In a preliminary effort towards defining Fourth Amendment rights of public employees in the digital era, the US Supreme Court Thursday ruled 9-0 in favor of the companies’ rights to read text messages sent by an employee, in case they suspect that the employee is violating work rules.

Writing the decision for the court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that the ruling was largely tied to the facts of related to the case wherein a police chief in southern California read the sexually explicit text messages sent from the pager of an officer, Sgt. Jeff Quon.

The court decision implies that the search of the work-issued pager did not amount to violation of the constitutional rights of the officer. In the words of Justice Kennedy, “Because it was not excessive in scope, the search was reasonable.”

The pager used by Sgt. Quon had been issued to him by the Police Department. In the words of the trial judge, Quon had used the pager for sending and receiving messages that were “to say the least, sexually explicit in nature.”

Going by a policy currently being implemented by the city of Ontario, the officials have a right to monitor the communications that employees establish by using their official computer, Internet and e-mail. Though the policy allows “light personal communications,” it also makes it clear that “users should have no expectation of privacy or confidentiality.”