Searches of Students' Cell Phone Text Messages

Administrators at Louisville's Monarch High School were seizing students’ cell phones, reading text messages, and transcribing messages the administrators deemed incriminating. Responding to complaints from students and parents, the ACLU wrote to the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education, asserting that the non-consensual searches violated students’ right of privacy. In addition to relying on the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, the letter relied on a Colorado criminal statute designed to protect the privacy of telephone and electronic communications.

The letter was followed by a series of meetings and communications between ACLU attorneys and attorneys representing the school district. The district decided that except in emergencies, future searches of students’ cell phones would require consent from the student or parent as well as individualized reasonable suspicion.

"Boulder district to limit student text-message searches," The Denver Post, April 21, 2008

“Text Privacy Issue Heats Up at Colorado School,” NPR, December 17, 2007

“ACLU Challenges Boulder Valley’s Seizure of Student Text Messages,” 5280, October 11, 2007

“ACLU slams school over cell-phone searches,” 9 News, October 11, 2007

“ACLU 2 Mnrch: MYOB,” Rocky Mountain News, October 11, 2007

“Phone searches spark protest; ACLU criticizes actions by officials at Monarch High,” Rocky Mountain News, October 11, 2007

"ACLU protests school search of cellphones," The Denver Post, October 10, 2007

“ACLU says school broke law by searching student phones,” The Denver Post, October 10, 2007

“Hand over the cell,” The Denver Post, February 22, 2007