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Is Reading Spouse's E-Mail a Crime?

Posted by timothy on from the ask-the-judge dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Detroit Free Press reports that Leon Walker is charged with unlawfully reading the e-mail of Ciara Walker, his wife at that time, which showed she was having an affair with her second husband, who once had been arrested for beating her in front of her son. Walker says he gave the e-mails to her first husband, the child's father, to protect the boy. 'I was doing what I had to do,' says Walker. 'We're talking about putting a child in danger.' Now prosecutors, relying on a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets, have charged Leon Walker with a felony for logging onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife. Prosecutor Jessica Cooper defended her decision to charge Walker. 'The guy is a hacker,' says Cooper, adding that the Gmail account 'was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained. Then he downloaded [the emails] and used them in a very contentious way.'"

47 of 496 comments (clear)

  1. Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by HungryHobo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is opening a spouses physical mail a crime?

    1. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So by that logic, if you rent out a room in your house you can legally read that person's mail? I think that name is pretty important.

    2. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't think so. US Postal regulations forbid anyone other than the recipient to open the letter, until delivery. Once a letter is delivered, they don't care what happens to it. After all, I throw out junk mail addressed to my wife. Is that also a crime?

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    3. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      Please, don't give the junk mail senders ideas for their next lobbying move.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by vlm · · Score: 5, Informative

      Letter of the law? I believe so.

      However, in practice, though mail addressed to you may have your name on it, it's the address that's important. As long as you live at that address, you can open that mail.

      Err, not exactly. Slashdot-lawyering is always fun to watch.

      http://www.ehow.com/about_6293417_federal-mail-not-addressed-you_.html

      In grotesque summary of a website's summary at the federal level "The statute is essentially about stealing mail from the Post Office.". In other words the feds pretty much don't care as long as there are no post office employees or post office property directly involved.

      In the computer world that we live in, we all know and understand there is a desperate goal to re-legislate all our crimes with the words "on a computer" suffixed at great expense and publicity, etc. But in the real physical world, they mostly use general statutes which only tangentially happen to involve a piece of physical mail in this specific case.

      So you might get charged with stealing, if you stole someones mail. Or identity theft if you do that, with someone elses mail. Or maybe some weird insider trading law, if thats what you do based on some stolen mail.

      In other words the trial will be about them doing some naughtyness, and the stolen mail will be a piece of evidence. But there will be no charge of "opening the mail"

      That being said, just as anyone can be civil sued for anything at any time by any one, the same applies to criminal court, although that doesn't mean it won't be thrown out with laughter by the judge, or involved as the start or end of a plea bargain, or tossed out on appeal by a sane judge.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    5. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This might come as a surprise to you but you give up a lot of privacy to your spouse when you get married.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    6. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by vlm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is unless your spouse is your property.

      Actually that's a pretty good first level short summary analysis of tax law, inheritance law, bankruptcy law (depending a bit on state), several legal liability issues, some real estate and titled property law (think "car title"), a wide variety of medical ethics law such as DNR orders, and how the right of self incrimination at least somewhat extends to spouses in court. There are probably other areas but thats just off the top of my head.

      Being a summary, means only an idiot would think it is the entire story for all situations, but it IS pretty much the base assumption of a heck of a lot of law, its the assumption you should start with and then refine. Following the rules of the game doesn't mean you like either the rules of the game or playing the game, it just means... you're following the rules of the game... Thats all I mean, not that I agree with it.

      So, enough fact, now some opinion, which is, at the core of it, the big problem with the whole gay marriage thing, is that a basic right of many of our laws is being denied to people pretty much because "a living dude, whom pompously claims to speak for a powerful invisible unprovable guy in the sky, claims some people are bad because of how the guy in the sky made them, yet both the dude doing the talking and the guy in the sky are so incredibly weak and unimportant that they can't actually do anything about the people they don't like, so we'd like a law so policemen with guns can force them to live under our sad, twisted worldview" Not that I am showing any bias about that issue, naaaaaah.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    7. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by jbengt · · Score: 5, Insightful
      That analogy fails to address the issues in this case.

      The relevant law he is being charged with, according to TFA:

      A person shall not intentionally and without authorization or by exceeding valid authorization do any of the following:

      Access or cause access to be made to a computer program, computer, computer system or computer network

      Well, he did access a computer that he bought for his wife and that he had often used, possibly while exceeding valid authorization, but he used the password that his wife had written down in a book next to the computer, so from the provider's viewpoint, he was authorized.

      to acquire, alter, damage delete or destroy property

      No he didn't do any of those and didn't have intent to do those.

      or otherwise use the service of a computer program, computer, computer system or computer network.

      I read this as theft of services, which he did not do and he did not intend to do.

      I don't think there was\ any reason to charge him under this statute.
      IANAL, YMMV, etc.

    8. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How about a more common sense approach to the question? When you're married, what's yours is hers, what's hers is hers, and what's our's is hers. That's the way it's always been, unless prenuptuals were signed. My wife opens all my mail - for the most part, I never bother looking at it. I routinely open mail that has her name on it - especially if she isn't home for a couple of days. Something may need to be brought to her attention, for pity's sake! Not to mention that ALL of my dealings are her business, and ALL of her dealings are my business. Marriage. I'm responsible for her, she's responsible for me, we're a team, a partnership. Only if, and when, an announcement of separation and/or impending divorce is made, are the married couple no longer a team or a partnership. AT THAT POINT IN TIME, then yes, it should become illegal to open his/her mail, or to tamper with his/her finances, property, or whatever. Oh yeah. The article mentioned that she was having an affair? That is most definitely the husband's legitimate concern. He has the right to know that the ho is cheating on him. And, also, a child's welfare was mentioned as the reason for forwarding the emails to a third party? Extenuating circumstances. It's ILLEGAL for a large percentage of the population to FAIL to report possible child abuse and endangerment. Hacking? Horse shit. I've read nothing to indicate that the guy didn't just GUESS the Gmail password. Hacking. My ass. Stupid bitch who is prosecuting him doesn't have a clue what hacking is all about.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    9. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by xmousex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is also my take on it. "two become one". But I am starting to wonder if either I was mislead somewhere about what marriage was, or if marriage is quickly being redefined into something completely meaningless.

    10. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by magarity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You need to recheck your definition of hilarious. Hilarious would be if the wife was having a secret affair with his mistress. Still seeing the guy who beat her is pathetic and disturbed.

    11. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This reeks of a racially motivated prosecution, quite honestly.

    12. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by easterberry · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Santa Letters in Canada are distributed to volunteers (mostly post office staff and the family thereof) who read them and write responses according to specific sets of rules and guidelines. My family does it every year since my father's a post man. It's fun.

    13. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by darkpixel2k · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't be a disingenuous ass. Having a room mate is clearly different than being married in the legal sense. There are special rights given to married couples. You share a credit rating, your lives are linked. Again, don't be an ass.

      Ha! I wish we shared a credit rating. When my wife and I got married, we had pretty much the same credit scores. She stayed home to raise the kids, and I went back to work. When I had to unexpectedly resign and spend the next two months searching for work, a few of the credit cards got behind. I spent months simply dumping money towards paying late fees. After about a year, we started making a dent, but the credit card companies weren't too happy. All the cards were in my name.

      So fast forward a few years, we have everything paid off and I have a good job. (Hell--I have a job in this economy.) We both had been receiving credit card offers in the mail since about a week after everything was paid off. We both received offers for Discover cards with under 15% interest rates--so we both applied. I put down that I made about $40k/year. My wife put down that she made $0/year. I was approved for $1,000. She was approved for $2,500.

      You don't share credit scores when married.

      --
      There's no place like ::1 (I've completed my transition to IPv6)
    14. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by TheABomb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My first thought was that he just went to Gmail and let the browser's stored password do the work. Then I read TFA: "Leon Walker told the Free Press he routinely used the computer and that she kept all of her passwords in a small book next to the computer."

      So no. He didn't "guess" the password. He didn't have to—she gave it to him. By this lawyer's logic, someone who enters a building via a door that has the word "PUSH" written on it is a master catburglar.

      --
      MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
    15. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by TheABomb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I thought that when I saw the photo in the article along with the prosecutor's contention that he possessed some sort of unnatural skill at "hacking" because he read the paper on which his wife wrote all her passwords that she kept next to the computer. In other words, due either to institutional racism or affirmative action lowering the bar so far, black people are no longer expected by our legal system to be literate or have any sort of basic problem-solving skills.

      --
      MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
    16. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by Teancum · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Again, don't be an ass.

      Is this compatible with a technical discussion about law ?

      Absolutely! The best laws are ones where common sense prevails, and where somebody being an ass is laughed out of the courtroom. If you can clearly demonstrate to a judge that the opposing counsel is being an ass, they most certainly have proven that they have lost the argument.

      Fortunately it is the person who responds with name calling because they lack other tools to demonstrate the benefits with their side of the argument who most often loses, but that isn't always the case as is most certainly true here. The advise to not "be an ass" is certainly most appropriate in this context, although the point could have been proven without such language.

      Certainly a spouse is given extra consideration in such a context like reading mail that isn't normally afforded even a supervisor or landlord. If your employer can read your e-mail with impunity, the same argument can be used with a spouse. This prosecution, if successful, has some major legal consequences if it gets anywhere near to common law status for more than a single courtroom.

    17. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by Teancum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It sounds like you are somebody who doesn't either need nor deserve marriage in any form. Part of the point of a marriage is that you share your life in such an intimate level that it becomes difficult to distinguish any separate property. Marriage is about serving and cherishing each other, about giving more than you receive and doing good for others in spite of personal limitations.

      In such a situation, marriage is something that is incredibly powerful where two people support and sustain each other to fill in the weaknesses of each other to be much stronger together. Unfortunately when you have two selfish people who fight against each other rather than work with each other to make each other stronger, the effort to cut each other down actually backfires and makes both "partners" all that weaker and makes attacks from outside of the marriage all that easier to destroy the lives of those bound in the marriage.

      Marriage is thus a two edged sword that can be incredibly powerful or to be absolutely horrible, depending on how those involved make it. Divorce in particular is awful because intimate details have been shared and are being used against each other, often as a sort of a game. I'll also point out that with rare exceptions (and I'm not even sure with that) there are no "winners" in a divorce. At best it can be said to be a form of "cutting your losses" and at worst the equivalent of a thermonuclear war in terms of relationships. Amicable divorces can happen, where at least those married can agree to disagree and move on with their lives and a minimum of damage to each other. Unfortunately it is all too easy to lob that first "bomb" and start the war where everybody loses, including those outside of the marriage and in particular the kids in the marriage in particular are the ones hurt the most.

    18. Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? by HeronBlademaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's why I am never getting married. My stuff is MY stuff and it's not going to suddenly belong to somebody else like that. I don't need somebody opening my mail, thinking for me, choosing what I watch on TV or what I eat for dinner, or what I get to spend my money on.

      There's no rule saying your spouse has to think for you, choose what you watch on TV or what you eat for dinner, or what you spend your money on, and as you have pointed out, that attitude from either spouse will do great harm to the relationship. This is doubly true if either partner has this attitude before the marriage even begins - and based on your comments, you already think that every potential spouse will treat you this way. You are not doing yourself any favors with that attitude.

      It is not the case that one partner must take precedence over the other. The fact is, you can choose a spouse who will hold you in as high a regard as you hold her, who will treat your happiness as if it is just as important, if not more so, than her own. I know this is true because my wife and I treat each other this way. We both strive to make the other happy. That is one of the most important cornerstones of any successful relationship, married or not.

      Don't avoid marriage just because you have friends who suck at choosing good spouses. All it means is that you should choose more carefully than they did. Yes, the divorce rate is disturbingly high, but that does not mean marriage itself is inherently flawed. In reality the two biggest reasons couples get divorced are as follows: either they disagree on financial issues, or one spouse has some habit or engages in some other activity that they know the other finds distasteful, but refuses to change or compromise at all. Both are issues that should have been worked out before marriage was considered in the first place. If all couples discussed these things before deciding to get married, the divorce rate would plummet.

      The modern marriage mindset seems to be "if it doesn't work out, we can just get divorced". This encourages people to marry too soon, to give up rather than work together to fix problems, discourages relationship-building, and cheapens the concept of marriage entirely. Indeed, the most successful marriages are marriages where neither spouse views divorce as an acceptable solution.

      I'm going to say this again, because it bears repeating: these are all issues that can and should be resolved before marriage.

      Difficult to see the upside honestly.

      You only have difficulty seeing the upside because you can't fathom the possibility that you might find a spouse that won't treat you like dirt. Perhaps you're finding your relationships in the wrong place.

      Surely you can see the benefits of a marriage where both spouses treat each other equally?

  2. What a hacker! by Xelios · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to TFA, her email password was written down in a little book kept by the family computer. And yet, "The guy is a hacker" and "It was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained."

    Really, I don't see how it can get any more ridiculous than this. I realize the prosecutor has to put on a show to support such ridiculous charges, but good lord...

    --
    Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
    1. Re:What a hacker! by CODiNE · · Score: 4, Funny

      "he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained."

      Perhaps he's an MCSE??

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    2. Re:What a hacker! by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's one got to do with the other?

      We're furious about this, let's say, "liberal" use of the term "hacker". By that definition, anyone able to read and open a mail program is a hacker.

      That should be, like, everyone.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:What a hacker! by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      According to TFA, her email password was written down in a little book kept by the family computer. And yet, "The guy is a hacker" and "It was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained." Really, I don't see how it can get any more ridiculous than this. I realize the prosecutor has to put on a show to support such ridiculous charges, but good lord...

      You obviously have not seen some of the products of the US education system - being able to recognize and open a book, and then actually read what is inside may very well qualify someone as having "wonderful skills" and being "highly trained."

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  3. Re:Depends on prenap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pre-nap? You mean I'm bound by things I said before I first slept with her? Oh god.

  4. Re:"Hacking" by codegen · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am going to guess that either her password was easy to guess, or that he used a keystroke logging program to learn it.

    from the TFA, the wife kept the passwords written down in a book beside the computer.

    --
    Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
  5. Considering... by ewhenn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering that when you are married, in terms of property rights, you are considered a single legal entity, I honestly don't see how this would stand up in court.

    1. Re:Considering... by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If my wife gets an important letter she's waiting for, while she's at work, I phone her to ask for permission to open it and read it to her.
      It's one of the cornerstones of marriage that you respect the privacy of your partner, even if you're a jealous asshole.

      Wait, wait, wait. The wife in this story is cheating on her third husband with her ex-second, who by the way has a criminal record for abusing her. The third goes into her email and provides it to the first husband, the father of their son, so that he might intervene and prevent any contact between his son and the second.

      And the third is the asshole?

      Really??

      It seems to me that the Mrs has very poor judgement, and her privacy has less value than making sure her son stays safe. Sometimes individuals need to violate the law in order to do the right thing. This appears to be one of those times.

      Further, he's not 'jealous'. That appears to be his WIFE that we're talking about. Everyone that she sleeps with is also sleeping with him, in terms of VD, and she genuinely has no right to keep that sort of secret until after they're separated. Vis-a-vis him cheating on her.

      I'm just out-and-out stunned that you'd defend her by blaming number three. Do husbands really have NO rights any more? Are they genuinely just boyfriends with joint bank accounts? Marriage means NOTHING additional?

  6. Re:Is-ought fallacy by pedantic+bore · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wait, are we asking whether reading your spouse's email IS a crime (in Michigan, at least), or whether it OUGHT to be a crime?

    This is slashdot. Laws are irrelevant here. Just stick IMHO in front of everything, including this paragraph, and you'll be fine.

    --
    Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
  7. Stupid prosecution by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think it is ridiculous that this is being brought as a criminal prosecution. If his ex-wife had brought a civil suit, I would still think he should win, but that would be a sensible case. The man's fear of the child being exposed to domestic violence (possibly even physical abuse of the child) was perfectly legitimate. I would really like to know why the prosecutor is really going after this man. It sounds personal.

    --
    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    1. Re:Stupid prosecution by bsDaemon · · Score: 4, Funny

      he successfully used a computer, which makes him a nerd. The prosecutor is a chick, and chicks hate nerds.

    2. Re:Stupid prosecution by VendettaMF · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >>I would really like to know why the prosecutor is
      >>really going after this man. It sounds personal.

      He located evidence that the mother is not the best suited of the two parents to keep custody of the child. In the US this is blasphemy of the highest order. He shall be stoned forthwith.

      --
      kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
    3. Re:Stupid prosecution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Pretty accurate. It's ridiculous how much the US legal system is biased in favor of women.

      Shit like this is a great example of why I will never get married. You can't trust a woman farther than you can throw an AT-AT.

      Actually, your last sentence is a great example of why you'll never get married.

  8. Re:Depends on prenap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The state of Michigan does not recognize prenuptual agreements. State law here recognizes, in effect, one generic marriage "contract", which is very vaguely defined. Michigan law *barely* defines how property is to be divided upon divorce. It certainly does not go in to any detail about the boundaries of privacy.

    In practice, what happens in a Michigan divorce is that property is divided equally between "the parties", regardless of who filed, what caused the divorce, or either party's behavior during the marriage. Not an entirely unreasonable approach - family law judges have enough to sort out withou having to hear divorcing spouses' laundry list of grievances.

    Michigan law *does* allow for unequal distribution of marital property in cases of egregious misconduct by one spouse. Presumably this is a "out" to allow one spouse to keep the marital property if the other spouse is convicted of trying to bump them off. But the bar for unequal distribution is set pretty high, meaning you pretty much have to have a felony conviction against your ex in order to get more than 50% of the family assets. Unfortunately, this means that the spouse who made the charges in this case has a financial interest in elevating the reading of spousal e-mail to the level of a felony.

    DISCLOSURE: I am not a lawyer, but I was divorced in Michigan (more than the statute of limitations ago), and my ex tried to raise this same charge against me in family court. Judge and lawyers agreed at that time the was no clear statutory guidance on this issue, suggesting that the state courts will have to make this up as they go.

  9. What About The Children? by cob666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Imagine if the second husband DID assault the child? Then the new husband would be in trouble for NOT doing anything to prevent this atrocious act.

    Funny that when we actually SHOULD be thinking about the children something else gets in the way.

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
  10. Hey Hugh Pickens, by netsharc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i.e. summary writer: learn to summarize better! Your first sentence had me so fucking confused. My mind as I read through that mess: "so he's the guy's husband, and he read his wife's email, he finds out his wife is having an affair with the second husband. Second husband? Oh, so do you mean the "hacker" is the first husband, and at the time the article was written, she's married to the guy she's been having an affair with? OK. But then he printed the emails and handed them to the woman's first husband. Wait, what? Isn't the hacker the first husband?"

    You could have added ", who is Ciara Walker's third husband," in there to make the whole fucking thing easier to comprehend! I even RTFA to see if that incomprehensible mess was a copy/paste job, but lookie there: "Leon Walker was Clara Walker's third husband."

    *mumble mumble kids and stupid American education these days.*

    --
    What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
  11. Sexism? by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In this particular case I wonder, if the wife had checked the husband's email and found out about an affair, would she have been charged with a felony too? This seems almost like an attempt to abuse the law for sexist purposes to me. Unless the prosecutor just needs attention.

  12. Re:Are you guys really loosing it in the U.S? by Nursie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Trust is not needing that password.

    Lack of trust is asking for it.

    End of.

    Not sure what I would do in that situation.

  13. Be that as it may, Cooper is a lamer by Suki+I · · Score: 4, Funny

    Prosecutor Jessica Cooper is totally lame and would not know what a real hacker is if she said "he had wonderful skills" vs he had mad skillz. Typical know-nothing government official.

    --
    Home of The Suki Series
  14. educational system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    DUDE, Reading is hacking, don't you know anything about the US Legal term for hacking?!?

    Given the state of large parts of the US educational system, I think reading could qualify as "wonderful skills" and being "highly trained".

  15. Re:Are you guys really loosing it in the U.S? by robot256 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    She was having an affair with her abusive ex-husband. What integrity?

  16. Not according to the federal government by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many times have the Feds argued in court (or filings) that people have no expectation of privacy in emails?

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    1. Re:Not according to the federal government by mounthood · · Score: 4, Informative

      The EFF has thankfully fought that fight for all of us:
      Breaking News on EFF Victory: Appeals Court Holds that Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment

      --
      tomorrow who's gonna fuss
  17. Are MI prosecutors elected? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This would seem like a classic ad - "XX wants to protect child abusers...prosecuted someone for warning a parent of potential abuse...weak on crime...wrong then, and wrong for MI..."

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  18. Cooper might not be sexist, just incompetent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here is another case where she made a big mistake, was proven wrong by evidence and wouldn't admit that she made a mistake. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/09/did_oakland_county_prosecutor.html http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/prosecutor-laura-johnson-freed-murder-evidence-not-enough-20100927-wpms

  19. This should only be a civil case... by realsilly · · Score: 4, Informative

    First of all, the woman is now divorced from her 3rd husband. So she marries the 1st one and has a child, then Divorces #1 for some reason. Marries a second man who BEATS her in front of the child from the 1st Marriage. Why was the child not taken from the mother then? Probably because she sought a better life, divorcing husband #2 and found a third man to call husband.

    While we don't have the full story, and of course the News doesn't always provide all the facts, so this assessment is one of pure speculation based on information available, here is how I see the situation.

    The third husband is a smart guy, and knows his way around a computer, and may likely make a decent living. The third husband seems to give a shit about the wife's son from a previous marriage, which provides the impression that he's a decent guy. The wife CHEATS on her third husband with the second husband, the one who BEAT her. So husband number three figures out his wife is cheating on him, and finds proof via her email, and in finding proof he notifies husband #1 to offer protection to the child. Here he could have gone to authorities and tried to protect the child that was living under his roof, but he went back to the birth father and say "hey man, you might want to know the potential danger your child is in..." (not an actual quote).

    I suspect the Wife is pissed off because she's caught cheating which likely means she's lied to husband #3. I suspect she is probably pissed off, for child being removed from her custody, which she may have used the child as a tool against husband #1 for Child Support or as a power play . Now she's made to look the fool, by all three of her husbands past and present. The 1st husband has the child now, the 2nd husband is having sex with her again, and the 3rd husband caught her violating the vows of marriage. So she punishes the 3rd with legal action and finds a prosecutor to find possible Felony charges against husband #3.

    She's already proven, by cheating, that she has the ability to lie, so why should her version of the story be more credible? At this point, based on a limited amount of facts, I see the 3rd husband as a victim. And when you are married there is a measure of trust between spouses, or should be. If he was always using the PC and she has the passwords in a book then only the act of him reading and typing in the password to an account that was not his is in question, right? The one thing that helps him is that he's no longer married to someone who didn't respect him enough not to cheat on him.

    I believe we have a right to privacy even in our own homes from our spouses. I feel that while the man did violate her privacy, I honestly feel that his motives were right. I hope that a judge looks at this case and treats both parties fairly. He did violate privacy, but she, in my eyes has violated far more and deserves to be punished.

    Again, all this is based on speculation of the facts as the new has reported them up to now.

    --
    Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
  20. Re:Are you guys really loosing it in the U.S? by pknoll · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My wife doesn't know any of my passwords, and I don't know any of hers. However, I do have an escrow file which she can open in the event of my death which contains them all.

    She will need access to banking sites etc. when that happens, so privacy until then, and full disclosure after.

  21. Re:Are you guys really loosing it in the U.S? by Nursie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My wife has all my passwords: email, login, local admin, server roots, domain, banking logins, etc, etc. I gave them to her especially BECAUSE I trust her.

    Did you do that because you wanted to or because she asked and made it into a trust issue?