Asshat Officer is Sexting on the Job
It all started because a California police officer went over his monthly texting limit on his department-issued phone: a lawsuit that could have important ramifications on how we use cell phones and other mobile devices at work.
This spring, the Supreme Court plans to hear a case that sprung from a lawsuit SWAT team Sergeant Jeff Quon and three other officers filed against the police department in Ontario, California, after the police chief read their personal text messages. If you think the idea of your boss keeping tabs on your bad grammar and heavy use of emoticons is bad, Quon had also used his work pager to engage in some pretty serious sexting.
To be fair to his boss, Quon did sign a city policy that states that he’s only allowed limited personal use of department electronics and that he shouldn‚Äôt expect any measure of privacy – so maybe he should have thought before he started sending racy messages into the ether. Regardless, Quon and Co. won the battle at the local level, on the grounds that the chief reading the texts amounted to “unreasonable search,” which the U.S. Constitution doesn’t truck with.
Now the city has appealed to the Supreme Court, who will decide in June whether or not Quon was in the right, and, more importantly, whether you have the right to text with abandon, free from the peering eyes of your employers.
It seems appropriate that this happened in good ol’ California: the land where everyone has rights but no responsibility. I’m assuming that this officer is fairly intelligent, otherwise he probably wouldn’t be on the SWAT team. Then again, maybe he just fell into the correct minority category and the city needed to fill their affirmative action quota so he managed to get the job. In either case, who in their right mind thinks that they can sign a contract and then the contract simply won’t apply to them? Furthermore, why on earth does he think it’s okay to use a company provided cell phone to send personal messages?
It amazes me how people expect to be treated like adults in terms of the rights that are afforded to them but refuse to take responsibility for their own actions in respect to their rights. Not only should he be fined for the overage in text messages and for every personal message used, he should also be forced to pay the court costs for this entire circus.
2 Comments
Nice.
People ask me, "Ron, Why do you have two cell phones?" I want to say, "I make so much money that ONE just won't do!" But the answer is, when I moved back to WIS from Texas 9 years ago, my employer said that they would pay for my cell phone, but that I would have to set the account up in my name and they would reimburse me. They did. Because I needed to be "on call" 24 / 7 it wasn't unreasonable for them to expect me to be available easily through the use of the phone. Even though the cell phone was in my name and they would never have reason to check my phone, I gave the number out only to work related persons. All texting was done with work related persons as well. My second phone was the one I used with all my friends to set up plans for meeting up at clubs, dinners, shopping, hanging out, or whatever including forwarding silly texts. When I left that job, I still tried to separate "work" from "fun" with the two phones, even though I was now paying the bill for two phones. Over the years, when someone I knew didn't have a phone — I could loan them one of mine for a while. My current jobs don't require me to have a cell phone, and so I'm finally down-sizing to one. However, if I ever took a position that required me to have a cell phone – one that they provide or one that I'm reimbursed for, I would never think of using the "work" phone for non-work matters. This only seems right to me. (Generally I do the same for email too.) I think the CA swap team member doesn't have much of a case.