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FL Court Rules Against Spouse-Installed Spyware
idobi writes "A Florida court ruled that it was illegal for a wife to install spyware on her husband's computer, in order to catch him in an extramarital affair. The three judge panel barred the woman from using the chat records from being introduced as evidence in the divorce proceedings. The court ruled that the software, Spector, violated Florida's wiretapping law - which states that it is criminal to 'intentionally intercept' any 'electronic communication.'"
Unless the PC was his before the marraige, the whole PC is 'theirs' and she can install whatever she wants on it.
- no sig here
No thats not the point. You are invading thier data. It does not matter who owns the pc. Same way, if your friend uses your phone to make a call, that does not mean you can wiretap that phone, since its your phone..
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."--Howard Zinn
This is what I find amusing about states and their differences in laws. LA recently had a similar case where a man used a keylogger to keep tabs on his employer. This was ruled as not breaking wiretap laws. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9978
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Yes, it happened but it was in the context of the boy's drug trial. The evidence obtained from the mother's evesdropping was ruled inadmissable. So the court didn't say she couldn't do it but rather said that the information couldn't be used to convict someone else.
At least that's my recollection.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
There was recently a case in Washington State where a suspicious mother had picked up the phone to listen to her daughter's conversation with one of her friends. Well it turns out the friend was a suspect in a robbery and the mother was called to testify. Now the testemony has been ruled inadmissible for similar reasons.
If it's the Washington State case, the 16-yo daughter was talking to her 20-something boyfriend. The boyfriend was telling her about how he mugged a woman the day before, and where he hid the evidence "where the cops will never find it".
Mother overheard the convo on the downstairs phone, and called the cops. They found the purse and stuff hidden right where the guy put it, and busted him for assault.
Judge threw the evidence out.
I would say that this would mean a few things:
1. Yes, you could run a keylogger etc.
2. No, you cannot use it as evidence.
Therefore, if you suspect your significant other doing things with other people, you could use the keylogger etc to confirm those suspicions. Then do the traditional thing - get pictures in public places. Or hire someone to "follow" the significant other.
That kind of stuff is legal, and as long as you don't rely on the keylogger for ANY evidence, I don't think you'll run into a problem... of course you could always be asked how you found out about the affairs; you could always respond that you didn't feel right about something....
Of course, this is close to lying, but it just depends on your internal ethics. I firmly believe if there's something wrong in the relationship, you have a right to know -- and to be honest, if you're resorting to sniffing packets or keylogging, there probably IS something wrong.
If you can't trust, you may as well be single; that's where you'll end up.
Karnal
Over here, I think it goes something like 'you keep any property you can conclusivly prove you took into the marriage, everything else is split 50/50'. No judge would give a rats ass for the reasons you want a divorce.. you agreed the share everything, and if you now want to stop sharing everything that's your deal.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
my divorce in 1996 I owned an ISP. my Ex was having an online affair and the court was happy to look at all her email logs, captured chat sessions and detailed logs of websites and captures of the images and the like.
her lawyer tried the same tricks, the judge threw out the request stating "privately owned computer equipment is not under the jurisdiction of the wiretapping laws."
Sorry, that's no longer true.
If you read the decision, you'll see that the Security of Communications Act was passed in 2003, well after your court case.
The act was "a policy decision by the Florida legislature to allow each party to a conversation to have an expectation of privacy from interception by another party to the conversation."