Facebook Passwords Must Be Shared in Divorce Case

The judge issued the order in response to the husband's revelation his wife wrote incriminating posts on Facebook about her feelings towards the children and her ability to care for them on the couple's shared computer. Wife Courtney Gallion was also ordered to hand over passwords for her eHarmony and Match.com accounts.

In March, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found 80 percent of divorce cases included social media posts, mostly from Facebook, as evidence in the past five years. And the evidence can extend beyond written posts to the pictures that users include on their profiles.

"I saw a picture of a toddler in front of a coffee table with bags of marijuana, whiskey bottles and a big pile of money", said Janice Davidson, director of the Marion County Domestic Relations Counseling Bureau, to the station. "We called Child Protective Services and got them involved so they could make sure that child was protected".

Administrative Law Judge Ellen Bass ruled today a Paterson, N.J.-based teacher's comments, referring to the school's students as "future criminals" in a frustrated post, "demonstrated a complete lack of sensitivity to the world in which her students live." Bass recommended the teacher be removed from her tenured position.

Lawyers aren't the only ones snooping online. Police, prosecutors and health insurers are increasingly mining social media for evidence to prosecute crimes and investigate fraud. Lawyers are even increasingly sifting through the postings, messages and check-ins on social networking sites to even determine jury selection.

Some may see the judge's order in the Gallion case as court-sanctioned hacking, but others see it as a reasonable request for a relevant piece of a family court puzzle. Regardless, the court is following the population's fascination with the technology and ruling as it sees fit, and the increasing prevalence of Facebook and social media will ensure the subject will likely be one courts will wrestle with in the future.