

Modern divorce: Wiretapped teddy bears, $120,000 in fines - abraham
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/-modern-divorce-wiretapped-teddy-bears-120000-in-fines.ars

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daimyoyo
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.

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

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regehr
Joke from a lawyer I know:

Family court == good people at their worst.

Criminal court == bad people at their best.

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DevX101
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.

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davidtgoldblatt
[http://static.arstechnica.com/2011/03/08/teddy_bear_ruling.p...](http://static.arstechnica.com/2011/03/08/teddy_bear_ruling.pdf)

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.

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wooster
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.

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drdaeman
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)

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bugsy
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.

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

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

[http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/nanny-cam-captures-abuse-
on-...](http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/nanny-cam-captures-abuse-on-
tape-10145712)

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fname
Isn't that different though? In the case you linked, the camera was in the
homeowner's house (where as a guest, I would expect little to no privacy),
whereas in this case the recording device traveled with the child into several
different places (where there's an expectation of privacy).

