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58 S. C. L. Rev. 275 (2006-2007)
Twenty-First Century Pillow-Talk: Applicability of the Marital Communications Privilege to Electronic Mail

handle is hein.journals/sclr58 and id is 283 raw text is: TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PILLOW-TALK:
APPLICABILITY OF THE MARITAL COMMUNICATIONS
PRIVILEGE TO ELECTRONIC MAIL
MIKAH K. STORY*
I.  INTRODUCTION  ............................................. 276
II. THE HISTORY OF THE MARITAL COMMUNICATIONS PRIVILEGE ....... 277
I1. W EB-BASED ELECTRONIC MAIL  ...............................  283
A.  Privacy  Agreements  .....................................  283
B.  Fourth Amendment Protection  .............................  284
C.  The Stored Communications Act  ........................... 286
IV. ANALYSIS OF THE MARITAL COMMUNICATIONS PRIVILEGE
AS APPLIED TO WEB-BASED E-MAIL  ............................ 288
A. Applicability of the Marital Communications Privilege to Letters . 288
B. Applicability of the Marital Communications Privilege
to  Oral Communications  .................................  291
C. The Effect of E-mail on Applicability of the Professional
P rivileges  .............................................  293
1. E-mail and the Attorney-Client Privilege ................. 294
2. A Comparison of the Marital Communications Privilege
to the Other Evidentiary Privileges ...................... 297
3.  Legislative Solutions  .................................  303
V. THE FUTURE OF THE MARITAL COMMUNICATIONS PRIVILEGE ........ 304
A.  The  Utilitarian Approach  .................................  305
B.  The Humanistic Approach  ................................  308
1. The Informational Privacy Rationale .................... 309
2.  The Individual Autonomy Rationale  ..................... 310
VI. CONCLUSION  ...............................................  316
* Associate Professor of Law, the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I am deeply grateful to the
entire faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, with special thanks to Dean
Ellen Suni, Nancy Levit, Robert Klonoff, Barbara Glesner Fines, David Achtenberg, and Jasmine
Abdel-khalik. I would also like to thank Kelly McCambridge-Parker for her exceptional research
assistance and my administrative assistant, Debra Banister, for her hard work..

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