Is marital surveillance obsolete? Not in big-bucks divorce. Actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt at the 81st Academy Awards. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Chrisa Hickey

Is marital surveillance obsolete? Not in big-bucks divorce

Among the explosion of headlines about the Angelina Jolie / Brad Pitt divorce, some reports are claiming Jolie had hired a private investigator to uncover evidence that her husband was cheating on her with recent co-star Marion Cotillard. The French movie star issued a strong public denial of any affair and took the opportunity to announce that she was pregnant by her long-time partner to boot.

Given the state of personal electronics, one could easily argue that full-scale surveillance is simply not needed. Cell phone records, texts, email, calendars, appointments… cheaters carelessly give up the game easily.

There will always be a need for old-fashioned full-scale stakeouts. In a world where there is no shortage of high-stakes, big-bucks divorce, providing court-admissible proof of infidelity is a job that will never fully become obsolete.