Am I the only one who notices that Prudie consistently chastises people who snoop (read their spouses or their kid's text messages, etc.)?

I give her all due props for being consistent, but I can't really say that I agree. Granted, there are people who are just nosy and snoop on thier loved ones because they are paranoid or suspicious for no good reason. I'd guess that most of us are against that sort of thing.

But Prudie seems to be against it under almost any circumstances. I say, under some circumstances, a little snooping is not only okay, but absolutely called for.

If you have reasons to be suspicious, you snoop, and find out that that your spouse is cheating, or your kid is smoking dope, let's be clear. They are the one with something to be ashamed of for cheating or smoking dope; not you for doing a little snooping.

You are not alone, believe me. And people who have something to hide almost always use anger over the "snooping" as a distraction from their own behavior that engendered the snooping in the first place.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in my top post -

Prudie sided with the male fiance! Since she is often accused of anti-male bias, I found that noteworthy.

Now you're telling me that it's just her anti-snooping bias trumping her anti-male bias? (She also sided with the Republican boyfriend, but that's apparently because of her anti-liberal bias.)

Anyway, I like to take a constitutional view of private snooping - you need some probable cause, and a good reason not to just ask straight out.

Reading someone's texts on a cell phone is a violation of his or her privacy. You can be charged with a crime too.

It's different for kids. They don't really have rights. Parents can pretty much be despotic overlords. But when you start talking spouses or girlfriends and boyfriends, it's illegal to do what the fiancee did in that letter.

Can you please explain that law in detail yggy? That seems ridiculous as I've never heard of ANYONE in a personal relationship getting fined or jail time for checking out someone else's messages. OPENING SEALED POST OFFICE METERED DELIVERED MAIL that isn't yours is a federal offense, but that's all I know about. Under what ruling has email, text messages, loose leaf pages, etc. been given federal protection?

there may not be many specific state privacy statutes. I'm basing this on my research of New York state's laws, which are pretty damn shabby, actually! I didn't dig too deeply, though, and privacy laws are incredibly complex.

The point to keep in mind here is we have reasonable expectations of privacy." What does that mean? If my cell phone is closed, I would consider that "private." If the government wanted to read the data on it, they would need a warrant. The same doesn't apply to my girlfriend, but I believe that I would be covered by privacy torts, so I think I could bring civil charges against her.

The reason I launched into all this is because privacy is a very fragile right in our constant surveillance, reality show world. But the fact remains that every one of us has a right to not be harassed by the government or any individual or corporation. And when we encourage snooping, we make it that much harder to embody that right.

This is the privacy excerpt from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Like with every other civil right, we either use it or we lose it.

I just get so damned outraged. ha!

Privacy law is very complicated and ever-changing. We have the Fourth Amendment. Most of our protections are against the government. We have some data privacy protections, and we have four privacy torts. And then there are some international protections, as I mentioned in post below this one.

What's relevant here, I think, is the "reasonable expectation of privacy." Now, any of us can give up that right. If I ask you if I can read the texts on your cell and you say yes, then you've forfieted any right to privacy. And maybe that's what happened with these two in the letter.

But my point is you can't just read people's texts or their email or otherwise intrude where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. There may not be a whole lot of hard laws, but I'm fairly certain it's actionable at least under the intrusion privacy tort.

I find it interesting because privacy is such an important thing, and yet we see this slow erosion of it. Between the terrorists, the child pornographers, the Facebooks and the Googles, people are pretty much willing to give up most privacy rights. The thing is when you give them up, you can never get them back.

one law that may exist which may cover the issue in this letter is trespassing. I wouldn't be surprised if courts in tech-heavy jurisdictions like San Jose or Seattle or even Manhattan would find that reading someone's text messages amounted to criminal trespassing.

No one thinks they're suspicious of others for no good reason - so I don't see how you can delinate between the two. (For instance - if you've been cheated on before, you're going to think your suspicion is justified in a case where someone who hasn't wouldn't. The result is that your current SO is being penalized for the sins of a former.)

First - if you are at the point of snooping - you need to end the relationship. You don't trust the person you're with - and probably need to find someone less attractive, or with less options. Snooping isn't going to make the problem go away.

Secondly - there is no such thing as a little snooping. Once you've hacked his e-mail, well, you've already gone this far - may has well check his voicemail.

What makes it worse, of course, is that there is no way to disprove a negative. If your snooping expedition comes up empty - that doesn't necessarily restore the trust - it encourages more snooping.

And of course - since you are snooping due to what you feel is justified suspicion - you're going to already be predisposed to view every action, text or anything else found as evidence - even if it doesn't fit, or taken out of context.

Lastly - if you do catch them in the act due to your snooping - it does reflect poorly on you. Even if people support your ending a relationship due to the cheating - everyone who knows that you snooped are going to trust you less.

I don't lie or have anything to hide - but that doesn't mean I'm ok with people going through my stuff.

evil_robots:

No one thinks they're suspicious of others for no good reason - so I don't see how you can delinate between the two. (For instance - if you've been cheated on before, you're going to think your suspicion is justified in a case where someone who hasn't wouldn't. The result is that your current SO is being penalized for the sins of a former.)

I can't form my opinion on the whole subject of whether snooping is justified based on the fact that some people are idiots. The fact that some individuals go snooping based on ridiculous or inadequate reasons certainly doesn't mean that other people don't have very good reasons for suspicion.

evil_robots:

Lastly - if you do catch them in the act due to your snooping - it does reflect poorly on you. Even if people support your ending a relationship due to the cheating - everyone who knows that you snooped are going to trust you less.

Or maybe, the people who know you snooped are going to think more of you for not being a doormat or a patsy for a cheating, lying spouse.

My point is that every circumstance is different. It doesn't make sense to say, "Snooping is perfectly alright, I don't know why it bothers anybody." But it is equally nonsensical to say, "There are no circumstances where it is right to snoop."

I'm with you on the erosion of privacy rights. I looked at a lease this weekend which stated in two seperate clauses that the landlord had a right to let himself into the apartment at anytime to 'inspect' it with no prior notification necessary.

I informed the landlord that was illegal by state law, he shrugged and said he was going to do it anyway. He also stated that it was worrisome that I would object - after all, what did I have to hide?

It was crazy.

SusanM:

I'm with you on the erosion of privacy rights. I looked at a lease this weekend which stated in two seperate clauses that the landlord had a right to let himself into the apartment at anytime to 'inspect' it with no prior notification necessary.

I informed the landlord that was illegal by state law, he shrugged and said he was going to do it anyway. He also stated that it was worrisome that I would object - after all, what did I have to hide?

It was crazy.

That is crazy. The landlord deal is a whole different can of beans. But there's a set of circumstances with individuals within a relationship that is light years removed from that situation.

if you have nothing to hide, why can't I look at your stuff?

Well, the answer is because you don't have the fucking legal authority to do so! If the cops think I've committed a crime, they can get a warrant and confiscate whatever, but you cannot do that!

This gets back to John Locke's original social contract idea. You are a free woman. I am a free man. Under no circumstances are you justified to tell me what to do, and vice versa. So we agree to give up some of out autonomy for the purpose of social order (e.g. national defense, legitimizing contracts, law enforcement etc.) But when it comes to the rest, any free person can tell any other free person to take a flying leap!

It is a different can of beans but I think the same argument underlies both. This idea that 1) I have a vested interest in making sure that you are being truthful verses 2) I have a vested interest in being able to live my life, with the occasional dirty laundry, without being under a microscope.

Even the best of partners occasionally have things that they don't want their SO to see. It is embarrassing, it was a screw up they just want to move past, whatever. If they are a trustworthy person then you don't have to use the microscope on them and can allow them to hide that stuff away. If they are not a trustworthy person, you should leave them just based on that. Snooping not needed.

Not if you are married. Same with opening their mail. And answering their phone.

And checking their email.

This woman is going to marry this guy, it is her right to look at his stuff, empty his pockets, etc. If he has a problem, then he should quit being a cheater.