To one family, the diaries are a reminder of a missing daughter whose husband has seemingly trampled her reputation since she disappeared.

To another family, childhood journals of Susan Cox Powell show evidence that points to why the 28-year-old mother of two vanished inexplicably on Dec. 6, 2009 — and why the public should stop asking them what happened to her.

Now, a Washington judge is set to wade into family discord between Powell’s two families. Susan Powell’s parents, Chuck and Judy Cox, have filed a civil lawsuit against her husband, Josh Powell, and several of his relatives who have maintained a website at www.susanpowell.org and threatened to post entries from an estimated 2,000 pages of childhood diary entries retrieved from the woman’s possessions.

For months, www.susanpowell.org has been a sounding board for the Powells to air frustrations connected to the search for Susan Powell — in particular, with what they see as "attacks" from the Coxes and Josh Powell’s sister Jennifer Graves, who all have questioned whether Josh Powell has provided West Valley City police with all he knows about his 28-year-old wife’s disappearance. The site took a racier turn when the Powells posted an entry that suggested Susan Powell may have run away with Steven Koecher, a St. George man who was last seen in Henderson, Nev., days after Susan Powell disappeared.

And the Powells’ website reached new heights of controversy last month when Steve Powell announced plans to publish excerpts from Susan Powell’s childhood journals to show she had a history of mental instability and was capable of leaving her two young children behind to start a new life with another man.

Her family in Washington immediately fought back, calling the Powells’ plans to post the woman’s childhood diaries an invasion of privacy. The Coxes retained high-profile Seattle attorney Anne Bremner to represent them in the case filed in Tacoma’s Pierce County Superior Court, where they won a small victory Aug. 26 when a judge temporarily barred the Powells from publishing Susan Powell’s diaries online.

The order stated that Josh and Steve Powell — in addition to Josh’s siblings Alina and Michael — must stop posting entries and remove the woman’s diaries from the website. They also were ordered to stop disseminating copies of Susan Powell’s journals to the media.

But a temporary restraining order is a far cry from a permanent injunction: a legal order that would prevent the Powells from continuing to post what the Coxes view as inflammatory entries on www.susanpowell.org. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Sept. 9.

The judge may be hard-pressed to grant such a request, said David Fischer, an attorney and adjunct professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

"The courts and Congress, for that matter, have seen that the Internet is this great new vehicle for robust free speech and they don’t want to chill free speech on the Internet," said Fischer, an expert on invasion-of-privacy issues. He added that the legal system isn’t set up to stop defamation before it happens. "We do not restrain people from saying really bad stuff. Rather, we allow them to say it, then we sue them for defamation.

"Until that happens [a defamation suit], it is very hard to restrain [people] from publishing something defamatory," he said. "I think it will be a challenge for the family to stop [the Powells] from publishing."

Fischer said attorneys for Josh Powell can argue that Susan Powell did not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when she left her journals in her home. And because the two were married, there’s a possibility that she shared her diaries with her husband, essentially making the materials Josh Powell’s property, too.

"Let’s say I am married to you and you have a diary. In my relationship with you as husband and wife, how did I get my hands on the diary? How do I know where your diary is? How did I find it? Did I go into your drawers where you keep your personal clothing? If you shared with me as your husband your diary, it’s kind of mine, too," he said.

"If I can make the argument that the diary is my right also, it gives me more right as the husband of Susan Powell to post it."

Bremner plans to argue on behalf of the Coxes that the family has suffered mental anguish as a result of their daughter’s diaries being posted on the website, and that they will suffer irreparable harm if the postings continue.

"There’s been so much out there right now that’s untrue that’s been put forth by Steven and Josh Powell," Bremner said in an interview with a Seattle radio station. "Susan was a teenager with these journals. It doesn’t show anything. She was a good wife and a good mother who would have never left her children."