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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.'"
The woman, tech-savvy enough to install spyware and obtain the results, should have no problem finding a new husband on Slashdot, where doubtlessly her activities have gained her a certain cred and mystique and a following.
in today's news Beverly Ann O'Brien sought a mass restraining order against a poster on slashdot.org who has been stalking her and sending poems, such as 'r05e r r3d, v1o13t r b1u3, a11 my ba53 r b310ng t0 y0u'
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So are logs now illegal in Florida? After all, logs are (usually) records of some form of communication which happens electronically.
You would think, in a marriage, the wife owns half of everything, so maybe she was just spying on her half of the pc.
How about text-sensitive software like Claria and WhenU that track certain websites using URLs through the IE address bar and pop up competitor's ads? Couldn't that be termed wiretapping as well, since it's actively monitoring addresses visited and keystrokes typed into a field?
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I'm sure there are numerous cases in the last 20 years where spouses recorded their home telephone calls in the hopes of catching a cheating spouse.
If this judge's ruling is in line with prior court ruling since the most recent changes in the law, then I don't see the problem.
On the other hand, if he broke with precedent, he could be overturned.
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How long before every kid in Florida gets an injunction on their parents from installing any monitoring software?
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Many states have different laws regarding what is legal in terms of wiretapping; some allow one party to record a phone call only if all parties consent, and others, famously D.C., for instance, do not.
Most all of them recognize that, outside of law enforcement activity a 3rd party isn't permitted to eavesdrop.
One thing that occurs to me is that there have been a spate of decisions in a law enforcement context to the effect that electronic communications like email lack the same "expectation of privacy" that phone calls and postal mail do. Whereas this seems to acknowledge that chat serves a similar function to the phone, just with distinct technology, and thus extends the same protection.
The article briefly mentioned that while this wife wasn't allowed to wiretap her husband, her husband's employer is (while he's at work, anyway). I thought this was funny, the different standards between the workplace and the home. There are a variety of justifications for wiretapping your employees - something that, as far as I know in most states, employers have carte blanche to do - but the interesting thing is that when you start thinking about them, most of them apply to the spouse as well.
At work, you use your employer's computer, in your employer's building (their machine, their house), but the wife jointly owns both. At work, you may make the argument that wiretapping is necessary to insure reliability and integrity of your business, but the spouse can argue the same is necessary to insure the integrity of the marriage. Both will claim: "What's their privacy for anyway? Do they have something to hide?"
The only strong argument I can think of for surveillance by employers is that the employee "consents." I suppose spouses don't have the same leverage to compel "consent" to eavesdropping as employers do.
Ugly business, trying to get a job that will promise to respect your privacy. You can always "just work somewhere else," but there are quite a few things we already prevent employers from doing because "somewhere else" is nowhere if we don't.
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At my job (in Florida) we maintain an email filter, which isolates in-bound and out-bound emails if they contain certain qualities (either spam-like, or have big attachements, etc).
I wonder if that would mean we are violating that law, since we are clearly intercepting electronic communications?
So, if I think someone is gaining illegal access to my computer while I'm not around, I can't install a keylogger to figure out who it is?
This case is the equivalent of a woman hiding a camera in her own bedroom to catch her husband in the act, only to be told it's inadmissable because they didn't know they were being taped.
There need to be reasonable limits to this sort of stuff. Soon we won't be able to submit any evidence at all that was gathered without the permission of the accused...
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Unless the PC was his before the marraige, the whole PC is 'theirs' and she can install whatever she wants on it.
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The court ruled that the software, Spector, violated Florida's wiretapping law - which states that it is criminal to 'intentionally intercept' any 'electronic communication.'"
So, does this apply to other, more illegitimate spyware as well, then?
I just finished reading a computer forensics book, and found out something interesting.
Apparently the FBI can't keylog you while a modem is in operation because of some bizarre issue with phone tapping (something like you can't tap modem communication without a separate warrant). The FBI keylogger actually turns off when a modem is active. How about that?
I guess this sort of the same, but on a local level (and with a broader reach).
I hate how sometimes this comes up to near something personal. It shows how screwed up people are. My wife was searching sex search sites recently and I only discovered after some recent oddities when trying to fix her computer. It definitely woke up the relationship. Trust is so hard to rebuild though.
I spoke to a lawyer and in courts.. it ends up being next to useless. You may as well just leave the relationship... that being said.. it's not easy.
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Legal or not, if he's plugging into a box that's running in promiscuous mode, he deserves what he gets.
who isn't afraid to post anonymously and knows how to use his CAPS LOCK key...
should have no problem finding a new husband on Slashdot
I felt a great disturbance in the Force when I read this, as if millions of socially inept voices suddenly cried out at the opportunity to get laid.
So I guess the question in how far can you take this? Does this automatically mean that any spyware is wiretapping? After all, most adware does observe and report a person's internet browsing activity. But I'm sure some people would argue it's a gray line, because is sending URLs really a form of electronic communication? Does spyware 'listen' to enough human-inteprettable language to be considered a wiretap?
In a phone analogy, it's more like listening in on which phone number is being dialed, not the conversation. But in a lot of instances there is more information, thanks to the query string. A URL can tell an adware program what books someone is looking at on Amazon, or what they are searching for at Google.
Just thinking out loud....
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So we can conclude that so-called "Homeland Security" -- which routinely intercepts electronic communication without a warrant -- is a criminal organization.
Seastead this.
I don't think it was the act of installing it that was the issue. She was capturing his conversations electronically. That is what violated the law, and that was the reason the conversations were not usable in court.
It shouldn't matter whose computer he was using, you aren't allowed to electronically intercept communications under Florida law. The how isn't important I don't think.
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No, to quote the article:
But Grincewicz concluded that "because the spyware installed by the wife intercepted the electronic communication contemporaneously with transmission, copied it and routed the copy to a file in the computer's hard drive, the electronic communications were intercepted in violation of the Florida Act."
It sounds like even if it had been a complete stranger using the woman's computer, it would have been illegal to record the conversation.
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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.
I am pretty sure that once you are married what's his is hers and what's hers is his.
No no no... You've obviously never been married. What's his is her's, and what's her's is her's.
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Truer words were never spoken. I actually used Spector about 5 years ago. Caught my wife in the middle of an online romance (the $600 phone bills were the real give away) and planning on cheating. Anyway, we got divorced shortly thereafter.
I don't really think Spector and similar programs are "bad" (illegal perhaps), but at the same time, I don't think they are that helpful. Think of it this way: if you use the program and find evidence, most likely the relationship is over. If you do not use the program but the trust issues are so severe you feel like you need to, the relationship is also over. Why not save the trouble and spend the $50 on a new shirt - you'll be dating again soon whether you install it or not. The only purpose Spector serves is fueling a sense of self-righteous indignation -- a new shirt looks a lot nicer on.
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