A few hours after NBA star Kobe Bryant had sex with a Vail-area hotel worker last summer, the woman exchanged cellphone text messages with a former boyfriend and someone else.
What's in those messages could help determine whether the sex was consensual or whether Bryant is guilty of rape as charged. The judge himself said the content may be "highly relevant" to the case.
That the judge could order the woman's cellphone company to produce the messages so long after they were sent shouldn't surprise anyone, analysts say.
Texters beware. Like e-mail and Internet instant messages, text messages tend to be saved on servers.
"One of the false assumptions that people make is that when they hit the delete button, messages are gone forever, but nothing can be further from the truth," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst in Atlanta.
The Bryant case appears to be the first high-profile US criminal case in which cellphone text messages could be entered into the docket. In Europe and Asia, where texting is hugely popular, some criminal cases have hinged on them.
In Sweden, police and prosecutors used text messages to prove that a nanny influenced by a pastor of a religious sect shot and killed his wife while she slept and then killed a neighbor next door with whom she was alleged to be having an affair.
And police in southern Japan are examining e-mail and text messages as part of the investigation into the recent box-cutter killing of a 12-year-old girl, allegedly by an 11-year-old classmate.
In the US, text messages had a role in a Medford, Oregon, case in which a man convicted of killing his wife had sent e-mail and text messages to terrorize her.
In Conyers, Georgia, a 17-year-old boy was arrested for investigation of solicitation of sodomy after a 12-year-old girl's parents complained of sexually explicit messages she had received.
In the Bryant case, defense attorneys said text messages were exchanged among the woman who has accused Bryant of rape and two other people -- the former boyfriend and a person as yet unidentified -- in the hours after the alleged June 30 attack.
Four months later, Bryant's attorneys subpoenaed AT&T Wireless Communications, seeking the messages. The firm fought the subpoena, but retained the messages. The company fought the subpoena, but last month state District Judge Terry Ruckriegle ordered the company to turn the messages over to him.
He will review them in private to determine whether they are relevant to the case, in which Bryant has pleaded not guilty.
AT&T Wireless spokesman Mark Siegel said the company cooperates with law enforcement officials for investigations but refused to discuss its policies on storing text messages. The company's Web site said messages not immediately delivered are held for 72 hours for more delivery attempts -- then deleted. How messages in the Bryant case would be available four months later isn't known; most likely they were retrieved from an archival storage system.
"It's just a common practice," Kagan said. "I don't know an instance where they delete them."
While some European countries require telecoms to store text-messaging content and other communications for law enforcement purposes no such requirement exists in the US, said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. That changes when law enforcement officials obtain a court order.
The large US wireless companies say messages are deleted either when they are sent or after a set amount of time if they cannot be delivered.
Cingular Wireless waits seven days before purging undelivered messages, spokesman Clay Owen said.
"Otherwise, nothing is stored," he said.
Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Jenny Weaver and Sprint PCS spokesman Dave Mellin said text messages are not stored anywhere after delivery.
Travis Larson, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, said information about text messages -- including the sender, recipient and location of sender -- is always stored for billing purposes. The software used to store that information also can store content.
Cellular text-message traffic has been increasing rapidly in the US, hitting nearly 2.1 billion messages in December, the last month for which figures are available.
About 17 percent of US cellphone users said in a recent Forrester Research survey that they send text messages. Such messaging is most popular among people 35 and younger, 26 percent of whom said they use the technology, said analyst Charles Golvin. By contrast, almost 71 percent of Europeans send and receive text messages, he said.
"I think in these days of corporate fraud and in these days of terrorism we're seeing more and more reason to store forever," Kagan said. "Don't ever say anything on e-mail or text messaging that you don't want to come back and bite you."
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source