In 2001, The Ontario Police Department distributed number pagers to officers so they could keep track of their activities. They had a partnership with USA Mobile which enabled them to have a certain limit amount of characters used per month. In the department they had a policy which stated that the city of Ontario had the right to monitor all network activity including email and internet use. It also states that anything that they feel is inappropriate in their email system will not be tolerated. The department found that Sgt. Jeff Quon, and another officer had been sending inappropriate personal text messages to people. Sgt Quon (who is a married man) sent sexually text messages to his girlfriend at work. Both men faced disciplinary action. They're claiming that their privacy has been invaded. I disagree because they knew that their text messages were being monitored by the department. The department clearly stated that anything non-work related or obscene was inappropriate. Texting sexually messages to your girlfriend isn't ok, especially when you're suppose to be doing your job!!! Those pagers were only suppose to be used for work, not for personal reasons. To me, the principle of the matter here is privacy, and integrity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_v._Quon
Madam Brown, this is an interesting case! What do you think made it OK for the police department to monitor the messages? The fact that the officers had consented, or the fact that there was a policy, or the fact that the department way paying for the pagers? What's more important, consent or property rights? Next time, it would be great if you expanded on your ideas a little more!
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