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St. Thomas Law Review

First Page

265

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article posits that, due to the limited and diminishing privacy protections for corporate employees, Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is closer to permitting dawn raids in the workplace than popular opinion might suggest. First, the employee "standing" requirement to challenge an illegal search means employees must have a privacy interest in the particular workspace searched. In certain instances, then, individual employees have no way of protesting the use of illegally obtained corporate documents against them, including documents they have authored. Second, there may be few protections available to employees insofar as modem, widely-used workplace technologies are concerned, such as company computers and e-mail accounts." Finally, with the passage of the USA Patriot Act, businesses can be coerced into helping the government perform still more invasive investigations of employees, particularly in the areas of "'wire communication' technology such as Internet access, e-mail, voice mail, and telephone service ...." This article examines each of these limitations in turn. Part I outlines the EU dawn raids in more detail to provide a basis for comparison with traditional American approaches. Part II discusses the employee standing requirement for challenging illegal searches. Part III discusses how technological advancements in the workplace have further impacted employee privacy expectations. Part IV examines the implications of the USA Patriot Act for businesses, hypothesizing that this legislation will prevent organizations from acting as a privacy shield for their employees. Part V concludes by arguing that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence must become more protective of employee privacy, or else American law enforcement officials will have the legal (if not yet the cultural) basis for taking a disturbingly dawn raid like approach to corporate crime.

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