Forget about John Ashcroft. My parents are the true originators of the Patriot Act. They were reading my mail, listening to my phone conversations, digging through my closet and swiping my porn right up until I turned thirty and said "Enough! Stay outta my room!"
Parents snoop, and when they pay the bills, they have every right to snoop. It’s their house, their car, their mailbox and their phone. Unless your American Express platinum card says Mary-Kate or Ashley Olsen on the front, you are likely a ward of the loving woman who carried you in her womb for nine months and the guy who knocked her up.
Though Washington Supreme Court Justice Tom Chambers wears a gown like a mom, he’s not as smart as one. Chambers and the Court recently handed down a ruling that prohibits parents from eavesdropping on their children’s phone conversations. The ruling stems from a case where a mother listened in on the conversation between her daughter and her daughter’s felonious boyfriend, who was bragging about his latest purse-snatching. Mom, listening in on the phone she pays for in the house she owns, took good notes, gave the info to the cops and the boyfriend was convicted.
But instead of carrying this woman around town on their shoulders and building houses of worship in her honor, Chambers and other old men who still live with their moms declared that the daughter and the purse-snatching beau were due a certain amount of privacy and overturned the conviction. "The Washington privacy statute puts a high value on the privacy of communications," said Chambers. It’s felonies that they don’t care so much about.
If the daughter was paying the phone bill and the boyfriend wasn’t mugging old ladies at night, then the ruling might have some merit. As it is, men in gowns continue to confuse us (and in so many ways). While campaigning for the Supreme Court, Chambers himself said, "My parents taught me that solutions to problems should be grounded in common sense--not technicalities. I believe the courts get too hung up on legal technicalities when common sense would serve us all better." You should’ve listened to your parents, douche bag.
