireless employee, we were “informed” (actually threatened) that because we received a % discount on our personal lines that they can still review our texts and/or phone calls at anytime as they wish.

As an AT&T employee, I was also “informed” that we also could have our text/calls reviewed at anytime they chose on our personal lines. This would be why I have a phone through Sprint, their “threats” aren’t valid as they don’t have easy access.

In the case below, you can always pay for YOUR OWN PERSONAL cell phone. In fact, that is exactly what I do. I have a company issued Blackberry, but I keep my own private service so I can send personal messages when I need to without fear of interception by my company, not that I'm sending anything that couldn't be read, I just value my privacy.

Now, if you're expected to be on call, a company should pay you some amount during the time you are "on call" because you are supposedly prevented from leaving the immediate area and have to be able to report back to work within some period of time. If they don't pay you some amount for "on call" time (maybe only $2/hr, but it adds up), then find somewhere else to work. I'm not sure on call time would come under the minimum wage law or not - check with an employment lawyer about that one.

Bob

>>>Interesting that everyone states if supplied by employer the employers have a right – but what if the employer REQUIRES you to have the phone in order to be employed becuase they expect you to be on call 24/7. I understand the concept of ownership, I just don’t like the fact that more and more people in this country think companies have the right to own people.

@Will Simpson- you mentioned this could get sticky if a company required you to use your own device? First how could they mandate you to have something that you may not normally use - Unless they fully own it? If it is yours and they reimburse a portion YOU still own it. If my company reimburses me for gas to go to company meetings in another location than my work does that give them freedom to inspect my car? NO! This wouldn't be an issue in any court.

I don't follow your logic. An employer requires one to carry a pager/cell phone to be "on call" 24/7, which he pays for. He has the right to monitor what transpires on the device. How is this "ownership" of the employee? The employee is still free to carry a personally paid for device to use for private communications. In the cited case, the employee used his work mobile phone for personal texts 87.5% of the time!

Look, I believe that as long as the employer tells you they are going to monitor texts and emails, you should act accordingly. On the other hand if a cell or any electronic communication device is used at work and you are not told then the employer is in the wrong. All these individuals that say when you are at work or if it's not yours, have never had to pull 24 hour shifts 9 thousand miles away from family and friends. If you ask me I think the civilian sector should have operating procedures for this kind of thing. In the military you are allowed personal texts and emails during deployments, but not while you're at your home station. Unless you are training.g for war. Here is a good example of using an employer's phone on the clock. A friend of mine had a understanding with his mother. If he was to call from the war and say everything's fine, that meant he was in danger to call his Commander and it just so happened that him and his fellow soldiers got attacked, hit with an RPG. He took cover and called. His mother immediately called the Commander and the lives of his and all but one in the motorcade was saved. Now, if he was unable to make personal calls what would have happened. I guess my point is a true professional is professional all the time and doesn't have to worry who reads or hears what.

Can't imagine why anyone would fail to see that if an employer owns or rents a device, anything on it is the personal property of the employer.

Would anyone write a confidential note to a friend, put the note in a company filing cabinet, and then claim it was private?

Where I was working at the company can confiscate your personal phone, to see if you have customer account numbers or any thing that had to do with the company. The rule was no cell phones in the building or automatically be fired and maybe charges filed for what was on the phone.

Reading this article makes me realize that there are so many stupid people in the workplace. I have a personal cellphone, which I bought with my own money. I will use that for my own stuff. And why would you want your company to see it anyway? You get paid to work, not b*tch at your wife or girlfriend all day. The company should just fire people who waste resources and money doing this. Noone in the workplace cares about your personal life. Bottom line, keep work and personal life separate. There is nothing hard about that, but people still are stupid and will continue to do this!!