Quote Originally Posted by torstan View Post
My guess is that you are able to report it to a mod if you deem a pm to be offensive, but that mods and the admin do not have access to those pms unless they are reported. I guess we really need Arcana to stop by to answer the question of whether he can get into members private messages without permission, but I'd be very surprised if the Community Leaders have access to pms.
At the end of the day, the admin(s) of any forum will likely have access to PM's if they want to. In almost all cases, those with admin rights can query the SQL server directly if they have the know-how since they have the database username/password. I know us PM's don't have access to the PM's(though, I expect we would get a copy of any that are reported using the link Gandalf pointed out)