INFO[rmation fo]RENSICS

It is being reported that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is going after Skytel for the release of the text messages that led to the settlement of the police whistleblower lawsuit against him.

(source: The Detroit News)

It appears that the grounds for this action is the Stored Communications Act.  As a non-attorney I am guessing that this will boil down to a few factors:

1. Was the police department involved in the production of the text messages (4th amendment),
2. Was the contract with Skytel to provide messaging services, or storage/retrieval and reporting?

The Stored Communication Act does differentiate between a provider of services, and a provider of storage, so the Skytel contract wording will likely make a difference.

With all of the Kwame Drama aside, this could actually be interesting for providers, contract attorneys, e-discovery and forensics folks as well.

Here is a reference to another case with similar characteristics:

Quon v. Arch Wireless