by KYW's Amy Feldman

The mayor of Detroit and his top aide have found themselves in a sticky situation after a newspaper examined more than 15,000 archived text messages they sent each other and found that their business wasn’t what you’d call “official.”  So you may wonder a couple of things about the couple—both of whom were married to other people at the time—first:  what kind of kinky details are there? And the second: wait, I thought that since text messages went right to your phone and not through a company computer system they were untraceable and gone once erased.  Here’s what you need to know about text messaging and your privacy.

Your wireless company keeps archives of the text of your text messages for varying lengths of time based on the individual policy of the wireless carrier.  And if subpoenaed in a legal case, those archived messages can be retrieved. When sending any communication electronically don’t be fooled into thinking it’s untraceable. If you don’t want what you said read back to you in court or splashed in the headlines, don’t send lewd emails to advisers, employees, or anyone else.