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Article: The federal wiretap act: the permissible scope of eavesdropping in the family home.
- Article from:
- The Journal of High Technology Law
- Article date:
- January 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Suffolk University Law School. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I. INTRODUCTION
Few, if any, courts find a violation of the Federal Wiretap Act when a concerned parent eavesdrops or secretly records a minor child's telephone conversation in the family home. (1) This consensus emerged among the Federal circuits, notwithstanding the statutory language of the Federal Wiretap Act, which prohibits "any person" from intercepting oral, wire, or electronic communications. (2) While courts have agreed on the narrow proposition that wiretapping in the parent-child context generally falls outside of statutory prohibitions, the general applicability of the Wiretap Act in the domestic realm remains unclear. (3) The Supreme Court has ...