JerryL stated so wisely:

When my son was a teenager I listened in on his conversations, whether
on the phone or behind his closed door when he was with his friends.
Had I not done this, I don't know what kind of troubles my son would
have gotten into at that time. Sure he bitched, moaned and complained
about his privacy but I didn't care. As long as I was responsible for
him, I did what I thought was right. Now he's in his 40's with 3 boys
of his own and he admits that he would have gotten into trouble had I
not monitored his actions. If ever the State thinks they can do a
better job than I can as a parent, they are welcome to take care of my
kids, stay up with them all night when they are sick, walk them to
school, take them on vacations and pay for their care and worry about
them as much as I do but as long as all those duties are mine, I'll
do it my way.

AMEN!!!

--
Tom

"That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest."
-Henry Thoreau

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On 10 Dec 2004 13:18:54 GMT, (Gordon Burditt)
wrote:

No, federal supersedes local. Always has and always will.

That is true only in those issues where the federal government has been
granted the power to make laws by the "several states" and the citizens
thereof. In issues for which the power has NOT be granted to the federal
government, the state law supercedes, though the federal government would
like you to believe otherwise.


--
Byron "Barn" Canfield
-----------------------------
"Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."
-- Ambrose Bierce

Mark wrote:
On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 16:55:07 GMT, dragonlady

wrote:

In article ,
Mark wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 07:25:33 -0800, Scott en Aztl=E1n
wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:38:26 -0500, "Dave C."
wrote:

Why is it OK for an employer to monitor their adult employees
but not
OK for a mother to monitor her minor child?


Because the employer makes you sign all your rights away as a
condition of
employment.

And a minor child has no rights to begin with.

Although I agree this is how it should be - the courts have
decided otherwise
in this particular case.

This conversation has gotten weird.

I read the article again, and it does NOT say that a parent
eavesdropping on their child is illegal. The mother in question has
not
been charged with any crime.

What the court ruled was that information gathered this way was not
admissable in a court of law in a case involving a third party.

No, it said her testimony could not be admissible because the
information she
received was obtained by violating the other person's civil rights.

What other person's civil rights? Her daughter's? The article leads
me to believe no such thing. It did not say that her minor daughter
had any expectation of privacy in the parents' home. This dealt
strictly with testimony in a criminal matter, and how the information
from that testimony was obtained. I doubt it cleared the way for the
daughter to sue her mother. They said the police can't use it.

I don't understand why the issue had to come up. I would infer from
the article that the mother testified that she overheard this other kid
admit to a crime. So she testifies to what she heard someone else say,
and what was said was taken as fact? I thought that was hearsay -
inadmissable regardless of how it was obtained.

"Curtis CCR" wrote in message
oups.com...
Mark wrote:
I don't understand why the issue had to come up. I would infer from
the article that the mother testified that she overheard this other kid
admit to a crime. So she testifies to what she heard someone else say,
and what was said was taken as fact? I thought that was hearsay -
inadmissable regardless of how it was obtained.

Well, I think you hit on it. The AP article (and the original poster of the
thread) made a distinct point of misquoting the court case in order to
create a sensational headline, solely for the purpose of riling everybody.


--
"There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary numbers and those who don't."
-----------------------------
Byron "Barn" Canfield

dragonlady wrote:
In article , "Dave C."

wrote:

That *is* ridiculous.

Mom pays for the phone, she pays for the computer, she pays for
the
electricity; she has the right to monitor the communication
taking
place using her property

No, it's not ridiculous at all. The mother can ALLOW the child to
use the
phone. If she does, then the child has an expectation of privacy
while
using it. If the mother can't live with those terms, then the
child
shouldn't be on the phone at all. Put another way . . . if you
don't trust
your child to use the phone without illegally spying on him/her,
then your
child shouldn't be using the phone, period. -Dave

When one of my children was clearly getting out of control, I handled
it
differently: I TOLD her that her behavior had cost her her privacy
rights, and that I would search her room or listen in on her phone
calls
at my discretion.

You don't necessarily have to give you kid advance notice. The problem
with the phone monitoring, in many states, is that the third party has
a legal expectation of privacy. If you could bug your kid's room and be
able to listen to just her side of the conversation, you would probably
have no legal worries.

The way I read the article originally posted, the issue privacy issue
was applied to the other party in the conversation, not the daughter.

Your daughter's expected level of privacy is controlled at your
discretion. But you can't control the rights of people she talks to on
the phone. So you have use even more discretion when eavesdropping on
both sides of a phone call.

On 10 Dec 2004 12:29:31 -0800, "Curtis CCR"
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 16:55:07 GMT, dragonlady

wrote:

In article ,
Mark wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 07:25:33 -0800, Scott en Aztlán
wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:38:26 -0500, "Dave C."
wrote:

Why is it OK for an employer to monitor their adult employees
but not
OK for a mother to monitor her minor child?


Because the employer makes you sign all your rights away as a
condition of
employment.

And a minor child has no rights to begin with.

Although I agree this is how it should be - the courts have
decided otherwise
in this particular case.

This conversation has gotten weird.

I read the article again, and it does NOT say that a parent
eavesdropping on their child is illegal. The mother in question has
not
been charged with any crime.

What the court ruled was that information gathered this way was not
admissable in a court of law in a case involving a third party.

No, it said her testimony could not be admissible because the
information she
received was obtained by violating the other person's civil rights.

What other person's civil rights? Her daughter's? The article leads
me to believe no such thing. It did not say that her minor daughter
had any expectation of privacy in the parents' home. This dealt
strictly with testimony in a criminal matter, and how the information
from that testimony was obtained. I doubt it cleared the way for the
daughter to sue her mother. They said the police can't use it.

I don't understand why the issue had to come up. I would infer from
the article that the mother testified that she overheard this other kid
admit to a crime. So she testifies to what she heard someone else say,
and what was said was taken as fact? I thought that was hearsay -
inadmissable regardless of how it was obtained.

Presumeably the daughter was talking to someone else on the phone.
She had no parental rights to intrude on the expectation of that
person's right to privacy.

In article .com,
"Curtis CCR" wrote:

dragonlady wrote:
In article , "Dave C."

wrote:

That *is* ridiculous.

Mom pays for the phone, she pays for the computer, she pays for
the
electricity; she has the right to monitor the communication
taking
place using her property

No, it's not ridiculous at all. The mother can ALLOW the child to
use the
phone. If she does, then the child has an expectation of privacy
while
using it. If the mother can't live with those terms, then the
child
shouldn't be on the phone at all. Put another way . . . if you
don't trust
your child to use the phone without illegally spying on him/her,
then your
child shouldn't be using the phone, period. -Dave

When one of my children was clearly getting out of control, I handled
it
differently: I TOLD her that her behavior had cost her her privacy
rights, and that I would search her room or listen in on her phone
calls
at my discretion.

You don't necessarily have to give you kid advance notice. The problem
with the phone monitoring, in many states, is that the third party has
a legal expectation of privacy. If you could bug your kid's room and be
able to listen to just her side of the conversation, you would probably
have no legal worries.

My own position is that my kids started out with a high expectation of
privacy from me and their dad (and each other). When that changed, I
felt morally obligated (not legally) to tell them, and to tell them why.


The way I read the article originally posted, the issue privacy issue
was applied to the other party in the conversation, not the daughter.

Your daughter's expected level of privacy is controlled at your
discretion. But you can't control the rights of people she talks to on
the phone. So you have use even more discretion when eavesdropping on
both sides of a phone call.

I understand that -- but, since I was only "using" the information with
my daughter, and would not have used the information in any other way, I
decided to do it anyway. (The only exception was towards a young man
who had been ordered to have no contact with her -- but I never listened
long enough to hear what he was saying, only to tell him to get off the
phone immediately. He's in prison now, so I don't worry about him any
more....)
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Scott en Aztl=E1n wrote:

Why does a child have an expectation or privacy but an employee does
not? And forget that crap about how you "signed your rights away"
when
you joined the company; I've worked plenty of jobs in my life and
never signed such a document, yet I know that my phone calls and
email
can be monitored by my remployer at any time. It's a basic right the
employer has - I don't need to sign anything for it to be in effect.

That's not true everywhere. I am operations manager for a major
communications provider and I serve one major corporate customer. That
customer recently asked me to connect an employee's phone line to the
call monitoring system normally used for "quality assurance" recording
in the call centers. The confidential request they made noted their
intention to monitor the employee's phone calls without his knowledge.
I had to advise them that what they were doing was illegal - I
contacted *their* legal and security group who concurred with my
advice. In California, any phone call going over the public network
cannot be monitored or recorded without consent of BOTH parties.

The company can record/monitor internal calls. They are on a private
network. So anyone that believes they have a right to privacy on ANY
phone, should think again. E-mails are different matter - that is
written corespondance that can be considered company record when it's
on their system.

The restrictions extend to the call center operations here too.
Customers hear "your call may be monitored or recorded..." The
montoring system records all calls on the customer service reps phone,
as well as what they are doing on their computer during the call. In
addition to the line for call queues, there is also a line for the CSR
to use for direct incoming calls or to make outgoing calls. The
monitoring system records all calls on the CSR's phone regardless of
what line is used.

When recordings are reviewed by management, they are always reviewed by
two people. The privacy policy requires that as soon as they identify
anything they hear as personal or otherwise not related to customer
service, they stop listening and move on. The direct line on the CSR
phone does not have a monitoring notice so the privacy has to be
extended to third party.

If the mother can't live with those terms, then the child
shouldn't be on the phone at all.

If the child doesn't want to be monitored, she can buy her own phone
service. Pre-paid cell phones are widely available - no credit check
required.

Put another way . . . if you don't trust
your child to use the phone without illegally spying on him/her,
then your
child shouldn't be using the phone, period.

I guess you feel the same way about the GPS tracking device I have
installed in the car that my teenaged son drives?
--=20
Friends don't let friends shop at Best Buy.

In article ,
Scott en Aztl?n wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 11:15:55 -0500, Mark wrote:

Not to mention another reason for "invading" your kid's "privacy". Some of
the foolish actions they may take could very well cost the parent both
legally
and financially.

BINGO.

And as long as I am on the hook legaly and financially for my child's
behavior, I'm going to control that behavior in any way I see fit.

The day they are the ones who will go to jail when they screw up is
the day I stop caring what they say to their friends on the phone.

Sorry if that offends you bleeding heart liberals in the audience.


My kids are now all 18 and older, and I have not stopped caring.

I'm glad to no longer be "on the hook", but I still care passionately.
If I thought invading their privacy at this point would serve any useful
purpose, I'd do it.

Though I will point out, in the "for what it's worth" category, that
many times the parents are NOT fined or held responsible. When my
daughter got busted in 10th grade with brandy at school (and drunk), and
when she got busted for having cigarettes in her possession, she had to
go to court, and fines were levied. I didn't pay them. Neither did she
-- until she found out she couldn't get her driver's license until she
DID pay them. The silly girl thought I'd pay the fines, or lend her the
money to pay them. (Not sure what universe she thought we were in . .
..) She finally got a job, and paid the fines -- and got her license
last week, just a few weeks before her 19th birthday.

In other cases, the parents CAN still be held responsible no matter how
old the "kid" is -- for example, if my car or house are found to have
illegal drugs in them, I could still be fined or have my property
confiscated, even if I didn't know they were there. There've been cases
where people have been thrown out of their rental units because one of
their kids (or grandkids) had illegal drugs on the premises.

I'm one of those "bleeding heart liberals" (though I much prefer to
think of myself as progressive). The only thing I find offensive about
your statement is that you stopped caring. I don't think I'll EVER stop
caring!
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

this whole issue is that the girl's mother testified at the boyfriends trial
on what she herd when her daughter was talking to the boyfriend. This case
reflects what evedence can be brought to court. As a parent you still have a
right to listen and be concerned on what your children do. this story was
not reported correctly and was a teaser, but it did make headlines right?



"Scott en Aztlán" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 11:15:55 -0500, Mark wrote:

Not to mention another reason for "invading" your kid's "privacy". Some
of
the foolish actions they may take could very well cost the parent both
legally
and financially.

BINGO.

And as long as I am on the hook legaly and financially for my child's
behavior, I'm going to control that behavior in any way I see fit.

The day they are the ones who will go to jail when they screw up is
the day I stop caring what they say to their friends on the phone.

Sorry if that offends you bleeding heart liberals in the audience.

--
Friends don't let friends shop at Best Buy.