Ninth Circuit Upholds Privacy of Text Messages

by via the EFF

Fri, Jun 20, 2008 7:55AM

Thursday, June 19, 2008 :Today the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Quon v. Arch Wireless, holding that "users of text messaging services such as those provided by Arch Wireless have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their text messages." The Court concluded:
The search of Appellants’ text messages violated their Fourth Amendment and California constitutional privacy rights because they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of the text messages, and the search was unreasonable in scope.

In a landmark ruling last year, the Sixth Circuit held that the Fourth Amendment protects email stored with a third party. Today's ruling applies the Fourth Amendment to text messaging.

The Ninth Circuit also held that defendant Arch Wireless provided an “electronic communication service” to the City, and therefore violated the Stored Communications Act by "knowingly turn[ing] over the text-messaging transcripts to the City" without the consent of the addressee or intended recipient.

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For more information: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/ninth...

§New Ninth Circuit Case Protects Text Message Privacy From Police and Employers

by via the EFF

Fri, Jun 20, 2008 7:55AM

Thursday, June 19, 2008 :Today's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion in Quon v. Arch Wireless is a victory for the privacy of email and text messages. The holding means that law enforcement needs a probable cause warrant to access stored copies of your electronic messages less than 180 days old, regardless of whether you have already downloaded or read them.

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