Reasonable expection?

By Janet Pearson, Tulsa World (Opinion)

December 20, 2009

Don't ever put anything in writing, my father used to say, that you wouldn't want the whole world to read.

Even at a very young age, that sounded like good advice. Not that any of us had that much to hide in elementary school; then again, everyone has private business they'd just as soon keep private.

And even back then, I'd had some real-world experience with printed information getting into the wrong hands. I can still remember the collective horror the entire class felt when a teacher intercepted a note that, needless to say, was not meant for adult eyes.

So I assumed everyone had learned the lesson at an early age about being careful what you put into writing. But apparently I was wrong.

In just the last few years, a U.S. representative, a U.S. senator, a big-city mayor, a world-class athlete, not to mention countless other lesser-known Americans, have learned the lesson the hard way. Or have they?

The phenomenon of leaving a damaging paper trail — or to be more exact, a cybertrail or e-trail or text-trail — has become so pervasive it's spawning specialty practices among divorce lawyers and private investigators, according to a recent Washington Post report. And now, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to take on the subject.

It's bad enough such troubling transgressions are committed with such regularity, but at least most people can understand that flesh is weak. But leaving humiliating proof behind is not just adding insult to injury — it's stupid and downright cruel.

Unless you've been in solitary confinement recently, you've heard some of the reports about legendary golfer Tiger Woods' personal troubles that, at least to some extent, came to light because he allegedly left messages for lady friends from coast to coast.

He allegedly text-messaged one of his female acquaintances that he knew it was "brutal on you that you can't be with me all the time," adding he had "finally found someone I connect with." He supposedly also told her he'd never found someone like her, "Not even at home."

"Why didn't we find each other years ago. We wouldn't be having this conversation," he allegedly wrote.

Apparently assuming phone messages are as safe as text messages, Woods also reportedly left a voice message with a Los Angeles cocktail waitress asking her to "please take your name off your phone" because his wife had found her number on his phone "and may be calling you."

"You gotta do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye," he allegedly said in the message, which was closely analyzed by a legal team before being published in Us Weekly.

You'd think poor old Sen. John Ensign's predicament would have left an impression on someone as smart and capable as Woods surely is. Ensign's affair with a staffer's wife was uncovered when the husband discovered a text message from the senator to his wife — when he borrowed the senator's phone. "How wonderful it is ... Scared, but excited," was the message Doug Hampton, Ensign's former co-chief of staff, unexpectedly came across.

Did Woods and Ensign, whose career now is on shaky ground, not remember the tawdry texts and e-mails sent by Rep. Mark Foley, the ex-congressman from Florida, to male pages, a practice that eventually cost him his seat?

Foley, known for pushing legislation targeting child predators, apparently knew more about the subject than he was letting on.

In one series of texts, he asked a page what he was wearing, and when the page replied he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, Foley wrote back, "love to slip them off you." That wasn't all he wrote, as several news outlets reported.

Foley had a promising congressional career and faced probable re-election before the news came to light. He ultimately resigned from Congress.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick also had a promising political career before he was forced out of office, thanks in part to a steamy texting relationship with a former chief of staff. Granted, Kilpatrick likely would have been brought down anyway, because he at one time faced 10 felony charges, including perjury and obstruction of justice, in two separate cases. But the graphic texts ensured the case would make national news when otherwise it might never have been much more than a local story.

Even after allegedly leaving messages hither and yon, Tiger Woods has the naivete — or is it the audacity? — to plead that his privacy be respected. In one of only a few messages addressing the scandal, he insisted "there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy." Maybe he should have thought about how important and deep that principle is before committing egregious acts and leaving behind the documentary proof that led to international headlines.

One California police sergeant caught red-handed in a texting tango has gone even further, alleging that the exposure of his sexually explicit messages was an invasion of privacy worthy of U.S. Supreme Court review. The court has agreed to look at the case.

Ontario Police Sgt. Jeff Quon claims his department allowed personal texting as long as officers paid for any amount over the allowable 25,000 character-per-month limit. But Quon's supervisor got tired of chasing down payments for overages, and so a review of pager messages was ordered.

It was then higher-ups learned Quon was sending and receiving as many as 28 texts per shift, most of them to his wife, girlfriend and a fellow officer.

Did Quon, who has yet to be disciplined pending outcome of the legal actions, have an expectation his messaging would remain private?

Did Tiger Woods? Or Sen. Ensign or Rep. Foley or Mayor Kilpatrick?

What the courts of law and courts of public opinion have to say is one thing. I know what my dad would say.