Stuff You Should Know - Do you lose the right to privacy when you die?

Episode Date: October 20, 2011

If you live in a place where privacy is protected, the legal system keeps prying eyes from your personal information. But does that privacy extend beyond death? That depends. Tune in to learn more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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always finding those life lessons that are presented in every single story. Did you know white football is a great game of skill, but a greater game of will? You'll know when you listen to More to It on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HouseStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me, as always, is one Charles W. Chuck Bryant. He's a good guy. Which one are we doing? Oh, we're doing privacy. Great. That's how loose we play here, people. Loosey-goosey. Sometimes. Yeah. How you doing?

Great. How are you? I'm good. I think we're both pretty pumped for these two subjects today. Yeah, mainly I'm pumped about putting out a decent episode for once. Once in your life? I hope we do. I probably just jinxed us, or I'm gonna overthink it. No, no, no, no, no. This is great. It's gold. Here we go. All right. Chuck. Yes. Have you ever heard of something called Death Switch? Is it a movie? No. Was it a band? No. Should be. I think Kill Switch is a band, though. Okay. And a thing. Maybe even a failsafe. But Death Switch is a service, an internet service, that you or I or any Schmo with even a dial-up connection can go get. Okay. There's a free version

of it where you can insert one email address and one message, and then there's a premium version where you can do up to 30 email addresses and all this other stuff. But the point of it is this. You set up all the stuff you want to say to people after you're dead, whether it's like, I know it. Sure. See you in hell. Right. See you in heaven. Yeah. Well, yeah. I guess that depends on your disposition or your bent. Yeah. Or I love you. Just wanted to tell you one last time. This is all your fault? Freaking you out, like that kind of thing. Yeah. I know what you did. That kind of thing. And with the premium service, you can attach things like movies and things like that. So you could be like,

hey, here's one last bootleg. I know you always like my pirated movies. So here's one more. Wow. No, but like videos would be cutie patootie. And you would have it sit to me every day for the next like 40 years. Right. Well, I think it just goes out once. But the point is you create all these emails and then death switch sits on them for you securely. They're secured. Sure. And then on a fixed schedule, they send you an email saying, Hey, click this link and put in your password. Like basically, are you still alive? Exactly. Okay. And if you don't answer, it does it again and again and again. And then, you know, there's a set amount of times where it

starts to really kind of pepper you like, Hey, man, we're about to like, you know, the big, yeah, that your boss is going to get that email if you don't do this. And then it goes, Okay, you're dead. You're either dead or you're in a coma or you're just, you're critically incapacitated. Can't even ask for a computer. And here you go. And it sends out your emails for you, which is pretty cool. And I think it's cool that everyone, anyone gets one free message from this company. You can do one email, one email address with one message, no attachments or whatever for free at death switch.com, which of which I own no shares or stake or any kind of financial interest. I hope not. How much is the premium service? I don't know. I'm curious.

What am I, like you're, am I your Google? No, you know, let me Google that for you. So the point is death switch is kind of the service that straddles the line of what we're talking about today, which is privacy after death, because they maintain your privacy while you're still alive. And then after you're dead, the whole point is to go blab whatever you want to blab, right for the very least after you don't return their emails. But the presence of death switch and the whole service it provides actually falls squarely on one side of what's kind of a pretty big moral, philosophical, ethical discussion I'm finding after researching this. And that is whether or not you do have any right to privacy after you're dead. Yeah.

And I thought this was a pretty good, this is, it was the Grabster who wrote this article. So of course, it's quality. He should get paid extra for this. Yeah, we should at least get to meet him. Yeah, he should come up. You met him? Yeah. Now I emailed him a while back and was, I mean, early on was like, Hey, dude, thanks for that. That's right. He replied like leave me alone. Yeah. Who are you? Pod what? Yeah. So the Grabster wrote this article, you know, it's quality. And he makes a really good point right out of the gate, like to understand whether or not we have any privacy rights after we're dead. Let's first investigate the privacy rights we have when we're alive. That's a good way to go about it. And they are both at once sweeping

and a tenuous. That's a good way to put it. Thanks. Well, the Constitution, if you're going to talk rights of American citizens at least, no better place to start. Yeah, because it says in the Constitution, everyone has the right to privacy. No, it does not. It doesn't say that in that document or the bill of rights. But the Supreme Court over the years has interpreted the Constitution in such a way that it, in many cases, does provide a right to privacy based on largely a Ninth Amendment, which says, go ahead. Ninth Amendment says that there's probably rights that the framers didn't think of. Yeah, pretty broad. Yeah. Fourth Amendment, of course, unlawful search and seizure, my favorite. And the 14th Amendment, which is that the feds can't

deprive you of life or liberty or property, buddy. Right. And in the interpretation of liberty, privacy is a major aspect of that. Sure. So this is played out several times. Anything that's not in the Constitution that can be challenged means it's up to the Supreme Court to decide what's what. And they have generally sided with the rights of the individual to privacy time and time again. The government has had the back of its hands smacked when it's tried to say, hey, parents, you have to do this with your kids' education. You can't homeschool them hippy. You need to put them in public schools so we can teach them exactly what we want. And the Supreme Court said, no, no, no. They also said, by the way, you also can't outlaw sodomy between two consenting adults.

Do you remember that time when there was like, like sodomy was illegal? Yeah. We were alive and sentient. Yeah. Griswold. I'm sorry. Lawrence v. Texas 2003. Yes, I know. That's pretty recent. That was John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner were lovers, lovers, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend and boyfriend. They were committing an act of coitus, love making in the privacy of their own home in the bedroom. And it was consensual. It's a big one too. Very much consensual. And in 1998, and a sheriff's deputy entered the apartment with his weapon drawn because a call had been made by their neighbor saying that there was someone waving a gun and there was domestic dispute going on. So the sheriff goes in there, see these two guys doing it, and they're like, you're under arrest

for doing that. And as it comes out later, the neighbor... He's like, do you see this phallic symbol I'm holding in my hand? It turns out the neighbor that had reported this was previously in a relationship with one of those dudes. It was a false, not charged, but what do you call it, a false report. And he was convicted of 15 days in jail for making that call. Can you believe petty jealousy ended up changing the law under the Supreme Court? Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. But they basically went to the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling. They said, you know what, dudes, you can do that deed in your bedroom there. Good for you, Chuck. Good for Texas. Good for Texas. Good for the gay community as well. Sure. There's this great... Jivers read any Akbar and Jeff

comics, Matt Groening stuff from Life as Hell. I knew Life as Hell. I'd never heard of the other. Was that part of that? Akbar and Jeff was part of it. The two guys who looked like twins who both wore pheasants. Oh, yeah, yeah. There was one where it was like they were both sitting on the couch together and it said like... They were watching the news and it said like from the TV, the sodomy has been outlawed and like they move apart on the couch and then they move back together and they go, damn the law. That's pretty good. The first case you mentioned though was Meyer vs. Nebraska and that was in 1920. A teacher was teaching German to a student and they busted him and arrested him. They're like, you're not teaching anyone German. You need to

be teaching them freedom language. Exactly. AKA American. But he won and then in Connecticut, two people, a Planned Parenthood director and a physician, opened a birth control clinic and they were arrested for selling contraceptives but that was overturned. So they're siding with the people. So those are cases of privacy, basically based on what you do in your own home or what you do in your own educational system. Business not so much because you can't refuse the right, you can't refuse service to somebody based on like their skin color or anything. Yeah, but you can sell contraceptives. That's what I meant. You totally can. You can sell contraceptives to anybody you want. But those are all based on the idea that it's what you're doing in your own

home. It's your own private business, that kind of thing. But there's actually an act, there's a federal act that says you have privacy, especially when it comes to government agencies and that's the Federal Privacy Act appropriately named of 1974 that came about at the time when people were just starting to figure out what computers were capable of. They're like, wow, those punch cards can do this and the public realized that wait, there's databases now and you don't have to walk all the way across Washington DC to get my file, which means you're not going to do that. So I'm safe. Now you can cross reference things from agency to agency. My information is just up for grabs way more than it ever was before. So in response,

the federal government passed the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which basically says, you can go up to the EPA and be like, hey, Feds, I want to see my file and they have to show it to you. What's interesting is it certainly doesn't cover them getting the information for that file. No. It just covers the dissemination of that information. And if you walked up to the FBI and said, hey, Feds, let me see what you got on me. Yeah, exactly. They'd be like, sure, sure, come in. Right over here. Come in. Can we get you some coffee? It's like De Niro. Lorraine Bracco comes to him at the end. He's like, no, no, no, just a little further. Right. Right. See that fur, go get you a fur. Yeah, if the FBI ever offers you a fur,

just walk away if you can. So that was a pretty landmark act. And that's definitely one of the, in addition to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution, it forms a pillar. The other pillar, strangely enough, came out of the Clinton years. And it is the health insurance portability and accountability act, HIPAA, which you might be familiar with from filling out like doctor's forms and stuff. Basically, it's saying like, here's the HIPAA waiver. Not portability. No, portability. That'd be weird. Yeah. Because then you could drink it. You can't drink an act. No. Sorry. Yeah, 1996. And that basically covers medical information and things that like your doctor or your insurance provider can disseminate about you. Right. And so you put all that together

and you have a pretty reasonable right to privacy. Yeah. And at the very least to see what the feds have on you, depending on whether they're law enforcement or not. Exactly. So if you are alive, these are the rights that are afforded to you alive. And a member of America, the American family, right? That card carrying member. The moment you die, though, that that privacy act, the federal privacy act in 1974 is like you're dead to me. You no longer are you have no rights whatsoever under my umbrella. Ella. Ella. That is true. Explicitly says so. HIPAA is the opposite. It actually extends those rights very plainly to your family and says, you know what? Your family can is now in charge of this and it's completely transferred. The permission for information

sharing is given completely to them. Right. The whole aspect of, well, it's your state. It's part of your state. Yeah. The basically the right to say, yeah, that person can have access to this medical info, that medical information, whatever that passes to the survivor. So HIPAA is real strict federal privacy. It's like you're dead. HIPAA is like you're alive. You live forever. It can. It's called descendant or there's a there's a descendancy of the right. It's a descendable right. I'm sorry. And so too is something called the right of publicity. Yeah, this was pretty interesting. Yeah. So there is this thing that came out of the 1950s when baseball, baseball stars started saying like, Hey, wait a minute, man, I, I'm not that hip with this guy

coming out and taking my picture and, you know, putting it on tops and then tops making money. I should be able to make some money. That's my picture. Yeah. And everybody went, but these are just baseball cards. Yeah. Yeah. And then afterwards, somebody, you know, one of the baseball players said, no, they're not. There's more to it. And everybody said, Oh, okay, maybe you're right. We give in baseball star. Yeah. So that out of that came the idea of the right to publicity, which is a celebrity, somebody who can make money off of their image, their likeness, their identity down to you or you down to like Einstein's identity is owned actually by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He willed it to him. And most people's identities are managed by

their estate. And when you're talking about famous folks, right, there's also a company called CMG worldwide out of Indiana. Unbelievable. Their, their business model is collecting rights of publicity, like buying them off of estates or managing them for estates. But basically their, their thing is licensing the identity of a dead person. Unbelievable. So, um, do you remember, wasn't it like a Coors commercial or whatever? And John Wayne was in it? Uh, I remember that my, I sort of remember that, but I definitely remember Fred Astaire was in a dirt devil commercial, like dancing with a broom. Right. Now if he or the broom became the dirt devil, I think that was the deal. Right. Now his, if his family exercises the

right to publicity of his estate, um, dirt devil paid to use his likeness. Yeah. I wish I would have remembered to look that up. I can't remember which way that one went because there was a stink over it. Well, the thing is, is likely even if you are big on privacy, right? Um, your right to publicity is taxable. So even if Fred's Fred Astaire's heirs said no, he wanted to rest in peace. He didn't want to do any more dancing, especially not to CGI dancing. He just wanted to be dead. They likely did charge for that rather than just granting permission because they have to pay taxes on the right to publicity, whether they use it or not. How do they figure that? I don't know, Chuck. I think that might have been Gene Kelly actually come to think of it. No,

I think it was Fred Astaire. I'm picturing Gene Kelly. Well, you know, we'll eventually know the answer. Maybe Gene Kelly was the broom. Gene Kelly was always the broom to Fred Astaire. It's not fair. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute, uh, 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The

property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder in the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the podcast, Survivors Heal, hosted by me, Oya L. Charelles. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground for

providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen in as we discuss the healing side of true crime and what I call the new survivors movement. Listen to survivors heal, available on my iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. It varies. And actually, in most of the world, the right of publicity does into death. But in the US, it's a state law issue. Yes, state by state. And New York, it terminates at death. But other states like Tennessee, Washington and Indiana, which govern the rights of Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and CMG is based out of Indiana, probably no accident. They say the control of the identity is secured for a term from ranges from like 100 years to forever, which is really

interesting. And like we said, it's the person's image, it's their likeness, it's their identity. And like the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sued some costume maker for creating a wig and a mustache that it was based on Einstein. Well, did they call it the Einstein now? Probably. Because I went wig shopping the other night. I really did for LG Post playing a come as your favorite rock star party. So we're like, well, we got to be dressed up as well. So we went wig shopping. And they had that's right. And this is before we knew we were even doing this podcast. They had wigs that were clearly people living and dead, but they were just named something different. Right now, like shock jock was the Howard Stern. Right. They had an Amy Winehouse

one called the rehab wig. Jeez. I know. See now, her family probably just doesn't aware of that. I'm sure they would have a lawsuit on their hands. They could sue an American court if it's an American company. See if you can guess top hat rocker. Edgar winner. That's good slash who slash, of course. But what was funny was among this wall of wigs of thinly veiled names. There was a snooki wig and it was snooki. Yeah, with her face on it. So she was like, sure, I'll take money. Right. Make a wig. Yeah. Well, yeah, wouldn't you if you were snooki that do it if I was Chuck. So that's the right right to publicity that and the hip of protection are descendable rights. So it's passed along. Yeah.

And Einstein, his estate makes $76 million a year. Well, they didn't last five million five years. Oh, five combined. Yeah. But that's a lot. That's a time. Yeah. And that's Einstein. Like I knew Elvis and Hendricks and those guys and like actually Marilyn Monroe's in the public domain in G. Yes, she is. And there's a there was a fight over that. The California tried to basically pass like a lover boy law. It just made up that term, but it makes sense where they said everyone has to work for the weekend. Right. Everyone has to wear bandanas where they said like Marilyn Monroe's estate is part of the right to publicity is a descendable thing. Sure. And I guess somebody didn't want that that way and they went to the trouble of proving that she was a resident in

New York at the time of death. So T. S. Well, and it's it's fortuitous that you mentioned Monroe or maybe I did because autopsy photos come into play here and her death photos, arguably among the sexiest death photos of all time, probably autopsy photos of generally and murder scene photos have been generally protected from release when someone submits for the freedom of information act and says, Hey, we want to see these photos in the courts of generally says, No, you know what? You can't write with freedom of information act. That's this thing that's this spearhead into the heart of the other of HIPAA and the freedom of privacy act. Yeah. Because it's this catch 22. It's like the government is tasked with that if they're going to gather information on you and

keep it, they have to protect it. It's your privacy. Yeah. But government also has to be transparent. Yeah. Somebody asks about that your information, the government has to give it to them under freedom of information act. Unless again, if it has to do with law enforcement, they're just going to turn you down outright. Yeah. But on a case by case basis, it's usually decided whether or not they're going to grant it. And a lot of times they kick it to the courts and let the courts decide and there have been some big ones. Usually the court rules in favor of rules against the freedom of information act, especially when they feels like there's going to be harmed to the family. Yeah. If it's harmless or if it's been like many, many years, they might allow it.

But the one that the Grabster mentions in here was the Vincent Foster case who is the attorney who killed himself in 1993 who worked for the Clintons or the Clinton administration. And he was no, he was, I think, a whitewater guy too. So he was like pre-administration with the Clintons for a while. Well, when he committed suicide, there were photographs of the scene and they were not made public. So conspiracy people filed an FOIA, whatever report you have to fill out and said, we want to see these photos. Yeah. And they said, no. Yeah. Apparently the guy still managed to get four Polaroids released, which is a really an effort. Yeah. Well, good for him. If you want to spend your full day at least,

just go ahead and type in Vince Foster. Oh, I'm sure. Click on the whatreallyhappened.com thing on it. It's, it's extensive, exhaustive. I'm sure. So, yeah. Dale Earnhardt more recently was, you know, he, he crashed and killed, was killed at the Daytona 500. Yeah. Did you hear he apparently died like flipping off the guy who like, who spun him out? Yeah. That's what I heard. That's a nice way to go out at least. Yeah. Screw you, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. They, the Florida courts rejected the plea to release those photos in the newspaper and the Supreme Court. They said, you know what, we're not even going to entertain this case. Bye-bye. Yeah. Florida, Florida passed a law, another lover boy law for, to prevent these,

these photos from being released. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have

way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder in the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the podcast, Survivors Heal, hosted by me, Oya L. Charelles. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground for providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen in as we discuss the healing

side of true crime and what I call the new survivors movement. Listen to survivors heal available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. That's a lover boy law. Okay, I was silent because I was scanning my brain for another lover boy line, but I couldn't make it one. Chuck, even more recent than Dale Earnhardt's death, that whole kerfuffle over his death photos. Well, there's been a couple, but one is the news of the world phone hacking scandal. I don't know about that one. Okay, let me enlighten you to the despicableness of what news of the world was capable of and was doing for a while. It's not weekly world news. No, it's a news core. Yeah, RIP. Oh, is that not around anymore?

It's not. It's a news core, which is Rupert Murdoch owned paper that's now under. It was headed by a woman named Rebecca Brooks, and she's now gone. As a matter of fact, news of the world is gone because of all this. They were hacking like the voicemail accounts of like everybody, the royals, celebrities, but the one that was really just really awful was the voicemail of a 13-year-old girl named Millie Dowler, who in 2002 went missing. While she was missing, this is big news in England. News of the world had some private detective hack her voicemail and were listening to her voicemail messages, and the mailbox was full, so they started deleting them so that people could leave more if possible, so they could hack more and report on more.

What were they trying to get? Just any information they possibly could, because the girl was still missing. She was dead at the time, but no one knew that. Was she really trying to help get clues? No. They were trying to get more leads. A full mailbox and a dead girl who's not getting her mail isn't going to help anybody as far as news of the world was going, so they just deleted some after they'd listened and written stories on them. Trying to get news story leads, not case leads. Exactly. All stories. No one had any idea they were doing this, so the girl's parents thought she was still alive and was deleting her voicemail. It was a very big deal. It also threw off the cops, too. It hindered

the investigation, so everybody who has anything to do with that has not been executed by the state in Great Britain. That brings up a good point, though, is this stuff a crime? It sort of depends on the law. HIPAA actually does enforce criminal penalties if you knowingly share medical information, like selling Madonna's pap smear, for instance. You could be put in jail for that. I almost just did a spit take, a genuine one. Really? Did that happen? No, it was in the movie Slacker. Oh, okay. Man, that was close. But I bet stuff like that does happen, for sure. Oh, yeah. More often than not, though, there will be civil penalties instead of criminal ones, and you won't be going to jail. But you can slander someone after death.

You can. Well, depending on what state you're in. They don't call it slander. You can say what you want after death. Well, there's anti-defamation laws in California as one state. That was the only state I could find. In most states, it's like, no, you can say whatever you want about somebody after they've died. But there's something of a movement toward getting anti-defamation laws in place for the deceased. And it's based on this philosophical debate, like, can you harm a dead person? Right. What do you think? What's your opinion? I don't know. It seems like it would be a nice thing for your privacy rights to extend after death. Sure. But I mean in the name of respecting the dead. Right. But so in the U.S., you've noticed like most of the court cases were,

they were looking out for the family, the survivors. This is about like the person, the individual, even people who like you don't know any of their survivors. They lived long enough ago that no one has any idea. Right. But the whole basis of it is that like through our lifetime, through our life's work, our accomplishments, our reputations, we build this thing that's called an identity, a legacy. And it survives us after death. And that's what can be defamed. And that's how you can harm a dead person if you believe that you can harm a dead person. And so that's kind of the basis of the drive to get people on board like, hey, let's all just be nice about dead people. Well, and in the day, in this day and age of the electronic life, your emails,

your Facebook account, like it brings up a whole different. Actually, can I tell you a really, really sad tragic story? Always. Speaking of Facebook, I found a old friend from 25 years ago on Facebook by chance. And I was like, Oh, I haven't thought of her in literally 25 years. She looks great. How's she doing? Senator for a new request, blah, blah, blah, was kind of on her Facebook page. And then I saw a photo of her with with her kid that said, then someone said like a very bittersweet to look at this. And I thought, Oh man, I guess her kid must have passed away. That's awful. Scroll down a little more. She had passed away like two weeks previous. Wow. This girl of like, in the middle of the night, passed away. I was

on her fate, had already sent the friend request. And I was like, Oh my God. And for some reason, it just stuck with me for a few days. It was, I haven't seen her in that long. But I was just like, all of a sudden there's this Facebook page with pictures everywhere. And hey, this was me last week. Right. And now I'm not here. And then, you know, her kids had posted, you know, like they kind of took over her account where people were leaving memorial messages and things like that. So, and they bring up in the article, you know, typically 90 days after an inactive account, they'll shut it down. I don't know if that's Facebook specific. But well, Facebook apparently has a policy in place where if you can prove your family member or something like that,

they will revert control of it to you. Yeah. It basically becomes a memorial page. Like, yeah, you may as friends with DJ AM on Facebook for some reason. Yeah. So, and she still is and his page is now like a memorial page. People post on it like a couple of times a day, every day still. Well, I think that's what Facebook's trying to create here with their whole new system that's rolling out is like, this is your life, collected. Yes. And we own it. Yeah. If you want to know more about basically what we're talking about is whether or not you leave a digital legacy afterward stuff to blow your mind. Our colleagues, Robert and Julie covered that. Didn't they? Yes, stuff to blow your mind. So you can search that on iTunes or you can go to

the stuff to blow your mind RSS page just by searching stuff to blow your mind RSS on your favorite search engine. And if you want to read this really good article by the Grabster, um, you can search. Do you have a right to privacy after you die? How about privacy after death in the search bar at howstuffworks.com? And since I said search bar, that means, of course, it's time for Listener Mail. Josh, I'm going to call this something you called it, which is cultbusters. Oh, yeah, this is good. I didn't call it that the author did. I was that in the subject line? Yeah. Hey, guys, have a great story for you. About 15 years ago, my uncle's wife passed away from cancer. He became disillusioned with his religion at the time. He had a coworker who in

an effort to help him cope with his grief and confusion invited him to attend his church. Well, it turned out to be a cult and his coworker was a recruiter. It wasn't exactly a destructive cult in terms of violence. There were no drugs to get them closer to aliens, no suicides, no murders, etc. They're a pretty peaceful polygamous group following some basic Judeo-Christian principles. They didn't all live on a ranch, a ranch, but they did all live in the same town. When my uncle joined, the prophet of the cult gave him a wife. Pretty nice. Here you go. Welcome. It's a welcome gift. And put him to work. My uncle soon came to be one of the prophet's top men. Our family knew that he was given several wives, but in his communications with us,

he would only ever tell us about his first wife and his children by her. Fast forward to a few months ago, my uncle's daughter is 14 years old. The prophet of the cult ordered his daughter, my cousin, to be married to another man in the group. My uncle for the first time in a long time thinks like a normal person and becomes uncomfortable with the situation. He had never once questioned what he had been told. He never even considered that he was part of a cult. He just considered it a small religion. He really struggled with this after that. He consumed as much as he could from that point about cults in groups like his. And among that, he actually listened to your very podcast about cults.

That is awesomely awesome. He realized that he was in the very wrong and he had to get out. Since he was trusted and respected by many other members, he was able to convince many other higher ups and lay members that they were also in a bad cult and that they had to get out. My uncle and many of the others were excommunicated and the cult now numbers, the cult's numbers now are very much dwindling. So I would like to thank you personally for your involvement in my uncle's return to real life. I'm sure you still would have left the cult, but the extra nudge of your podcast was sure to help him along. And that is from anonymous.

That is amazing. How about that? Culp busting. Wow. Yeah. That was really something else. I mean, I'm not one to begrudge anybody their religious beliefs or anything like that, but if we can provide information that helps people come to a decision they're comfortable with, I'm proud of that. Done. Yeah. So thank you, anonymous, for that letter, that very excellent letter that's, wow. I mean, that's like, we should have, that's legit, t-shirts or something like that.

Culp busters. Yeah. If you have a story about how the podcast, stuff you should know has helped your life, we want to hear it or harmed it. It's a good one. Just not that, not how it's affected it in no way whatsoever. We don't want to hear about that. You can tweet that to us in 140 characters or less to SYSK podcast. You can write it on Facebook at facebook.com slash stuff you should know, which will be up for eternity. Or you can send us a good old fashioned email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com.

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