By Catherine Fancher and Harvey Dunn
Originally published in April 2002
On February 21, 2002, the Fifth Circuit handed down its decision in United States v. Slanina, ___F.3d___, 2002 WL 247141 (5th Cir. (Tex.)) (No. 00-20926). Slanina was a city fire marshall. His supervisors confiscated his office computer after they accidentally discovered e-pornography on that computer during a network installation. Slanina was convicted in a criminal prosecution arising out of those materials. One of Slanina's contentions in appealing his conviction was that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the materials stored on his city-owned office computer. Significantly, the city had never disseminated a policy that prevented storage of personal information on city computers or informed city employees that their Internet usage could be monitored. Accordingly, the court held that Slanina's expectation of privacy regarding his computer usage was reasonable.
