Interpretive Frameworks

              WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a police department violated the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it inspected personal text messages sent and received on a government pager.

Skip to next paragraph            The case opens “a new frontier in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” according to a three-judge panel of an appeals court that ruled in favor of the employee, a police sergeant on the Ontario, Calif., SWAT team.

            Orin S. Kerr, an authority on the Fourth Amendment at George Washington University’s law school, said the case was simultaneously significant and idiosyncratic. “This is the first case on Fourth Amendment protection in data networks,” Mr. Kerr said. But the case arose from unusual circumstances, making it fairly likely that the eventual Supreme Court ruling will be narrow.

            The Supreme Court has given public employers wide latitude to search their employees’ offices and files. But it has also said that the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable government searches, has a role to play in any analysis of that latitude.

The Ontario Police Department had a formal policy reserving the right to monitor “network activity including e-mail and Internet use,” allowing “light personal communications” by employees but cautioning that they “should have no expectation of privacy.” It did not directly address text messages.

                                                             

            Members of the department’s SWAT team were given pagers and told they were responsible for charges in excess of 25,000 characters a month. Under an informal policy adopted by a police lieutenant, those who paid the excess charges themselves would not have their messages inspected.

            The lieutenant eventually changed his mind and ordered transcripts of messages sent and received by Sgt. Jeff Quon. In one month in 2002, only 57 of more than 450 of those messages were related to official business. According to the trial judge, many of the messages “were, to say the least, sexually explicit in nature.”

            Sergeant Quon and some of the people with whom he messaged sued, saying their Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, writing for a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, said the department’s formal policy had been overridden by the “operational reality” of the lieutenant’s informal policy.

            Dissenting from the full Ninth Circuit’s decision not to rehear the case, Judge Sandra S. Ikuta said the panel had violated “the dictates of reason and common sense” and had hobbled “government employers from managing their work forces.”

The City of Ontario and its police department, in asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, said “a lower-level supervisor’s informal arrangement” should not be allowed to trump “the employer’s explicit no-privacy policy.”

            “It is not objectively reasonable to expect privacy in a message sent to someone else’s workplace pager,” the brief said, “let alone to a police officer’s department-issued pager.”

            The Supreme Court’s decision, the brief went on, will affect “a seemingly never-ending stream of new technologies.”Though the legal issue in the case, City of Ontario v. Quon, No. 08-1332, concerns only text messaging in government workplaces, the Supreme Court’s decision may provide hints about its attitude toward privacy in the Internet era more generally.

            The larger question, Judge Stephen G. Larson of the Federal District Court in Riverside, Calif., wrote in declining to dismiss Sergeant Quon’s case before trial, is this: “What are the legal boundaries of an employee’s privacy in this interconnected, electronic-communication age, one in which thoughts and ideas that would have been spoken personally and privately in ages past are now instantly text-messaged to friend and family via hand-held, computer-assisted electronic devices?”

            The U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision; As framed by the Court, the issue presented was the “narrow” one of whether or not a government employer has the right, under the circumstances presented, to read text messages sent and received on a pager the employer owned and issued to an employee, without violating the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

            Preliminarily, the Supreme Court refused to become embroiled in whether the police lieutenant’s comment — that while employees’ text messages “could be audited,” he did “not intend” to do so if the employees paid the overages — did or did not override the police department’s stated, written e-mail and text message policy and thereby create an expectation of privacy. Nor did the Supreme Court want to take on the general issue of whether or to what extent text messages, or other forms of electronic communication engaged in by employees, should or should not enjoy general privacy protection. “The Court must proceed with care when

considering the whole concept of privacy expectations in communications made on electronic equipment owned by a government employer. The judiciary risks error by elaborating too fully on the Fourth Amendment implications of emerging technology before its role in society has become clear.” For that reason, “[p]rudence counsels caution before the facts in the instant case are used to establish far-reaching premises that define the existence, and extent, of privacy expectations enjoyed by employees when using employer-provided communication devices.”

            Instead, the Court assumed, for purposes of argument, that Quon had a reasonable expectation of privacy and that the City’s review of the messages constituted a “search” to which the Fourth Amendment applied. The Court also assumed that the principles the Court had announced in a prior case, O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987), relating to a government employer’s search of an employee’s office including his desk and file cabinet, apply “with at least the same force” when the employer encroaches on the employee’s privacy “in the electronic sphere.” That left only the question of whether the search was “reasonable,” since, under the Fourth Amendment, only “unreasonable” warrantless searches are proscribed.

            In testing “reasonableness,” O’Connor focused on two things: first, whether there was a legitimate, work-related justification for the search at its inception, and second, whether the “measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the circumstances giving rise to the search.” The Court held that what the police department had done in Quon’s case passed both tests. The proffered work-related reason — that the City needed to determine whether the text character limit in its contract with Arch was sufficient, or whether employees might have been having to bear the cost of work-related

excess messages — was, according to the Court, sufficient to justify the search. The methods employed were directed toward that purpose.

            Nor was the search excessively intrusive. The City had confined its review of Quon’s messages to a two-month period, despite his having exceeded the limit during other months as well; it had also redacted, and had not reviewed the transcripts of, any text messages sent by Quon while off-duty. Ultimately, the Court reasoned, any reasonable privacy expectation Quon had would have been seriously limited where the City never assured him of privacy in connection with the text messages, where he knew that an audit of the messages was at least a possibility, and where he, a law enforcement officer, should have known that his conduct could be subject to “legal scrutiny.” Thus the search was reasonable and not a Fourth Amendment violation. Significantly, the Court went on to conclude that given that the search was not unreasonable as to Quon, likewise it was not unreasonable to third parties who had sent text messages to Quon.

            With regard to the Ninth Circuit’s belief that the search was unreasonable since less intrusive means for conducting it were possible such as asking Quon to do it himself, the Supreme Court observed that “this approach [is] inconsistent with controlling precedents. This Court has ‘repeatedly refused to declare that only the “least intrusive” search practicable can be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” As the Supreme Court observed, the “least intrusive” rationale employed by the Ninth Circuit to hold the search unreasonable “could raise insuperable barriers to the exercise of virtually all search-and-seizure powers, because judges engaged in post hoc evaluations of government conduct can almost always imagine some alternative means by which the objectives of the government might have been accomplished.”

           

            Significance for Private Employers; Although the Fourth Amendment does not apply to private employers, the Court’s analysis of Quon’s privacy expectation and the City’s obligations in connection with a legitimate work-related purpose is instructive. The Supreme Court explicitly recognized as much in its decision, stating: “For these same reasons — that the employer had a legitimate reason for the search, and that the search was not excessively intrusive in light of that justification — the Court also concludes that the search would be ‘regarded as reasonable and normal in the private-employer context. . . .” (Emphasis added)

            The bottom line: This decision strongly suggests that where an employer (a) has clearly written, well-disseminated policies limiting or eliminating any expectation of privacy and (b) a provable, legitimate business purpose for conducting a search or review of electronic communications found on employer equipment, that search or review may be undertaken without violating employee privacy interests. The Supreme Court’s holding also underscores that a search should not be found excessively intrusive simply because less intrusive means may have been available, thereby enforcing the notion that with a legitimate business purpose the employer has some latitude in determining how to approach its review of electronic communications.

            Whether or not the California Supreme Court would find that the California Constitution provides a reasonable expectation of privacy in an employee’s text messages is currently unknown. Employers are, however, best advised to do what is necessary to eliminate any expectation of privacy for electronic communications on workplace equipment.

Textual Representation

              The Supreme Court is tackling a case involving claims made by telecommunications giant AT&T to keep secret the information gathered by the FCC during an investigation. AT&T wants the FCC to keep secret all the information it gathered from the company during an investigation into its participation in the federal E-Rate program.
             The Supreme Court is getting involved in an unusual freedom of information dispute over whether corporations may assert personal privacy interests to prevent the government from releasing documents about them. The court on Tuesday agreed to a request from the Obama administration to take up a case involving claims made by telecommunications giant AT&T to keep secret the information gathered by the Federal Communications Commission during an investigation.
              The administration wants the high court to rule that corporations may not claim a personal privacy exception contained in the federal Freedom of Information Act.
The exception may be used only by individuals, the administration said in a brief signed by Elena Kagan, the newest justice who served in the Justice Department until last month.
Kagan will not take part in the case, which will be argued early next year.
AT&T wants the FCC to keep secret all the information it gathered from the company during an investigation into its participation in the federal E-Rate program, which helps schools and libraries get Internet access.
              The FCC had released some of the information under an open records request, but withheld some, citing FOIA exemptions that cover trade secrets and humans' right to privacy. A federal appeals court sided with AT&T.
              COMPTEL, a trade group representing some AT&T competitors, filed the FOIA request that led to the court ruling. The trade association and several groups that support transparency in government backed the administration's plea to the court to hear the case.
              WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a police department violated the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it inspected personal text messages sent and received on a government pager.

Skip to next paragraph

               Times The case opens “a new frontier in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” according to a three-judge panel of an appeals court that ruled in favor of the employee, a police sergeant on the Ontario, Calif., SWAT team. Orin S. Kerr, an authority on the Fourth Amendment at George Washington University’s law school, said the case was simultaneously significant and idiosyncratic. “This is the first case on Fourth Amendment protection in data networks,” Mr. Kerr said. But the case arose from unusual circumstances, making it fairly likely that the eventual Supreme Court ruling will be narrow.

              The Supreme Court has given public employers wide latitude to search their employees’ offices and files. But it has also said that the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable government searches, has a role to play in any analysis of that latitude.               The Ontario Police Department had a formal policy reserving the right to monitor “network activity including e-mail and Internet use,” allowing “light personal communications” by employees but cautioning that they “should have no expectation of privacy.” It did not directly address text messages.
              Members of the department’s SWAT team were given pagers and told they were responsible for charges in excess of 25,000 characters a month. Under an informal policy adopted by a police lieutenant, those who paid the excess charges themselves would not have their messages inspected.

Cultural Knowledge

                   

CUBA

            The largest island of the West Indies group (equal in area to Pennsylvania), Cuba is also the westernmost—just west of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and 90 mi (145 km) south of Key West, Fla., at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. The island is mountainous in the southeast and south-central area (Sierra Maestra). It is flat or rolling elsewhere. Cuba also includes numerous smaller islands, islets, and cays.

            Arawak (or Taino) Indians inhabiting Cuba when Columbus landed on the island in 1492 died from diseases brought by sailors and settlers. By 1511, Spaniards under Diego Velásquez had established settlements. Havana's superb harbor made it a common transit point to and from Spain. In the early 1800s, Cuba's sugarcane industry boomed, requiring massive numbers of black slaves. A simmering independence movement turned into open warfare from 1867 to 1878. Slavery was abolished in 1886. In 1895, the poet José Marti led the struggle that finally ended Spanish rule, thanks largely to U.S. intervention in 1898 after the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor.

            In 1956, Fidel Castro Ruz launched a revolution from his camp in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Castro's brother Raul and Ernesto (Ché) Guevara, an Argentine physician, were his top lieutenants. Many anti-Batista landowners supported the rebels. The U.S. ended military aid to Cuba in 1958, and on New Year's Day 1959, Batista fled into exile and Castro took over the government.

            The three questions I’m asking are: What happened during the Cuban missile crisis? Why do Cubans continue to practice Communism and allow Fidel Castro to Dictate? What holidays do Cubans celebrate and what do they do for fun? I think it’s important to know about the Soviet- Cuban missile crisis to understand Cuba’s history. I would also like to try to understand why Cuban’s still practice communism and allow Fidel Castro to Dictate. We can learn a little about Cuban culture by finding out about their holidays and leisure activities.

            The U.S. initially welcomed what looked like a democratic Cuba, but within a few months, Castro established military tribunals for political opponents and jailed hundreds. Castro disavowed Cuba's 1952 military pact with the U.S., confiscated U.S. assets, and established Soviet-style collective farms. The U.S. broke relations with Cuba on Jan. 3, 1961, and Castro formalized his alliance with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Cubans fled the country.

            In 1961, a U.S.-backed group of Cuban exiles invaded Cuba. Planned during the Eisenhower administration, the invasion was given the go-ahead by President John Kennedy, although he refused to give U.S. air support. The landing at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, was a fiasco. The invaders did not receive popular Cuban support and were easily repulsed by the Cuban military.

            A Soviet attempt to install medium-range missiles in Cuba—capable of striking targets in the United States with nuclear warheads—provoked a crisis in 1962. Denouncing the Soviets for “deliberate deception,” President Kennedy promised a U.S. blockade of Cuba to stop the missile delivery. Six days later, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the missile sites dismantled and returned to the USSR in return for a U.S. pledge not to attack Cuba.

            The U.S. established limited diplomatic ties with Cuba on Sept. 1, 1977, making it easier for Cuban Americans to visit the island. Contact with the more affluent Cuban Americans prompted a wave of discontent in Cuba, producing a flood of asylum seekers. In response, Castro opened the port of Mariel to a “freedom flotilla” of boats from the U.S., allowing 125,000 to flee to Miami. After the refugees arrived, it was discovered that their ranks were swelled with prisoners, mental patients, homosexuals, and others unwanted by the Cuban government. Cuba fomented Communist revolutions around the world, especially in Angola, where thousands of Cuban troops were sent during the 1980s.

            Russian aid, which had long supported Cuba's failing economy, ended when Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe in 1990. Cuba's foreign trade also plummeted, producing a severe economic crisis. In 1993, Castro permitted limited private enterprise, allowed Cubans to possess convertible currencies, and encouraged foreign investment in its tourist industry. In March 1996, the U.S. tightened its embargo with the Helms-Burton Act.

            How horrible it must be for the people of Cuba to be so close and yet so far to the free-world (although it isn't very free anymore). The promise of Castro to boot out the Mafia and give control back to the citizenry was a lie. Instead he partnered with the Soviet Union and when their economy failed, he opened the door to the Communist Chinese*. It's a never-ending spiral into the abyss for the people of Cuba.

            Literacy did improve under Castro but the tale is hardly heroic -- illiteracy was neither high prior to the Revolution, as Castro claimed, nor was it much changed after Castro's Great Campaign. In fact, since Castro came to power, other Latin American countries made far greater gains in literacy than Cuba, largely because Cuba didn't have as far to climb -- it already had one of Latin America's highest literacy rates.

            Neither can Castro's health claims be taken as credible because the health system, like the legal system, is subordinate to his regime's need for propaganda. In 1997, a major epidemic of dengue fever, which causes hemorrhaging, broke out in Cuba. Patients were bleeding from every orifice of their bodies and choking on their own blood. Public health authorities and the government's Institute of Tropical Medicine called the disease "an unspecified virus" and denied its existence, partly to protect the reputation of Castro, who had personally declared the disease's extinction, and partly to protect the tourist industry, which was becoming a major earner of foreign exchange.

            "There have been no major problems [at May Day in Cuba] other than the continuing economic difficulties that of course Cuba faces because of the US embargo, the economic embargo." -- Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC

            Cuba trades with every other country in the world but the United States. To say that the US is the cause of Cuba's economic woes is to disregard basic economic theory. Communism and dictatorship are Cuba's problems, and until individual rights are respected the condition of Cuba will only continue to deteriorate.

            This idea that the economic problems of Cuba are related to US trade embargo is so pervasive you can even find it on the Web. They can't import cars or car parts not because they can't get them from America for cheap, but because they can't afford them. In order to afford them they would need to be able to keep the products of their labor, and be free to produce as each individual sees fit. Once individual Cubans had produced goods according to their judgment, they would also need to be free to trade those goods for other goods according to their mutual consent. None of this happens in Cuba today.

            As far as Cuban holidays are concerned, the national ones are fairly few and far between. Christmas is the only one of the government-recognized religious Cuba holidays, but there are a handful of official Cuban holidays that may interest you. Socialist holidays like the May 1 Día de los Trabajadores (Day of the Workers) and the July 26 Day of the National Rebellion can be of particular interest for those intrigued by Cuba's Communist stance. On January 28, Cubans celebrate the birth of national hero José Martí, and October 8 is reserved to honor the death of Ernesto Che Guevara. If you are in Cuba on April 19, the country will be observing the anniversary of their historic victory at the Bay of Pigs. If you want Cuban events with a little more fanfare, you can always come during Carnival.

            Like most of the notable Cuban events, Carnival is best observed in Havana. Every year in August, parades move down the city's famous Malecon oceanfront walkway, and you can expect a lot of song and dance to fill the air. Fireworks are common, as is flowing Cuban beer and rum. People dancing Conga display the country's rich Afro-Cuban traditions, and it's quite a sight to see. Cuba's burgeoning tourism industry is helping to fuel Cuba festivals like Carnival, making a Cuba vacation even that much more rewarding.

            Music-lovers will not want to miss the chance to visit Havana during what is arguably one of the best Cuba festivals. The Havana Jazz Festival, which runs during most of February, sees nightly live music performances as clubs and venues around the city. It's definitely the best time to be in Havana if you know and like Cuban music. Various other Cuban festivals find their settings to also be the country's capital, so you might want to see what upcoming Cuban events are taking place during your vacation.

            Currently President Obama is fighting to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba to reopen trade. If this happens U.S. citizens may receive a warmer welcome while vacationing in Cuba. So if you can look past our history with Cuba, there Communist government and year’s worth of animosity from both countries, go ahead and visit. Personally I would probably enjoy a vacation to Cuba, but I was also willing to take risks while serving in the U.S. Navy.

Works Cited

http://www.cubacuban.com/kids/holidays.shtml

Humphry, M. (2010) http://markhumphrys.com/cuba.html

CUELLAR, H. J. (2008) http://www.contactomagazine.com/cuba46.htm

Career Lift Off Report

              The walk-in center provides a free computer program called Career Lift Off. This program is an interest inventory that also measures values and abilities. This program gives the student a print-out of results, and is the first step in exploring personal awareness for possibilities of future majors. Within this computer program a student can do research on careers and find job descriptions and information in different career areas. Peer assistants and graduate assistants are available for further assistance and to help look at the results from the Career Lift Off program and to do more exploring about career paths.
             When I completed the Career Lift Off program it told me one thing I'm already doing and that is majoring in Communication. When researched careers and job descriptions I found the perfect job opening right hear in Grand Forks, ND at WDAZ. The job is reporting sports for WDAZ. This is my dream job, but I doubt it will still be available after I graduate in the spring. The 5:00pm news producer and 6:00pm news anchor Milo Smith was my television production class professor, so that might help when I try to get a job at WDAZ.
             The Career Lift Off program also suggested other jobs I am qualified for, such as Camera operator/photographer, news reporter, news story editor, news program editor, and radio announcer. I would happily accept any of these jobs too, or any other job at WDAZ that would start me at the bottom of the totum pole so I can work my way up. The Career lift Off program also let me research other jobs in the Communication career field. I found out about public relations, computer technical assistant, graphic design, and being a secret buyer (shopping at different places while secretly evaluating there customer service, store efficiency, and cleanliness.
              I found out that I had a communication job in the past when I worked for Amazon. I helped customers with there technical difficulties while they were trying to buy things from the Target website which is owned by Amazon. Most of the time I took control of their account to purchase their items for them and I usually entered a promotional code to give them a discount or free shipping. Most of the people I helped were very friendly, but some people were extremely rude and uncooperative, in these cases I had to pass them on to Amazon personnel who dealt mainly with the angriest customers only.
             The Career Lift Off program suggested that I try to acquire a masters in Communication as well. Since I receive the G.I. bill that would not be a bad idea, but I think I will be ready to stop attending college after spring graduation. I know every career requires continuing education, but getting a Masters seems crazy for me personally, when I've struggled so much for a Bachelors degree.