Sure, most parents bug their teenagers, but a mother in Friday Harbor, Wash., took it to a different level. Although she didn’t actually wiretap her daughter’s phone, she saved enforcement authorities the trouble.

Now, the Washington state Supreme Court has ruled that Carmen Dixon violated her daughter’s privacy, inviting a predictable wave of outrage against “activist judges” who interfere with a parent’s ability to raise a child.

Time out.

First, for what it’s worth, Dixon is no candidate for parent of the year – and not because she has routinely listened in on her children’s phone calls. She’s awaiting sentencing for stealing $129,000 from the U.S. Postal Service.

Second, and far more important, the court ruling – which was unanimous, by the way – did little other than uphold Washington state’s strict privacy law. And it wasn’t 14-year-old Lacey Dixon’s annoyance with a prying mother that concerned the court, it was the due process to which her 17-year-old boyfriend was entitled when he was on trial for second-degree robbery.

The details, briefly, are these: Police were investigating a purse snatching, and they suspected Oliver Christensen, Lacey’s boyfriend. Carmen Dixon allowed police to search her house for evidence but they came up empty. They then asked her to keep an eye out for any evidence.

When Oliver subsequently called and asked for Lacey, Mom handed her the cordless phone, which Lacey took upstairs to her bedroom. Mom, meanwhile, hit the speaker button on the base unit.

Later, reading from notes she took of the conversation, she testified in court about Oliver’s knowledge of where the missing purse could be found. The defense attorney’s objection was overruled and Christensen was convicted. Carmen Dixon’s testimony was considered the most credible against him.

In granting him a new trial, the court carefully satisfied itself that all elements of the privacy law restrictions had been established and, therefore, the testimony was inadmissible. Washington, one of the strictest states in the nation in prohibiting wiretaps, requires the permission of both parties before eavesdropping is permitted.

“We must interpret the privacy act in a manner that ensures that the private conversations of this state’s residents are protected in the face of an ever-changing technological landscape,” wrote Justice Tom Chambers. That’s not judicial activism; if established civil rights are to endure, the courts have to be on guard not to let technological advancement – cordless phones with speaker features, for example – render them obsolete.

As the court made clear, the legal foundation on which last week’s ruling rests wasn’t a creation of ideological jurists. It’s the work of elected lawmakers who answer to the voters every two or four years.

Citing the court’s traditional support for individual privacy, Chambers wrote: “It is, of course, within the province of the Legislature to shift this statutory balance should it decide the residents of this state require less privacy protection.”

At a time when the invasion of individual privacy is a rising worry across society, the lawmakers may be slow to take that step.