The FBI received a tip that an employee of an IT company was accessing child por

Question

The FBI received a tip that an employee of an IT company was accessing child pornography from his workplace computer. When approached by the FBI, the company confirmed that the employee had regularly visited such Web sites. The employee’s office was entered in the evening by company officials and copies were made of the contents of his computer’s hard drive. All of the computers in the workplace were property of the employer and the employer was able to monitor all employees’ Internet activity. Employees were told when hired that their computer use was subject to monitoring and that computers should not be used for personal business. The employee was the only user of the office and it was kept locked. A password created by the employee was needed to use the computer. After the employee was arrested and charged with crimes, he argued that the FBI had violated his constitutional rights by searching his computer without a warrant. Did this employee have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of his workplace computer? Did the government violate his constitutional rights by conducting an illegal search? Why or why not?

Explanation / Answer

The employee had a specific office and computer, dedicated to his usage only. The computer system had restricted access and was password protected. The employee therefore has exclusive use to his office and computer. As per the Fourth Amendment, an entity having exclusive usage rights can have a valid expectation of privacy. So, the employee in this case, had a valid expectation of privacy.

In the given case, it was stated that all the computers in the workplace were property of the employer and that the employer was able to monitor all employee’s Internet activities. Moreover, the employee was also informed about this monitoring policy of the employer. So, the subject employee had the information that his computer is subjected to monitoring by the employer and that his use of the computer is limited strictly to official usage. As the employer had sufficient control over the company assets, hence the assets can be subjected to any search or seizure based on prior consent of the owner i.e. the employer in this case. Therefore, there was no violation of the employee’s constitutional rights, when the government conducted a search on his official computer, by taking prior permission from the employer

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