Where does the eavesdropping end?

News came this week that the MPAA is accussed of hiring a hacker to spy on a company that might have been committing piracy. It makes us realize two things. One, we have a newfound respect for the MPAA. If it's true, then these guys are much more like the Mossad than the bumbling spooks at the CIA. Hell, if it's true, we should put the CIA in charge of movie piracy and give the MPAA the task of finding Osama bin Laden.

The other thing it made us realize: If this proves true, it only highlights that what anyone following the Anthony J. Pellicano wiretapping case already knows: Hollywood is a culture that just doesn't value the law when millions of dollars are at stake.

"On Wednesday, Valence Media sued the Motion Picture Association of America, saying the trade group paid a hacker $15,000 to break into Valence Media's computers and obtain private information, including e-mails, financial information and trade secrets."

By Thursday, the MPAA fired back with this defense:

"We see this as nothing more than a desperate attempt to obscure the fact that they are knowingly facilitating piracy," MPAA spokeswoman Kori Bernards said.

OK. But the point here - as Pellicano trial judge Dale Fischer would probably happily explain to the MPAA - is not that your wife was cheating on you with the gardener; the point here is that your snoop broke the law by illegally accessing the private electronic communications of the gardener.