{"id":5878,"date":"2014-02-07T21:26:06","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T14:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/?p=5878"},"modified":"2016-03-30T14:23:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T07:23:08","slug":"eavesdropping-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/eavesdropping-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Eavesdropping in America: Is it Legal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re about to buy mobile spy software<\/a>, you might be asking yourself,
\n“Am I going to go to jail for using it?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Elvis
\n<\/strong>
\nThe short answer is, “it depends.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

OK, that was a typical lawyer\u2019s response to any question.\u00a0 So, I\u2019ll explain it so you can avoid getting thrown into the slammer.<\/p>\n

In the U.S. \u2013 for the most part \u2013 it is perfectly legal to record telephone conversations<\/a>, as long as one party to the conversation consents to the listening or recording.\u00a0 If someone allows you to install the spyphone software on their phone, you can legally record or listen to their calls.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with federal law.\u00a0 You might be asking, how would that apply to me?\u00a0 Well, more than 2.5 million Americans live on military bases.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you live on federal land, then you\u2019re covered by federal law.\u00a0 The seminal case for federal call interception law is Simpson v. Simpson<\/span> (5th<\/sup> Cir. 1984).\u00a0 In Simpson<\/span>, the Court ruled that Congress never intended to prohibit a person from intercepting a family\u2019s member\u2019s telephone conversations.\u00a0 So, under federal law, no consent is even required.\u00a0 The courts have decided Congress left call interception up to the states and no federal eavesdropping law applies.<\/p>\n

What if I don\u2019t live on federal land?\u00a0 If you don\u2019t live on federal land, state eavesdropping laws apply.\u00a0 In 38 states, one party must consent to the listening or recording of a telephone conversation.\u00a0 This means that if you install monitoring software on a phone with the owner\u2019s consent, you can legally listen to and record the conversations on that phone.<\/p>\n

In a one party consent state, as long as the call is intercepted or recorded without criminal or tortious intent, there can be no prosecution for violation of an eavesdropping law.\u00a0 Copeland v. Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.,<\/span> 526 N.W.2d 402 (Minn. Ct. App. 1995).\u00a0 For instance, see Mo. Rev. Stat. \u00a7 542.402 (\u201cAn individual who is a party to a wire communication, or who has the consent of one of the parties to the communication, can lawfully record it or disclose its contents, unless the person is intercepting the communication for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act.\u201d).<\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

“INTERCEPTING AND RECORDING THE CONVERSATIONS OF YOUR CHILDREN IS PERFECTLY LEGAL”<\/h3>\n

What about monitoring my child<\/a> on their phone?\u00a0 Intercepting and recording the conversations of your children is perfectly legal.\u00a0 Bishop v. State<\/span>, 252 555 S.E.2d 504 (Ga. Ct. App. 2001).\u00a0 In Bishop<\/span>, the court held that parents have a right, and even a duty, to protect the welfare of their children, which might require call eavesdropping or recording.<\/p>\n

Hot Dog!\u00a0 I\u2019m set.<\/p>\n

Not quite.\u00a0 In those other 12 states (including California), both parties to the conversation must consent to the recording of a conversation.\u00a0 This means that you would have to inform the other party to the conversation that you were making a recording.\u00a0 In the alternative, you can create a beeping alarm that provides a warning to the caller that the call is being recorded.<\/p>\n

The courts, however, haven\u2019t imposed this strict interpretation of eavesdropping laws on all call intercepts.\u00a0 The rule of law is that there must be a reasonable expectation that no one else could overhear the conversation, before the courts will assign a privacy right to the call.\u00a0 Wilkins v. NBC<\/span>, Inc., 71 Cal. App. 4th 1066 (Cal. Ct. App. 1999).\u00a0 A call made in a public place is free to be intercepted.<\/p>\n

Realistically, any criminal prosecution for wiretapping would require that the recording of the phone call be made public.<\/p>\n

So, posting the content on the internet, in a newspaper, or even playing the recording for a third party, is probably illegal. This holds true even if there was consent to the recording.\u00a0 The reason for this is that there is a reasonable expectation that phone calls are private, and by making the content of that call public, it can cause damage to the people who made the phone call.\u00a0 Every state, except Washington, Montana and South Dakota, has a law<\/a> prohibiting the publication of telephone communications without consent of all parties.<\/p>\n

In short, using spyphone software is not going to cause you any legal problems, so long as you keep the information you gather to yourself. You should never make the recordings public in any way, or even inform the call participants you have monitored or recorded their phone call. The advantage to using a product like FlexiSPY<\/a>, is that it is undetectable. So, its installation and use won\u2019t land you in the slammer. Just make sure to keep the details of your monitoring a secret.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re about to buy mobile spy software, you might be asking yourself, “Am I going to go to jail for using it?” The short answer is, “it depends.” OK, that was a typical lawyer\u2019s response to any question.\u00a0 So, I\u2019ll explain it so you can avoid getting thrown into the slammer. In the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":3685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,132,138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-tips-tricks","category-trending-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13339,"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878\/revisions\/13339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.flexispy.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}