The Supreme Court said it will take on a case that deals with whether employers can review text messages--without the consent of the employee--sent to and from employer-issued devices.

The outcome of the case may have implications on what level of privacy employees can expect when using work-issued devices.

The case stems from sexually explicit text messages an Ontario, Calif. police officer sent to his girlfriend from his department-issued pager. The messages were discovered by his police chief and read without permission. A federal court earlier ruled that the chief's decision to read the messages without reasonable cause violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search. The city of Ontario appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

In its ruling on the case, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California acknowledged the unique aspects of the case, and said that the "recently minted standard of electronic communication via emails, text messages and other means opens a new frontier in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that has been little explored."

For more:
- see this New York Times article
- see this Washington Post article
- see this Reuters article

Related Articles:
Big Brother and emails from work
Symbian software hides all communication belonging to selected contacts