Is It Legal To Read My Spouses Deleted Text Messages?

Every where you go these days you'll see people constantly texting on their cell phone. All this instant communication and the new fad of sexting has the normally jealous spouse on a war path to see exactly what their husband or wife is texting about on their cell phone. They suspect their spouse of infidelity and inappropriate texting and want to read their secret messages. The question we want to address in this article is whether it applies to cellular forensics and recovering deleted text messages from a cell phone.

All this suspicion and jealousy has given rise to fly by night quick buck artists that are offering all kinds of cell phone apps that claim will allow you to eavesdrop or record your spouses cell phone activity. The problem is that not only don't these apps work as advertised they also seem to be illegal. In fact recently several of the companies have been served with subpoenas to turn over their business records which would include their client lists names, addresses and phone numbers. Now I'm no lawyer but a careful reading of 18 U.S.C. 2510. Chapter 119 would lead the average layman to conclude that it is illegal to intercept and read another persons communications.

So it seems clear that installing an eavesdropping app on a spouses cellular phone will get you in hot water. But how about a forensic examination of a cell phone to recover deleted texts? Most private investigators that specialize in this type of work have received calls from clients where it becomes clear that the client is stealing some one else's property in an attempt to read their private communications.

This is clearly illegal. But however the spouse has the consent of the other party or is the legal owner of the phone and has the legal authority to examine the phone then there should be no problems. Unless however the examination of the cellular phone uncovers some other illegal behavior such as child porn or other illegal activity.

But it would appear from a careful reading of the law that cell phone forensics is legal and lawful if the examiner has the permission and consent of the legal owner of the device,. So with their consent the deleted text messages can be recovered, the client can share that information with whoever they wish since they are the owner of the phone.

Copyright (c) 2011 Opperman Investigations Inc
Ed Opperman is President of Opperman Investigations Inc. He is considered an expert in computer and cellular phone forensics.To learn more about how to recover deleted text messages and images please click here now:===> http://www.emailrevealer.com

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