5-1 Discussion: Workplace Privacy

In the case of Ontario v. Quon,
560 U.S. 746 (2010), a city police department read personal text
messages sent and received on a pager that the employer owned and issued
to an employee, a police officer. Some of the text messages were to the
employee’s wife and some were to a fellow officer with whom he was
having an affair. The employee challenged disciplinary actions taken
against him, arguing that the privacy of his messages was protected by
the ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures” found in the Fourth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Based on this description and the information about the case provided in the textbook, address the following:

• Should employees who utilize their work computers to store or send
  personal information, or to surf the internet, have an expectation of
  privacy for personal information, data, and emails generated, accessed,
  or stored on their work computers? Explain your perspective.

In your response posts to your peers, offer your own perspectives and experience.