Warrantless wiretaps

Good evening friends and foes,

Tonight I write with a heavy heart regarding an issue that is near and dear to me but now puts myself and my children in a grey area of this issue.

I for one am totally against warrantless wiretaps by the government as they are now allowed by the patriot act. I understand the issues this represents and the destruction of our freedoms this causes.

Unfortunately I know find myself on the other side of this issue based on some events that are occurring in my life.....

Through many counselling sessions we have determined that my wife is a controlling verbal abuser for a definition of what this means look below

Controlling People: Controllers use verbal abuse to subtly undermine their victim's perceptions, to manipulate them into doing what they want, to foster dependency, to isolate them from truth, from outside contact and even from their own children. They may withhold information while lying to their victim.. Controllers create confusion, emotional pain and mental anguish, while periodically "rescuing" their victim by seeming to offer the balm of love that alleviates the victim's pain drawing the victim ever closer. Controllers gain and maintain power over people while often presenting a perfect persona to the world.

source

This definition fits my wife to a "T" always maintaining and bending over backwards to appear as this perfect person while in private mistreating and abusing the ones she supposedly loves.

To make a long story short in order to capture evidence of this for a divorce and to protect my children I began recording phone conversations and general audio in my home. Boy oh boy what did I find?

Many occurrences of her cussing at, screaming, at and calling my children names I wouldn't call my worst enemy. On top of that on the tapes I heard her talking with a friend about shoplifting and stealing. I have over a dozen conversations which include talking about which stores are easiest to shoplift from, changing prices tags, and plans for a shoplifting excursion on a planned visit with her friend.

As a result I hired a private investigator to follow her on her trip. Guess what happened? The PI watched as the woman went into stores with empty bags then would come out and unload them into the truck and go back again, and again. Towards the end of the Day the PI had had enough of this and when they went into Target she informed store security who promptly began watching them. They ended up busting my wife and friend for shoplifting and switching tags and both got arrested. Both my children as well as my wife’s friend’s child were with them at the time. Both got thrown into jail and charged with various counts.

I promptly filed for divorce and as it turns out all the recordings I made are inadmissible as evidence because of wiretap laws so all I have is the PI's testimony. My wife is bending over backwards to get phony character statements from friends, a written affidavit from her friend saying she had nothing to do with the shoplifting and trying to turn the whole situation around on me as if I am the horrible one for trying to take my children away from her.

Why can the government do warrantless wiretaps for "suspected" terrorists but I cannot record in my own private home to protect my children. Where is the justice in this screwed up world?

Thoughts, considerations, anybody have any novel approaches to get these tapes allowed into evidence?

Thanks for your replies

It depends what state you are in.

Many only require you are a party to the conversation. Get her to admit her wrongdoing to you and surreptitiously record the conversation if you happen to live in one of those states.

Sorry to hear about your problems.

The laws regarding private recording of telephone conversations vary from state to state. Possible relevant facts: you were not one of the two parties conversing, you do own/lease the phone line (not someone else's phone), neither party was aware or notified of the recording, and illegal activity was discussed.

Was the recording tapping into the phone line itself, or did it record the ambient noise in the house, and merely pick up one side of the phone conversation? Perhaps the house noise recordings are treated differently under the law.

Talk to a lawyer familiar with the laws in your state; perhaps your PI can recommend one.

I have both ambient recordings and phone recordings using a phone recording device. I have the best attorney money can buy. He says the recordings would not be allowed as evidence in court even if they prove she perjured herself. He did say that I could play the recordings for a child custody evaluator and that the evaluator would put that into their report but also by doing that I would be opening myself up for prosecution for vilolating wiretap laws. There is no way she will admit to anything so I would be unable to record her doing so.

I I am going to try and testify that she had full knowledge I was recording phone conversations in an attempt to record harrassing phone calls from creditors.

I also own the domain name of her name I am thinking of posting all my information up there and emailing it to her friends that she is lying to as well to get them to write character statments for her.

The part the bugs me is that almost every night on the news I see people using nanny cams to catch their babysitter abusing their kid. Many of which never told the nanny about the recordings and those people always get their videos on the news and I never heard of any of those people being prosecuted for that, which under Florida law would be a violation of wiretap laws as well







[edit on 18-6-2008 by photobug]

reply to post by photobug


Believe it or not, video surveillance is completely different than audio surveillance.

Well I don't know your situation objectively, and even if I did my opinion shouldn't matter more than a hill of beans to you. Unless you like beans, then it shouldn't matter more than a hill of something else.

But I say take the high ground.

Don't be tempted to connive; from what you say it seems as though you are currently in the right.

If the system screws you over, at least you will know it unjustly screwed over an honest man.


Edit to add: Just remembered you mentioned children, so I should also qualify what I said and mention not to put personal honor and pride (or revenge!) before your children's well-being. Your call.


[edit on 18-6-2008 by Ian McLean]

This has everything to do with my children and protecting them. I do not want them exposed to her foul mouth and I certainly don't want them involved in shoplifting. Nothing else matters to me except to protect my children from her.