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Warning: Eavesdropping on Your Spouse?s E-Mail Just May Land You in Jail Under New Laws

By Janet Langjahr

Michigan Husband and Wife have a child together.

Husband and Wife aren’t getting along.

Husband suspects Wife of having an affair.

Husband wants to know for sure.

Husband is concerned about the behavior of third parties around their child.

Wife leaves her e-mail password readily available to Husband.

Husband bought the computer Wife uses. The computer and the home it is in are marital property.

Husband allegedly logs onto Wife’s e-mail account and looks through her e-mail, in search of confirmation.

Some of Wife’s e-mails subsequently are offered into evidence in Wife’s child custody case with her former husband.

Husband is arrested for violation of a state law targeting hackers for profit or with malicious intent to cause damage.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years.

This is the first application of Michigan’s criminal statute to spouse’s spying on each other’s e-mails on a shared computer. Husband’s trial is next month.

Florida has a statute similar to Michigan’s.

Read more in this NBC Bay Area TV article: Is Snooping in Your Spouse?s e-mail a Crime? and this ABC World News article: Husband in Hot Water: Man Faces Five Years in Prison for Snooping Through Wife’s E-Mails.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on January 06, 2011 (boomark / email).