Got an alibi?
That's what we heard as kids when we made a mistake. You'd find an excuse for your actions, which usually worked. You were in the clear - to screw up again.
But as adults, the lies are bigger: Think marital infidelity or corporate impropriety. Add in the climate of electronic tracking, virtual fingerprinting, and cell-phone cameras at every turn, and it becomes almost impossible to make a mess without family or employers finding out (just ask Britney, Paris, Lindsay - or Alycia).
So, you need a better alibi. And that's where the Alibi Network (www.alibinetwork.com) comes in.
Since 2005, this Chicago-based online enterprise has offered next-level excuses for all manner of misbehavior. For as little as $75, the network will devise cover-ups to your specifications, whether it's lying about your whereabouts or creating illusions of a job, complete with faux phone and secretary.
They have a toll-free line, 877-254-2463. And the name "Alibi Network" will never appear on your credit-card statement (billing is through PayPal).
There are no advertisements for Alibi Network. "People find us when they need us," said company spokeswoman Helen Tracy. "They Google their problem's solution and it comes up us."
The Alibi Network is privately owned, the brainchild of Chicago entrepreneur Jeff Irwin. Irwin, who is no longer involved in the company's daily activities, started the Network after a friend suffered a tricky situation: His daughter was having an affair with his married boss. Confrontation could have been career-ending.
A few phone calls, and the affair ended with no dignity lost, no jobs terminated. All levels of desired privacy became Alibi Network's goal.
"The founder thought it would be great if there was a service that could intervene for people in sensitive situations without having to involve family and friends," Tracy said.
As long as it's legal, the Alibi Network takes the case. Tracy outlined some recent maneuvers, performed by the Network's staff of paid actors and consultants:
An answering-machine message about a phony medical assignment helped a nurse meet another man, with her family none the wiser.
A fake detox colonic spa was set up as a cover for a woman who wanted to be away from home for 10 days.
Someone posing as a family member told a woman that her boyfriend, who was 20 years older than she, had a chronic illness so she would break up with him (he wanted to spare her feelings).
For a man who used a fishing trip as a cover, the Network arranged for a van full of guys to pick him up. He was delivered back home a few days later, by the same guys. They even provided pictures and fish.
Is this kind of calculated untruth - phony receipts for phonier hotel rooms and airline tickets, fake phone calls - really allowed?
"I couldn't offer any opinion as to the ethical or moral implications of using such a service," said Philadelphia lawyer John S. Fusco, who reviewed the site and its service contract. "But legally, as long as they're not breaking any laws - that the activity the Alibi Network's client is actually engaging in is legal, or at least not illegal - then I see no problem from a legal standpoint."
The Alibi Network claims it is simply using technology to take back some of the privacy lost to camera phones and GPS tracking. "It's not just about having affairs - nothing is private anymore," Tracy said.
Here's how a typical exchange works: A customer joins the Network, paying a $75 annual fee. When he or she needs a lie, he can call or e-mail the Network, which connects him to an actor who asks the client several questions about what the excuse is, and how it should be delivered. Each lie has its own separate fee, starting at $75.
"Our clients come up with the lies and we provide the infrastructure," Tracy said.
Though she won't give hard numbers, Tracy says that the Network gets one case per four inquiries and that the demographic is pretty much half men and half women, ages 30 to 65.
Women seem to be more brazen, Tracy said. "Men might be gone for a day or two but we've had some women go away for crazy extended periods of time."
California provides the largest number of customers. Pennsylvania ranks seventh, with about 30 percent of those users in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.
"The majority of our Philadelphia customers, probably 75 percent, are people requesting virtual hotels and seminars, and the other 25 percent are work-related and calls handling sensitive issues," Tracy said.
Tracy stresses that Alibi Network takes no part in plans it knows are illegal or sound fishy. And the company does have moral guidelines, she said. They won't work with anyone under 21, for example, or falsify death certificates or cheat someone out of money.
"If they want a receipt to show their wife, that's one thing," Tracy said. "If they're looking for their work for reimbursement - we won't handle it."
They won't offer flight-training hour receipts, which they have been asked to do. "Anything that's remotely off, we turn away. In a case that seems a terrorist threat, we'll turn it over to the FBI. We're Americans first."
In its two years of existence, Tracy said, the Alibi Network has never been to court. There's been only one illegal incident, she said, in which the company cooperated with police.
"Everything Alibi Network does goes through our legal department," Tracy said.
As well it should, according to professor Rodney Smolla, dean of Washington and Lee University's Law School in Lexington, Va., and a First Amendment lawyer.
Though he usually represents media outlets, Smolla acted as counsel to the families that sued Colorado's Paladin Press, publishers of Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors, a book reportedly used in connection with the slayings of three people. He sees some similarities between the book and the Alibi Network.
"If you intentionally put into the market material used to commit crime, and your purpose is to make money assisting them in doing it, you cross the line between abstraction and advocacy into participating in crime," he said.
It doesn't matter that the Alibi Network isn't actually doing the misdeed, he said. If they knowingly help a customer "hurt someone, defame or libel them," the Network could be liable, even if they have a statement that they aren't responsible for the actions of others.
Still, Smolla can see that in this age of Internet tracking and tracing, an outfit like the Alibi Network can help recapture some sense of privacy.
"To the extent that services like this can wall you off from constant scrutiny, it's very understandable so to counterattack the reduction of privacy we have," he said.
Morally and ethically, though, does the mere existence of Alibi Network, which actively helps people cheat on their spouses and fudge the truth, say something about society?
Nope, according to Tracy. To her, it's a job - and one not unlike that of a criminal defense lawyer.
"Defense attorneys defend criminals knowing that they are guilty, but we do not think of them any less as human beings," she said. "We are not doing the lying. Using our service is a choice our customers make. And we do not judge."