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The right to privacy is not directly expressed under the Bill of Rights. This particular issue has therefore elicited a heated debate on the degree of the applicability surrounding the privacy claims. The U.S Supreme Court has come up with a substantive argument that the right to privacy is a fundamental liberty that should be protected as implicated under some clauses of the constitution. However, the extent to which the right to privacy is protected is not clear. The Bill of Rights seems to protect some aspects of privacy. A good example is indicated in the first amendment that protects the privacy of beliefs or privacy against unreasonable searches as protected in the fourth amendment. The Supreme Court recognizes the concept of substantive due process as embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment by arguing that this particular clause protects all the fundamentally un-enumerated rights.
The decision in the recent case of the City of Ontario, California v. Quon 500 U.S (2010) sheds some light on the issue of privacy particularly related to the workplace. In this case, the appellant had infringed the employees’ right to privacy by conducting a search in their electronic device that they used in the course of their duty. The issue was whether the appellant had violated the provision of the Fourth Amendment that protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court unanimously held that the search was reasonable as it was work-related. It is apparent that Justice Anthony Kennedy when writing the majority’s opinion, decided to ignore the ‘far-reaching issues’ in regards to modern technology and its role in society (Hudson 23).
The City of Ontario case marks the first venture of judicial intervention into the employees’ rights of privacy when communicating through the agency’s devices. The opening remarks of the presiding judge in Quon v. Arch Wireless Operating Co., Inc., 445 (2006) presaged the importance of social issues at risk in the City of Ontario’s case. It is not clear how the Supreme Court decided on these critical issues surrounding the case. It is arguably justifiable to say that the court’s claim was far less technical on one hand but similarly perilous on the other. This is because the court refused to come up with a formulated rule of law regarding the electronic communications in the workplace. The reasonableness of privacy by the employees was not conclusively resolved by the court as it was expected by most people. The decision by the court puts the issue regarding the right to privacy applicable to individuals in question. The court seems to follow the decision in Ortega v. O’Connor 480 U.S (1987) that held that the employer possessed ultimate authority to search the physical workplace of the employee. The privacy rights of the employees are therefore not protected. It can further be contended that the degree of an intrusive workplace search remains to be uncertain. This is because both the constitution and the decisions by the Supreme Court fail to provide specific guidance on the issue of privacy. It is therefore evident that this issue remains context-based that is purely left at the discretion of the court to decide it on a case-by-case basis. This is evident in the recent decision in Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, inc. 990 A. 2d 650 (2010) in which the Supreme Court upheld the employee’s rights to privacy claim (Moore 237).
In conclusion, the right to privacy remains a delicate issue, not only in the workplace, but other areas as well. It is clear that the approach adopted in dicta by the majority in the City of Ontario case is bound to fail, if applied in future. This is because the era of electronics continues to evolve and the current court has not yet faced its complexities. It is therefore best if future courts echoed the sentiments by Justice Scalia who insisted that the answer to such issues should not rely wholly on the operational realities of the case but on the reasonableness of the facts.
Works Cited
Hudson, David. The Right to Privacy. New York: Inforbase Publishing, 2010. Print.
Moore, Adam. Privacy Rights. New York: The Pennylvania State University Press, 2011. Print.
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