it may cost lives.

I was once in an unhealthy domestic situation that resulted in a trip through the court system. Text messages became crucial when presenting my case.

Those text messages were the only real form of proof I had. Without them, it would have just been a lot of he-said-she-said, with a few witnesses on both sides testifying that the other person was lying.

Had I not had months of accurate text messages and emails, I may not have been here today.

Messages and texts have played a vital role in our daily lives for almost two decades. Sometimes, with serious consequences.

 In 2008, for example, Kwame Kilpatrick, then mayor of Detroit, was found guilty of perjury and breaking whistleblower laws. He was ordered to pay $6.5 million in damages.

In 2015, Inflategate became almost instantly infamous when Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were found to have deliberately manipulated the air pressure in footballs to give them an advantage in the AFC championship game.

Earlier this year, former police officers who regularly worked with domestic violence victims became subjects of investigationsfor sexual offenses. In each of these cases, investigations, charges, and convictions were all triggered by text messages. -Angie N.