Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois
emails
Is is legal to read my wife's email? We are divorcing, but currently are not separated.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: emails
You may want to be careful about reading your
wife's emails. The federal eavesdropping statute
prohibits the taping of phone conversations, etc.
without the knowledge of the other party and one
can be prosecuted for this. There was a case
where a wife taped a conversation between her
husband and a woman with whom he was having an affair and she was convicted of violating the
federal eavesdropping law even though her husband
was having this affair. In my opinion the federal eavesdropping law has been expanded to
cover online communications which are intended
to be private. Since you and your wife are divorcing, it could be argued that your wife
would not want to give you an open door to her
outside communications. It is best to play it
safe. I will be happy to answer any additional
questions that you may have.