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Process Essay: Violation Of The Fourth Amendment

592 Words3 Pages

The constitutional issue I am analyzing is the violation of the fourth amendment. There have been many cases of people’s fourth amendment rights being violated, some times it is justified and other times it was violated unreasonably. It is very important that our fourth amendment rights are protected and US citizens private lives aren't being infringed upon and unreasonably searched. In the past recent years there have been Supreme court cases that involve the violation of the fourth amendment. One of the cases is the City of Ontario v. Quon in California that went from 2009 to 2010. The cases involves police officers who were given text-messaging pagers and one of the officers messages were read without their permission. The police department did not have an official text messaging privacy policy but they did have a general policy stating “employees shouldn't expect privacy when using internet, e-mail and internet use and can be monitored with or without notice.” The police department verbally told them the texting pagers were considered e-mail and were subject to general policy. In the supreme court they decided that the reading of the texts was justified because it was reasonable. They basically said that if …show more content…

If the text-pager was for personal use it would not have been ok and would have been violating the fourth amendment. Because the pagers were meant for workplace use and also they were told verbally that the pagers apply to general policy and were subject to search justifies the court's decision. I understand why Quon felt his fourth amendment right was violated, I probably would have as well because having someone read your messages almost always feels like a violation. But also, if Quon was told that the pagers were subject to general policy and were meant for work and could be searched i would think that he just wouldn't use them for anything personal so if they were searched he wouldn't

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