Slashdot Mirror
Text Messages in the Courts
KennyG944 noted a story running on CNN which talks about Text Messages being used in the Kobe Bryant trial. This raises a host of issues about the phone company keeping these messages around and expectations of privacy.
Actually, they may well be VERY relevent, depending on what the message contained.
There was a famous trial in the 1920's of a rags to riches hollywood comedian named Fatty Arbuckle, who was accused of raping a young woman with a coke bottle in his bathroom, during a party. He had actually gone to trial 2x on a hung jury, but on the 3rd trial, it was revealed that a star witness for the prosecution (a woman of dubious character) had sent a telegram to an associate a few hours after the alleged incident saying that she had Fatty over a barrel and was going to squeeze him, or something to that effect. He was aquitted on the third trial, although his career was destroyed by that time.
http://ms.essortment.com/arbucklefatty_rams.htm
My rights don't need management.
Once your message is deposited on a drive that someone else owns, you've lost the chance to protect your privacy.
You're at the mercy of the people with access to your messages. I learned that when, months after cancelling a broadband IPS account, I discovered that the supposedly-defunct email accounts were left active and that ISP employees had access to the usernames and passwords for those accounts.(It wasn't a mistake; they keep email accounts alive in case an old customer comes back, and employees -- supervisors, in this case -- have access to passwords in case customers forget them.)
When I asked about privacy issues, the ISP told me they'd fire anyone who abused access to those accounts. Of course, that's if they get caught. Since I thought the account was cancelled and stopped looking at it months ago, my chances of catching someone posting email on that account were pretty slim. Text messages are no different.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"