Married with Email
Being single, I have to laugh. Especially at my pet rock, who for now, isn't.
In Michigan, a law that was designed to be used against online hackers and identity thieves, is about to be tested for yet another application: the field of spousal 'privilege'.
A male accessed his wife's email account on their computer at home, and discovered -- by reading her emails -- that she was having an affair.
Cheaters tend to write the durndest things. Art Linkletter coulda had a helluva show on that, if he hadn't up and croaked in 2010.
What went down next I do not have at my finger tips, but the gist of it is:
1. She filed for divorce.
2. He was arrested/cited under the aforementioned Michigan law, for accessing his wife's email and learning what he learned.
3. He faces felony charges under this law.
Little other tidbits about it include the fact that prior to this incident, she had given her husband her password, and had asked him to check her email (unknown when this happened or why).
I'm not a lawyer and don't play one online, unless it's with nitwit online scammers of dubious antecedence and worse grasp of English tort of the jurisprudence or bakery kind. But I do know that access to personal information via the internet -- while wonderfully convenient -- is also not so wonderfully accessible to persons of odious intent. Even when you do what you can to protect yourself with the usual features (passwords, firewalls, a big slobbering cyberdawg that mauls cyberintruders), some six-fingered jackwagon at the store, a bank, a credit card company, and even with a local, state or federal government bureaubratic desk, can *oopsey daisy* and put your personal information up for grabs, by accident and/or design.
There are also moral and ethical considerations here, though in many venues, moral and ethical considerations are considered passe and oh so non-21st Century (like in Congress), but I digress.
I know a legal mind or two out there; what say you? How, and to what extent, can and potentially will this ripple through the legal community to affect separate but related aspects of internet usage, such as parental monitoring home-living kid's email, text messaging, etc? Who will soon (if not already) become the legal Gawdfaddah/Mutha of Internet Privacy?
Welcome to 2011.
Labels: cheaters write the durndest things in email, divorce, email snooping, internet, marriage, Michigan
posted by Skunkfeathers at 00:10
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10 Comments:
She gave him access to her passwords! Duh!! I say she relinquished her privacy rights in doing so. I'm just saying!!
If you share a computer within your home...then I feel your information such as emails will be shared as well. It happens...!!! If you want to keep things secret (which I fail to understand) then have an account on another computer not shared at home. As for the kids...home computer...everyone uses and the internet is still like the wild, wild west. Parents can and should monitor for obvious reasons. Predators being the main one!
I am married and I have my own separate computer. My passwords are accessible to my husband and he is more than welcome to read my emails!
There are no such things as secrets. There just isn't. Look at Wiki leaks!! Enough said!!
Hugs
SueAnn
Well, honestly, I would not be shocked it she won in court because some of our court systems are that screwed up...LOL! I just read about a lady who was sentenced to life for stealing something valued at $11.
No secrets in this household, although we each have our own computers. I never read his email, and I doubt he reads mine, but it wouldn't matter, anyway.
We just get weirder and weirder don't we? Yes we do. In our area they have laid off tons of cops and prosecutors. Who's going to arrest or try these dumb cases? Just asking.
Have a terrific day. My best to Seymour. :)
I could read Skunk's email, but he writes so weird. Anyway, I blocked his access to my email, after he tried to sign me up with CarbonDating.com...nuthin' but fossils over there. Ewwwww. I like babes ;-)
The husband bought the computer for the wife too, so technically you could say he owned it, or not. Very strange. The reason was that he felt his child was at risk because of her new (husband? boyfriend?)
What a mess.
Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
Looks like she set the poor sucker up to be sued (bigger divorce settlement, maybe?). Only I read my emails, unless I decide to forward something on. I am not in the least bit interested in reading hubby's emails, it would bore the crap out of me. I believe in respect, and expect that back - I've never checked my husband's phone, pockets, or wallet, nor would I dream of opening any post addressed to him. It has never crossed my mind he would ever do any of that with me, either. Should he do so, and in the unlikely event he does find something to take umbrage at tripping over, well the no good snooper would deserve all he got!!
Happy 2011 Skunk - hope it's a good one.
I have no idea how this is going to play out; it could go either way. It really is a connumdrum for the modern age, though. I'm not even sure such a thing as "privacy" exists any more. Just one more reason to be very careful about what you commit to writing, I guess.
Anyway... Happy New Year to you and Seymour.:)
I would have sworn this happened in CA. I had a CA thirdparty witness leave me an incriminating voicemail and guess what?! Local counsel in CA thought it violated the civil wiretap law because she had an "expectation of privacy" in a voicemail!
Hmm. I wonder if Michigan is a community-property state . . .
You have no more right to your spouse's email or social networking sites than you do their wallet, purse, mail...butttttttt anyone dumb enough to give a password to someone should understand consent has basically been given. Change your password immediately after you "let" someone use it for your personal email or social networking site. I suppose it will end up like an office computer..who bought the computer? Who pays for the ISP?
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