Emailing "Court Rules Against ISP in Employer Snooping Case"
Put some spicy text messages into a court case -- even if those messages are between husband and wife -- and the case will get a lot of attention. That's what happened when Jerilyn and Jeff Quon (and others) sued the City of [Ontario, Calif.](http://www.ci.ontario.ca.us/) and its ISP, Arch Wireless (part of [USA Mobility](http://www.usamobility.com/)).
Jeff Quon and some of his police department co-workers sued when the department looked into text message usage and obtained transcripts of them. This, after the department's manager had said the employees could use as much as they liked as long as they paid for overages -- and Quon had paid the department several times for his overages.
The always-liberal Ninth Circuit Court ruled [.[pdf](http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/D2CDDB4098D7AFB28825746C0048ED24/$file/0755282.pdf?openelement)] on Wednesday that Arch Wireless and the City of Ontario [violated](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-text19-2008jun19,0,4172340.story?track=rss) the Stored Communications Act, which "prohibits providers from divulging the contents of any communication that is maintained on the service without a warrant."
So this is a court ruling that every ISP should be aware of.
As far as I can tell, although the court has ruled on the issue, it has not assigned damages. That will be worth watching for, too.