In 1987, the Supreme Court decided a case involving the search of a public employee’s office.

Magno Ortega, a psychiatrist at State Hospital, was suspected of stealing a computer and of sexually harassing female workers. While he was on vacation, his employer had his desk and file cabinets searched thoroughly. Investigators found, among other items, a valentine card, a book of love poetry, and a semi-nude photograph of a female doctor.

The Court found that this search did not violate the Fourth Amendment. It explained that the employment context itself both (1) lowered the employee’s legitimate privacy expectations, and (2) created a strong need on the employer’s part to discover work-related misconduct:

An office is seldom a private enclave free from entry by supervisors, other employees and business and personal invitees. Instead in many cases offices are continually entered by fellow employees and other visitors during the workday for conferences, consultations, and other work-related visits. Simply put—it is the nature of government offices that others … may have frequent access to an individual’s office….

While police … conduct searches for the primary purpose of obtaining evidence for use in criminal … proceedings, employers most frequently need to enter the offices and desks of their employees for legitimate work-related reasons wholly unrelated to illegal conduct. Employers and supervisors are focused primarily on the need to complete the government agency’s work in a prompt and efficient manner. An employer may have need for correspondence, or a file or report available only in an employee’s office while the employee is away from the office. Or, as is alleged to have been the case here, employers may need to safeguard or identify state property or records in an office in connection with a pending investigation into suspected employee malfeasance.

Do you agree with the notion that people should have a reduced expectation of privacy when they are at work?