Phone Users Lack Right to Privacy In Text Messages They Send to Others

Texters lack a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of messages they send to others’ mobile phones, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held June 20 (State v. Patino, 2014 BL 172072, R.I., No. 2012-263-C.A.).

The court’s decision isn’t directly impacted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling on phone privacy in Riley v. California, 2014 BL 175779 (U.S. June 25, 2014). The issue in that case was searches of arrestees’ own phones, whereas the Rhode Island court framed the main question confronting it as the “relatively narrow” issue of “whether a person has a reasonable expectation ...