Modern divorce: Wiretapped teddy bears, $120,000 in fines

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/-modern-divorce-wiretapped-teddy-bears-120000-in-fines.ars

by abraham • 15 years ago

44 18 15 years ago

bugsy2• 15 years ago

There are a lot of bad laws out there. This is not the first really dumb case involving children out of Nebraska, back in 2008 the do-gooders there passed a child drop off law that said you could abandon your child at a firestation without problem, thinking it would save babies from dumpsters, but instead they had people from as far away as Florida driving to Nebraska to drop their teenagers off.

chanks• 15 years ago

Those are called Safe Haven laws, and every state has them in some form or another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law

joebananas• 15 years ago

How is this a bad law or dumb? It seems pretty reasonable that people shouldn't be allowed to bug their ex-spouses houses.

bugsy2• 15 years ago

It's bad because it criminalizes catching this sort of abuse:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/nanny-cam-captures-abuse-on-...

jacques_chester2• 15 years ago

There's a saying that the one law that always passes is the law of unintended consequences.

mattmanser• 15 years ago

This law has been enacted in exactly the sort of scenario that was imagined in its passing. There's no unintended consequence here, this is the exact consequence that it's supposed to protect against.

There's something inherently evil in invading someone's life like this, an orwellian scenario that only a fool can think benefits us precisely because of the human behaviour described in the article, the eavesdropper just picks and chooses the most damaging conversations completely out of context to disclose.

This was a gross invasion of privacy and a despicable act on the behalf of the mother. It's good to see law ruling on the correct side of the debate.

earl• 15 years ago

The people of nebraska are do-gooders, used in an apparently pejorative sense, because they want to help get children out of situations where the children aren't wanted? What?

JoachimSchipper• 15 years ago

Actually, the wiretapping law is a federal, not state, law.

khafra• 15 years ago

I, personally, would rather not have children being raised by the type of person willing to drive from Florida to Nebraska to dump them at a fire station.

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

There's a big difference between genuine concern for your child's safety and wanting to score points in a custody case. This sounds like the young woman knew very good and well(especially after reviewing the recordings) that her ex wasn't abusing their daughter, but continued the survailence simply to show him in the worst possible light. Frankly, it seems her hatred of him is causing her daughter to be caught in the crossfire and unless she significantly changes her behavior, she needs to lose custody. She's a little girl. Not a pawn to be manipulated so you look good.

sethg• 15 years ago

A very wise person once said that nothing brings out the worst in people like divorce and probate.

regehr• 15 years ago

Joke from a lawyer I know:

Family court == good people at their worst.

Criminal court == bad people at their best.

DevX101• 15 years ago

Merits of the case aside, that woman hired a pretty shitty divorce lawyer. The lawyer handed over incriminating material to the judge without any clue that the recording was indeed illegal.

davidtgoldblatt• 15 years ago

http://static.arstechnica.com/2011/03/08/teddy_bear_ruling.p...

The tapes ultimately came to light because of discovery requests for relevant evidence. I couldn't quickly find any relevant information about discovery rules in Nebraska courts, but I'd be surprised if failing to reveal the recordings was legal here.

wooster• 15 years ago

In a civil trial, sure, but when the evidence unveiled in discovery could result in criminal charges, I'd think the 5th Amendment would come into play. In any case, it'd get complicated quickly.

drdaeman• 15 years ago

I wonder about one thing possibly related to "wiretapping"...

Consider a person, who has really bad memory and frequently forget things. He may consider putting some sort of device on himself, which would record everything happening around. Then, if something was forgotten, this person may use his records as a sort of "external memory". Would such kind of "memory aid" be legal?

Edit: Also, if so — wouldn't (in a story linked) child's statement that she knew that the bear was a recording device legalize the situation? (Considering the bear wasn't left somewhere to record, but always remained with kid)

Modern divorce: Wiretapped teddy bears, $120,000 in fines

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