Washington Court Rules that Parents Can't Eavesdrop on Children
by TChris
In a battle between parental rights and civil rights, the Washington Supreme Court held that a mother violated state law by listening in on a telephone conversation between her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. The court reversed a purse-snatching conviction that was based on the mother's testimony about admissions made by the boyfriend during the conversation.
Attorneys for the state argued that minors should have a reduced expectation of privacy because parents have an absolute right to monitor phone calls coming into the family home. ... "The Washington act, with its all-party consent requirement, contains no such parental exception and no Washington court has ever implied such an exception. We decline to do so now," wrote Justice Tom Chambers in the court's opinion.
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