Quote Originally Posted by Divinus Arma
Actually I think that viewing member PMs are a "privlege" that can be granted to Mods, administrators, etc.

I know that this is the case for some other forums. It should be no different here.
vB, by default, makes this difficult if not impossible. I don't think the PMs are encrypted, so it should be possible for someone with direct access to the database to read them if they wanted to, but certainly no one else can in unhacked vB, and I think even what I just described is tricky if even possible. So no, Mithrandir can't view your PMs.
Quote Originally Posted by Upxl
Where I come from it's a mayor felony to violate someone's private mail.
Tampering with Postal Service mail is a federal offense. Tampering with other forms of message is not. Viewing something someone submitted to your website definitely isn't, especially since "we're allowed to do anything we want with anything you submit" is doubtless buried somewhere in the TOS.