17 ms·

The end of Roe will bring about a sea change in the encryption debate

113 points by zacwest 4y ago

snickerbockers 4y ago
- aaomidi 4y ago
  Right to privacy. That's how we have abortion rights rn
  - snickerbockers 4y ago
    Right to encryption is arguably implied by 1st amendment's freedom of speech, and 5th amendment's right against self-incrimination (although AFAIK there's not any major rulings on that). Roe vs Wade's right to privacy only applies to abortion. For example, it does not give you the right to inject yourself with heroin.
    - aaomidi 4y ago
      Although one could argue it should.
      - snickerbockers 4y ago
        You might be right on that. I'm really just frustrated by the way the democrats are rely on unelected supreme court justices to compensate for legislative failures with an extremely creative interpretation of the 14th amendment, and one that's not even consistently applied.
        aaomidi 4y ago
        I am too. I mean the democrats have consistently failed in delivering meaningful and lasting change. Sigh. I hope we wake up as a society a bit.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Roe vs Wade's right to privacy only applies to abortion. That's true in the narrow sense that Roe on its face only applies directly to abortion, but Roe explicitly is an application of the reproductive privacy applied in Griswold and Eisenstadt regarding contraception, and is in turn foundational in the development of the case law of sexual privacy that federal courts, or state courts applying federal Constitutional law, have held invalidated, among other things, sodomy bans (Lawrence v. Texas), bans on same sex marriage and it's federal recognition (US v. Windsor, Obergefell v. Hodges), differential age of consent laws for same-sex vs. opposite-sex sexual conduct, bans on sex between unmarried people, and bans on sex toys (though there was, and I think remains, a circuit split in the federal appeals courts on this issue).
- atoav 4y ago
  Well if we assume that some states are going to treat abortion as murder, one could argue encrypted communications about getting such an medical procedure are under higher pressure than when they are not. Sadly a majority of the US right is not "small government" anymore, but "as long as it is our guys government should force people to do things". Authotarian movements are not known to be advocates for privacy. I wouldn't trust a system that is this unreasonable when it comes to bodily autonomy to suddenly have it's ducks in a row when it comes to privacy (or for that matter: any other freedom US citizens currently enjoy).
  - snickerbockers 4y ago
    > Well if we assume that some states are going to treat abortion as murder, one could argue encrypted communications about getting such an medical procedure are under higher pressure than when they are not. But that has nothing to do with outlawing encryption. There have already been cases where the government has been unable to access data related to murders. Classifying abortion as murder wouldn't change anything in that regard. >I wouldn't trust a system that is this unreasonable when it comes to bodily autonomy to suddenly have it's ducks in a row when it comes to privacy (or for that matter: any other freedom US citizens currently enjoy). Roe's problem is that it asserts a right that is never directly described in the amendment it's supposed to be based upon. This is unique to abortion as most fundamental rights are explicitly described in the constitution.
    - theossuary 4y ago
      That's just a classic prolife talking point. The right to abortion is covered under the liberty clause of the 14th amendment, and overturning Planned Parenthood v Casey weakens that clause. This means the court is setting up to allow states much more freedom to restrict individual liberties. Why conservatives are okay with this I don't know, I guess authoritarians are okay with losing freedoms as long as they're in power.
      - snickerbockers 4y ago
        >That's just a classic prolife talking point. well, it was an amendment introduced after the civil war to prohibit slavery on a constitutional level but then 100 years later some un-elected supreme court justices decided that it's also about making abortion a fundamental right. Maybe it's a classic because it's a good point? >This means the court is setting up to allow states much more freedom to restrict individual liberties The actual quote is "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;", i think it's a pretty big stretch to say that they meant that states can't make things illegal,especially since it follows up with "without due process of law". Plenty of other things have been outlawed both before and after this ruling. > This means the court is setting up to allow states much more freedom to restrict individual liberties. Why conservatives are okay with this I don't know, I guess authoritarians are okay with losing freedoms as long as they're in power. As I said above, 14A hasn't prevented people from losing liberties, except in this one narrow instance. The reason they're okay with losing this liberty is because they're concerned that unborn fetuses should be considered as human lives. Whether or not this is correct is debatable, but the point is that if they are considered as such then abortion could be outlawed for the same reason murder is outlawed.
zacwest 4y ago
The part that stands out to me, as someone who writes software for a living: > Tech companies: Do you want to help put your users behind bars by handing over the data you hold about them in response to legal demands by law enforcement? Do you not really care if they go to prison, but do care about the bad PR you’ll get if the public finds out about it? Then start planning now for what you’re going to do when – not if – those demands start coming in. Data minimization and end-to-end-encryption are more important than ever. And start worrying about internal access controls and insider threats, too: don’t assume that none of your employees would ever dream of quietly digging through users’ data looking for people they could dox to the police in anti-abortion jurisdictions. Protecting your users is already so hard, and it’s going to get a lot harder. Update your threat models.
- tlb 4y ago
  I agree it might turn out to be worthwhile, but don't underestimate the difficulty. Building a system where all user data is encrypted with keys only the users have is an order of magnitude harder than the regular way. You can't debug anything from server logs. You can't change database schemas server-side. Otherwise simple things like migrating accounts to a new device become an ordeal. It's only in the last few years that some messenger services have probably (?) got secure group chat right. That's how hard it is for a well-studied application. Expecting developers to do this for lifestyle trackers is asking a lot. It would be much more efficient for society if the government didn't criminalize common behaviors, requiring regular citizens to have nation-state-proof opsec.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Or we could go back to on prem and customer owned machines I guess.
    - the_other 4y ago
      Why is this getting down-voted? It seems worthy of a little discussion.
rektide 4y ago
This 7 year old, wonderful article "Data is a Toxic Asset", wasnt couched at all in term of nation state aggressors against the population (which seems to be the sad sad sad new low brought about by a horrific politicalized biased supreme court and extemist states): but keeps becoming more and more and more and more true the more the state drags us into their ideological anti-liberty hell. Especially vis-a-vie the new conservative lead activist court, which has been undoing & repealing individual & personal rights at a prodiguous rate, holding any data is dangerous, is a risk. Everything we could be trying to use & understand about ourselves is now a hazard, under the eyes of a pernicious, vicious, angry state. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_toxic.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11273356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11273356 (160points, 6 years, 65 comments)
- catalyst5a 4y ago
  I don’t follow supreme court decisions very closely, but what other significant cases have they overturned since gaining a conservative majority?
  - jimmygrapes 4y ago
    None. It's just hyperbole based in a lack of understanding of civics.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > gaining a conservative majority Q: When would one say that happened? Is there somewhere one can track which side (although I hate to use that phrase) has had a majority over which period?
    - catalyst5a 4y ago
      > Q: When would one say that happened? Under Trump’s presidency, since he appointed three justices. The most significant shift was in 2020, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away and was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barret. Ginsburg was one of the most liberal justices. Supreme court justice’s are non-partisan and don’t represent a political party, but they generally reflect the beliefs and ideology of the president who appoints them in their interpretation of the role of the constitution. e.g. originalism vs. a living document. > Is there somewhere one can track which side (although I hate to use that phrase) has had a majority over which period? That’s a good question, that would be a helpful resource. This seems like a good place to start: https://www.allsides.com/blog/how-supreme-court-ideology-has-shifted-over-time-ketanji-brown-jackson https://www.allsides.com/blog/how-supreme-court-ideology-has...
jdkee 4y ago
The conflation of abortion nee pregnancy with the right to privacy was the fatal underpinning in Roe and wrongly construes the line of cases it descended from, starting with Griswold. Pregnancy as framed as the right of bodily autonomy in no way shape or form resembles the right to privacy. That is the bridge too far that leads to Roe's undoing. Alito correctly identifies this in his opinion, along with the fact that Casey is simply legislating from the bench, a no-no in the separation of powers, among other defects.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 4y ago
  It's hard to care about legalistic arguments when what it boils down to is that we're losing some freedoms that we have enjoyed for the past 50 years.
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    Well, don't build freedoms on bad legalistic theories if you don't want to lose them to legalistic arguments. "It's hard to care about foundation repair when you're lying in the rubble with broken bones." Well sure! You had decades to care!
  - ReptileMan 4y ago
    We have been constantly losing freedoms since 9/11, guantanamo and covid. 5-6 administrations have shown they care jack shit about right to privacy which underpins Roe. It's just the matter of course.
  - blep_ 4y ago
    It's also hard to watch people I agree with repeatedly make the same nonsensical arguments for a position I hold, and then repeatedly get surprised when they don't work out. This isn't a privacy issue any more than the legality of anything else is a privacy issue. Things don't become legal just because they're done in secret. It's not even a controlling-women issue. The abortion debate is, and has always been, a question of whether fetuses are alive enough for the term "murder" to apply to them. The longer we refuse to meet the opponent on those grounds, the longer every single thing we say will continue to sound like "it's okay to murder people because I'm doing so privately". This isn't to say the loss of those rights is okay. But our side did just get called out on some obvious bullshit, and if we want to get those rights back, we really need to do better than tenuous strawman arguments. Unless, of course, our goal isn't to win, but to just be eternally aggrieved. I am increasingly convinced that is the case.
randomhodler84 4y ago
And this is why I stand by my argument that code (algorithms, encryption, cryptography, cryptocurrency) is more important than laws of lands. Eventually the law will come for your abortions. We must protect ourselves with technology from tyrants and authoritarians all over the world. Laws change but math is universal.
- forty 4y ago
  Haha you reminded me of https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ :)
  - randomhodler84 4y ago
    There are many constructions like multi-signature and multi-key that can remove a single point of failure threat of violence to a cryptosystem. Can’t beat keys out of dead men.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - the_other 4y ago
      But if the human died because law enforcement deemed them dangerous, due to some shitty law, then that human is still dead.
      - randomhodler84 4y ago
        I think the problem in this scenario is law enforcement rather than math.
        forty 4y ago
        Math might not be the problem, but it doesn't appear to be the solution either ;)
- smt88 4y ago
Barrin92 4y ago
It's a commendable piece in a practical sense because data you haven't collected is data you cannot harm someone with in general, not just on this front, but make no mistake: A government that does not respect the bodily autonomy of women isn't going to respect privacy for too long if it enables the former. When communications security gets into the way of authority it's the next thing on the chopping block, which has already been the case over the last two decades.
- eggsbenedict 4y ago
  >A government that does not respect the bodily autonomy of women isn't going to respect privacy for too long if it enables the former. For the record, I don't have a problem with abortion. Obviously I think it should be a last resort, but the impression I get is that most people who get abortions view it that way too. That said, framing the debate around abortion purely as a question of bodily autonomy always seemed to be a very dishonest way of engaging with the debate. The issue at stake for most people(again, I don't care!) who oppose abortion is not that women are getting a medical procedure done to themselves, but that, in their view, a 2nd and entirely different person is killed as the result of this procedure. But, many people who bring up the slogans of bodily autonomy already know this. By ignoring the core debate and taking this alternate tack, they get to: 1.) Smear their opponents' position as purely misogynist and obfuscate the core of the debate, and 2.) Signal their own loyalty to their political tribe, by demonstrating their unwillingness to even engage with the "other side." The real question at the center of abortion rights legislation is not "should women be allowed to do what they want with their own bodies," it's "at what point does a fetus become a person, entitled to the same legal protections that other people have." The inverse of this question is actually very interesting: "What is it that makes a fetus NOT a person?" Maybe it's the lack of consciousnessness/low brain activity? Then, should we be allowed to kill braindead and comatose people arbitrarily? And anyway, we don't even know what consciousness is to begin with. Or maybe, they just don't look like people, so we don't have to treat them that way? Well, that opens up a pretty ugly can of worms. Or maybe it's the fact that the fetus is completely physically dependent on the mother's body? That's an interesting proposition, but then again, so is every baby until just days before it leaves the womb, and almost nobody is arguing the morality of ultra-late-stage abortions. So you immediately end up with all these (admittedly) edge-cases that demonstrate some of the moral and legislative complexity of this issue, not to mention its entanglement with the federal-state-local American legal system, which is what Roe v. Wade really addresses to begin with. I'm not doing this as some kind of "gotcha!" or takedown of the whole concept of abortion. Just asking that on this forum we don't trick ourselves into believing the sound-bite version of things. Yet again, I don't really care either way whether people get abortions or not. In general it seems like something that's impossible to legislate out of existence anyway. But I always fail to see how this is a simple question of women's bodies and evil government overreach.
mlindner 4y ago
These two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other... I have no clue what they're trying to argue.
- smt88 4y ago
  They are related to each other in many obvious ways, which the article goes into some detail on. Here's my own list, which overlaps with the article: 1. Overturning Roe would be a decision about privacy (specifically that US citizens do not have the right to private medical decisions) 2. Once Roe is overturned, women who need abortions -- perhaps even to save their lives -- may need to do so using the black market, which is fundamentally impossible without digital privacy 3. Women who have miscarriages may be suspected of abortions and prosecuted, and it's possible to detect a miscarriage in many non-medical data sets (shopping patterns, period trackers, chat logs, browsing history, phone records, etc.) 4. Forced-birth states, like Texas, will try to reach across state lines to prevent women from getting abortions in other states, which is much easier if the woman can be tracked with a simple subpoena to (for example) Google or her phone company
  - hef19898 4y ago
    It's funny how state rates seem to work, quite often, as a one way street. And they are "in for life". See the fugitive slave act, ehich definitely infringed on non-slave states. Now the same thing with abortions, you are a Trxan resident which means you can't even have a legal abortion elsewhere.
- dhosek 4y ago
  Roe v. Wade ruled that women have a right to get an abortion because of an (unenumerated) right to privacy. The draft opinion argues that there is no such right. If there is no right to privacy, then there is no constitutional basis to oppose criminalization of encryption.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - 4y ago
bambax 4y ago
I'm as pro-choice as the average European, and as pro-encryption as the average libertarian. But saying that those two things are the same is ludicrous and absurd.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Roe vs Wade was based on a privacy argument, so finding a connection between the pro-choice position and encryption seems natural.
  - howinteresting 4y ago
    The Roe v Wade meaning of "privacy" was about the ability to make intimate, personal decisions without the state interfering, which is somewhat different from (though related to) online privacy. It is pretty clear that the ability to have safer online conversations is key to exercising your ability to make intimate decisions in the modern age, so the two meanings do converge there.
    - robonerd 4y ago
      Sure, I don't mean to suggest that Roe vs Wade was actually about encryption. But Roe v Wade makes the privacy angle of the pro-choice position pretty clear; that privacy between a woman and her doctor is relevant to the discussion. If privacy in that context is important, then technology which doesn't subvert that privacy is also important. The convergence of the two seems obvious; people are practically glued to their phones, carry them everywhere, use them for everything. If you care about privacy in virtually any modern context, be it abortion or just about anything else, then you have a reason to care about digital privacy.
  - bambax 4y ago
    Yeah ok, but the state should respect the privacy of the individuals in all cases, not just because there are technological barriers to prevent it from violating it. Encryption is a technology; it's a tool. All tools can be broken, subverted, avoided. Privacy is a legal right. There are no physical walls high enough to prevent the state from entering my house if it chooses do to so; the only way to keep the state out of my house is by legal means -- ie, ironically, by regulations and more state, not less.
Proven 4y ago
[dead]
immiwilson 4y ago
[flagged]
Taniwha 4y ago
The last paragraph sums it all up: "encryption protects our privacy where the law falls short"
jbhouse 4y ago
this article may have a good point, real shame the author attempted to lose 40% of readership in the first paragraph
Buttons840 4y ago
James Comey once expressed his opinion that there are two sides to the encryption debate, privacy and the ability of law enforcement to obtain information. Both sides are important, and he never made up his mind on what the right balance should be. Now his time to influence such things is past. Reading this, I knew he was right, but formed my own opinion that math and reality should decide that balance. Math has spoken, and it is in favor of encryption. The day may come when the pendulum swings back and a way is revealed to break all forms of encryption, if that is the case, then so be it, then and now doing math should remain legal. (Not exactly a fresh idea, but I wanted to write it.)
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  Doing math always has been and always will be legal. It also always has been and always will be legal for a judge to compel you to show your work.
  - lliamander 4y ago
    Making it necessary for a judge to order you to hand over your encryption keys is better than the alternative.
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      Barely, stuff like this tends to get unread-rubberstamped. Arguably, that's worse than giving the executive overreaching privileges (which can be openly challenged), because it creates the illusion of judicial oversight.
- samuel 4y ago
  Math enables encryption but by itself doesn't encrypt. Software does.
meerita 4y ago
Society is lost on silly causes. I wish they were aware of the encryption debate, privacy and less goverment. But all the signs goes in the opposite direction: more goverment control, more corpos control to censor, etc.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  "Both sides" are similarly authoritarian nowadays, so as far as the political mainstream goes, for both of them "more state power" is the answer to pretty much any question.
  - meerita 4y ago
    That's my point: society is lost on silly causes and letting any goverment to rule like an tyrany.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
Shouldn't it bring about a demand to change laws if that's what the people want, rather than trying to hide from authorities? Not suggesting that everybody should not be doing the latter at any and all opportunity, mind you. "Tech companies" will not save you. They may act like they are sticking their neck out , but it's all just calculated to a cost/benefit. Ask the Uyghurs and Yemenis how bravely these vaunted companies that do business in China and Saudi have been standing up for their rights. How many companies were waving the rainbow flag in the 1980s? Corporations act the way they do not because they are leaders in human rights, it's because of the attitudes of the people in the societies they operate in. You are forcing them to act in a particular way. They are not the leaders, you are. They are followers. Don't let them try to take credit or fool you into thinking they are leading these movements or that you owe them anything or need them to bring about further change.
rjsw 4y ago
If Target can work out that a woman is pregnant then why does ending of Roe require breaking encryption.
betwixthewires 4y ago
The connection between the two is really tenuous, I think the author is reaching here. You have a right to free speech as per the 1st, that includes transmitting gibberish, you have a right against unlawful searches and seizures as per the 4th, they have to basically already know what you're up to in order to force you to cooperate in an investigation, you have a right against self incrimination as per the 5th. That about covers encryption. I'm not quite sure what part of the constitution covers abortion, and I'm familiar with the ruling. While I don't want to comment on whether abortion should be legal or not in any given state, I think it's pretty obvious to anyone with more than a cursory understanding on this topic that it is not actually constitutionally protected in the US, regardless whether you feel it should be or not.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > I'm not quite sure what part of the constitution covers abortion, and I'm familiar with the ruling. You don't seem to be asking, but for Roe vs Wade it's the 14th Amendment. Whether or not you agree with it, if you're familiar with the ruling then you must know that much.
  - lliamander 4y ago
    The constitutional case there is far weaker than the case for encryption (or firearms, for that matter).
    - robonerd 4y ago
      You don't have to agree with a ruling to understand a ruling. In this case, understanding Roe vs Wade means understanding that it was argued using the 14th Amendment. Whether or not you agree with Roe vs Wade is rather irrelevant.
      - betwixthewires 4y ago
        It's very relevant; the current public abortion debate is a direct consequence of the fact that the supreme court doesn't agree with the ruling. You don't have to agree with it to understand it, nor to understand that it is incorrect. When this future ruling comes down, I highly doubt you'll be citing it as justification for it's own existence and saying that disagreement is irrelevant. Those that are happy with it won't be either, they'll justify it by saying it is the correct one, in their opinion. Whether one agrees or not is at the core of the conversation.
hnta828282 4y ago
The title confused me. It made sense that the end of Roe (fish eggs) will make a sea change, but I wondered how could it possibly be related to encryption.
shp0ngle 4y ago
I don't follow the connection between Roe and encryption, at all? This article says "because abortion can now be illegal, everything that I like will be illegal", and something about Xinjiang. Anyway I am pro-life and I don't think allowing abortion (and interpreting "right to privacy" from 1868 as "right to abortion" as Roe v Wade has done) is "progress" and being against abortion is "oppression", so I guess this article does not apply to me.
- mlatu 4y ago
  it's rather simple, really: her body, her decision. my communication, my decision.
- MandieD 4y ago
  I am still here and now a mother because where I was ten years ago considered my ectopic pregnancy to be a medical emergency and not a moral issue. Had I been a non-rich woman in El Salvador, Ireland[0] or in some of the states where legislators think like you, there's a good chance I wouldn't be. [0] Today, Ireland has a relatively high level of personal freedom for women of reproductive age. 10 years ago, I would have been able to get treatment for the ectopic pregnancy beyond "watch and see", but not the fallopian tube-preserving method I had the option of here, because it was just targeted to the ectopic pregnancy, not removal of the tube that incidentally ended the pregnancy and is the only permissible treatment according to certain readings of Catholic canon law. Even though I'm not Catholic.
aaron695 4y ago

113 points by zacwest 4y ago

aaomidi 4y ago
Right to privacy. That's how we have abortion rights rn
- snickerbockers 4y ago
  Right to encryption is arguably implied by 1st amendment's freedom of speech, and 5th amendment's right against self-incrimination (although AFAIK there's not any major rulings on that). Roe vs Wade's right to privacy only applies to abortion. For example, it does not give you the right to inject yourself with heroin.
  - aaomidi 4y ago
    Although one could argue it should.
    - snickerbockers 4y ago
      You might be right on that. I'm really just frustrated by the way the democrats are rely on unelected supreme court justices to compensate for legislative failures with an extremely creative interpretation of the 14th amendment, and one that's not even consistently applied.
      - aaomidi 4y ago
        I am too. I mean the democrats have consistently failed in delivering meaningful and lasting change. Sigh. I hope we wake up as a society a bit.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Roe vs Wade's right to privacy only applies to abortion. That's true in the narrow sense that Roe on its face only applies directly to abortion, but Roe explicitly is an application of the reproductive privacy applied in Griswold and Eisenstadt regarding contraception, and is in turn foundational in the development of the case law of sexual privacy that federal courts, or state courts applying federal Constitutional law, have held invalidated, among other things, sodomy bans (Lawrence v. Texas), bans on same sex marriage and it's federal recognition (US v. Windsor, Obergefell v. Hodges), differential age of consent laws for same-sex vs. opposite-sex sexual conduct, bans on sex between unmarried people, and bans on sex toys (though there was, and I think remains, a circuit split in the federal appeals courts on this issue).
atoav 4y ago
Well if we assume that some states are going to treat abortion as murder, one could argue encrypted communications about getting such an medical procedure are under higher pressure than when they are not. Sadly a majority of the US right is not "small government" anymore, but "as long as it is our guys government should force people to do things". Authotarian movements are not known to be advocates for privacy. I wouldn't trust a system that is this unreasonable when it comes to bodily autonomy to suddenly have it's ducks in a row when it comes to privacy (or for that matter: any other freedom US citizens currently enjoy).
- snickerbockers 4y ago
  > Well if we assume that some states are going to treat abortion as murder, one could argue encrypted communications about getting such an medical procedure are under higher pressure than when they are not. But that has nothing to do with outlawing encryption. There have already been cases where the government has been unable to access data related to murders. Classifying abortion as murder wouldn't change anything in that regard. >I wouldn't trust a system that is this unreasonable when it comes to bodily autonomy to suddenly have it's ducks in a row when it comes to privacy (or for that matter: any other freedom US citizens currently enjoy). Roe's problem is that it asserts a right that is never directly described in the amendment it's supposed to be based upon. This is unique to abortion as most fundamental rights are explicitly described in the constitution.
  - theossuary 4y ago
    That's just a classic prolife talking point. The right to abortion is covered under the liberty clause of the 14th amendment, and overturning Planned Parenthood v Casey weakens that clause. This means the court is setting up to allow states much more freedom to restrict individual liberties. Why conservatives are okay with this I don't know, I guess authoritarians are okay with losing freedoms as long as they're in power.
    - snickerbockers 4y ago
      >That's just a classic prolife talking point. well, it was an amendment introduced after the civil war to prohibit slavery on a constitutional level but then 100 years later some un-elected supreme court justices decided that it's also about making abortion a fundamental right. Maybe it's a classic because it's a good point? >This means the court is setting up to allow states much more freedom to restrict individual liberties The actual quote is "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;", i think it's a pretty big stretch to say that they meant that states can't make things illegal,especially since it follows up with "without due process of law". Plenty of other things have been outlawed both before and after this ruling. > This means the court is setting up to allow states much more freedom to restrict individual liberties. Why conservatives are okay with this I don't know, I guess authoritarians are okay with losing freedoms as long as they're in power. As I said above, 14A hasn't prevented people from losing liberties, except in this one narrow instance. The reason they're okay with losing this liberty is because they're concerned that unborn fetuses should be considered as human lives. Whether or not this is correct is debatable, but the point is that if they are considered as such then abortion could be outlawed for the same reason murder is outlawed.

The part that stands out to me, as someone who writes software for a living: > Tech companies: Do you want to help put your users behind bars by handing over the data you hold about them in response to legal demands by law enforcement? Do you not really care if they go to prison, but do care about the bad PR you’ll get if the public finds out about it? Then start planning now for what you’re going to do when – not if – those demands start coming in. Data minimization and end-to-end-encryption are more important than ever. And start worrying about internal access controls and insider threats, too: don’t assume that none of your employees would ever dream of quietly digging through users’ data looking for people they could dox to the police in anti-abortion jurisdictions. Protecting your users is already so hard, and it’s going to get a lot harder. Update your threat models.

tlb 4y ago
I agree it might turn out to be worthwhile, but don't underestimate the difficulty. Building a system where all user data is encrypted with keys only the users have is an order of magnitude harder than the regular way. You can't debug anything from server logs. You can't change database schemas server-side. Otherwise simple things like migrating accounts to a new device become an ordeal. It's only in the last few years that some messenger services have probably (?) got secure group chat right. That's how hard it is for a well-studied application. Expecting developers to do this for lifestyle trackers is asking a lot. It would be much more efficient for society if the government didn't criminalize common behaviors, requiring regular citizens to have nation-state-proof opsec.
- lazide 4y ago
  Or we could go back to on prem and customer owned machines I guess.
  - the_other 4y ago
    Why is this getting down-voted? It seems worthy of a little discussion.

rektide 4y ago

This 7 year old, wonderful article "Data is a Toxic Asset", wasnt couched at all in term of nation state aggressors against the population (which seems to be the sad sad sad new low brought about by a horrific politicalized biased supreme court and extemist states): but keeps becoming more and more and more and more true the more the state drags us into their ideological anti-liberty hell. Especially vis-a-vie the new conservative lead activist court, which has been undoing & repealing individual & personal rights at a prodiguous rate, holding any data is dangerous, is a risk. Everything we could be trying to use & understand about ourselves is now a hazard, under the eyes of a pernicious, vicious, angry state. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_toxic.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11273356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11273356 (160points, 6 years, 65 comments)

catalyst5a 4y ago
I don’t follow supreme court decisions very closely, but what other significant cases have they overturned since gaining a conservative majority?
- jimmygrapes 4y ago
  None. It's just hyperbole based in a lack of understanding of civics.
- logifail 4y ago
  > gaining a conservative majority Q: When would one say that happened? Is there somewhere one can track which side (although I hate to use that phrase) has had a majority over which period?
  - catalyst5a 4y ago
    > Q: When would one say that happened? Under Trump’s presidency, since he appointed three justices. The most significant shift was in 2020, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away and was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barret. Ginsburg was one of the most liberal justices. Supreme court justice’s are non-partisan and don’t represent a political party, but they generally reflect the beliefs and ideology of the president who appoints them in their interpretation of the role of the constitution. e.g. originalism vs. a living document. > Is there somewhere one can track which side (although I hate to use that phrase) has had a majority over which period? That’s a good question, that would be a helpful resource. This seems like a good place to start: https://www.allsides.com/blog/how-supreme-court-ideology-has-shifted-over-time-ketanji-brown-jackson https://www.allsides.com/blog/how-supreme-court-ideology-has...

jdkee 4y ago

The conflation of abortion nee pregnancy with the right to privacy was the fatal underpinning in Roe and wrongly construes the line of cases it descended from, starting with Griswold. Pregnancy as framed as the right of bodily autonomy in no way shape or form resembles the right to privacy. That is the bridge too far that leads to Roe's undoing. Alito correctly identifies this in his opinion, along with the fact that Casey is simply legislating from the bench, a no-no in the separation of powers, among other defects.

deleted 4y ago
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guelo 4y ago
It's hard to care about legalistic arguments when what it boils down to is that we're losing some freedoms that we have enjoyed for the past 50 years.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  Well, don't build freedoms on bad legalistic theories if you don't want to lose them to legalistic arguments. "It's hard to care about foundation repair when you're lying in the rubble with broken bones." Well sure! You had decades to care!
- ReptileMan 4y ago
  We have been constantly losing freedoms since 9/11, guantanamo and covid. 5-6 administrations have shown they care jack shit about right to privacy which underpins Roe. It's just the matter of course.
- blep_ 4y ago
  It's also hard to watch people I agree with repeatedly make the same nonsensical arguments for a position I hold, and then repeatedly get surprised when they don't work out. This isn't a privacy issue any more than the legality of anything else is a privacy issue. Things don't become legal just because they're done in secret. It's not even a controlling-women issue. The abortion debate is, and has always been, a question of whether fetuses are alive enough for the term "murder" to apply to them. The longer we refuse to meet the opponent on those grounds, the longer every single thing we say will continue to sound like "it's okay to murder people because I'm doing so privately". This isn't to say the loss of those rights is okay. But our side did just get called out on some obvious bullshit, and if we want to get those rights back, we really need to do better than tenuous strawman arguments. Unless, of course, our goal isn't to win, but to just be eternally aggrieved. I am increasingly convinced that is the case.

randomhodler84 4y ago

And this is why I stand by my argument that code (algorithms, encryption, cryptography, cryptocurrency) is more important than laws of lands. Eventually the law will come for your abortions. We must protect ourselves with technology from tyrants and authoritarians all over the world. Laws change but math is universal.

forty 4y ago
Haha you reminded me of https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ :)
- randomhodler84 4y ago
  There are many constructions like multi-signature and multi-key that can remove a single point of failure threat of violence to a cryptosystem. Can’t beat keys out of dead men.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - the_other 4y ago
    But if the human died because law enforcement deemed them dangerous, due to some shitty law, then that human is still dead.
    - randomhodler84 4y ago
      I think the problem in this scenario is law enforcement rather than math.
      - forty 4y ago
        Math might not be the problem, but it doesn't appear to be the solution either ;)
smt88 4y ago

Barrin92 4y ago

It's a commendable piece in a practical sense because data you haven't collected is data you cannot harm someone with in general, not just on this front, but make no mistake: A government that does not respect the bodily autonomy of women isn't going to respect privacy for too long if it enables the former. When communications security gets into the way of authority it's the next thing on the chopping block, which has already been the case over the last two decades.

eggsbenedict 4y ago
>A government that does not respect the bodily autonomy of women isn't going to respect privacy for too long if it enables the former. For the record, I don't have a problem with abortion. Obviously I think it should be a last resort, but the impression I get is that most people who get abortions view it that way too. That said, framing the debate around abortion purely as a question of bodily autonomy always seemed to be a very dishonest way of engaging with the debate. The issue at stake for most people(again, I don't care!) who oppose abortion is not that women are getting a medical procedure done to themselves, but that, in their view, a 2nd and entirely different person is killed as the result of this procedure. But, many people who bring up the slogans of bodily autonomy already know this. By ignoring the core debate and taking this alternate tack, they get to: 1.) Smear their opponents' position as purely misogynist and obfuscate the core of the debate, and 2.) Signal their own loyalty to their political tribe, by demonstrating their unwillingness to even engage with the "other side." The real question at the center of abortion rights legislation is not "should women be allowed to do what they want with their own bodies," it's "at what point does a fetus become a person, entitled to the same legal protections that other people have." The inverse of this question is actually very interesting: "What is it that makes a fetus NOT a person?" Maybe it's the lack of consciousnessness/low brain activity? Then, should we be allowed to kill braindead and comatose people arbitrarily? And anyway, we don't even know what consciousness is to begin with. Or maybe, they just don't look like people, so we don't have to treat them that way? Well, that opens up a pretty ugly can of worms. Or maybe it's the fact that the fetus is completely physically dependent on the mother's body? That's an interesting proposition, but then again, so is every baby until just days before it leaves the womb, and almost nobody is arguing the morality of ultra-late-stage abortions. So you immediately end up with all these (admittedly) edge-cases that demonstrate some of the moral and legislative complexity of this issue, not to mention its entanglement with the federal-state-local American legal system, which is what Roe v. Wade really addresses to begin with. I'm not doing this as some kind of "gotcha!" or takedown of the whole concept of abortion. Just asking that on this forum we don't trick ourselves into believing the sound-bite version of things. Yet again, I don't really care either way whether people get abortions or not. In general it seems like something that's impossible to legislate out of existence anyway. But I always fail to see how this is a simple question of women's bodies and evil government overreach.

mlindner 4y ago

These two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other... I have no clue what they're trying to argue.

smt88 4y ago
They are related to each other in many obvious ways, which the article goes into some detail on. Here's my own list, which overlaps with the article: 1. Overturning Roe would be a decision about privacy (specifically that US citizens do not have the right to private medical decisions) 2. Once Roe is overturned, women who need abortions -- perhaps even to save their lives -- may need to do so using the black market, which is fundamentally impossible without digital privacy 3. Women who have miscarriages may be suspected of abortions and prosecuted, and it's possible to detect a miscarriage in many non-medical data sets (shopping patterns, period trackers, chat logs, browsing history, phone records, etc.) 4. Forced-birth states, like Texas, will try to reach across state lines to prevent women from getting abortions in other states, which is much easier if the woman can be tracked with a simple subpoena to (for example) Google or her phone company
- hef19898 4y ago
  It's funny how state rates seem to work, quite often, as a one way street. And they are "in for life". See the fugitive slave act, ehich definitely infringed on non-slave states. Now the same thing with abortions, you are a Trxan resident which means you can't even have a legal abortion elsewhere.
dhosek 4y ago
Roe v. Wade ruled that women have a right to get an abortion because of an (unenumerated) right to privacy. The draft opinion argues that there is no such right. If there is no right to privacy, then there is no constitutional basis to oppose criminalization of encryption.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 4y ago

bambax 4y ago

I'm as pro-choice as the average European, and as pro-encryption as the average libertarian. But saying that those two things are the same is ludicrous and absurd.

robonerd 4y ago
Roe vs Wade was based on a privacy argument, so finding a connection between the pro-choice position and encryption seems natural.
- howinteresting 4y ago
  The Roe v Wade meaning of "privacy" was about the ability to make intimate, personal decisions without the state interfering, which is somewhat different from (though related to) online privacy. It is pretty clear that the ability to have safer online conversations is key to exercising your ability to make intimate decisions in the modern age, so the two meanings do converge there.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Sure, I don't mean to suggest that Roe vs Wade was actually about encryption. But Roe v Wade makes the privacy angle of the pro-choice position pretty clear; that privacy between a woman and her doctor is relevant to the discussion. If privacy in that context is important, then technology which doesn't subvert that privacy is also important. The convergence of the two seems obvious; people are practically glued to their phones, carry them everywhere, use them for everything. If you care about privacy in virtually any modern context, be it abortion or just about anything else, then you have a reason to care about digital privacy.
- bambax 4y ago
  Yeah ok, but the state should respect the privacy of the individuals in all cases, not just because there are technological barriers to prevent it from violating it. Encryption is a technology; it's a tool. All tools can be broken, subverted, avoided. Privacy is a legal right. There are no physical walls high enough to prevent the state from entering my house if it chooses do to so; the only way to keep the state out of my house is by legal means -- ie, ironically, by regulations and more state, not less.

Proven 4y ago

[dead]

immiwilson 4y ago

[flagged]

Taniwha 4y ago

The last paragraph sums it all up: "encryption protects our privacy where the law falls short"

jbhouse 4y ago

this article may have a good point, real shame the author attempted to lose 40% of readership in the first paragraph

Buttons840 4y ago

James Comey once expressed his opinion that there are two sides to the encryption debate, privacy and the ability of law enforcement to obtain information. Both sides are important, and he never made up his mind on what the right balance should be. Now his time to influence such things is past. Reading this, I knew he was right, but formed my own opinion that math and reality should decide that balance. Math has spoken, and it is in favor of encryption. The day may come when the pendulum swings back and a way is revealed to break all forms of encryption, if that is the case, then so be it, then and now doing math should remain legal. (Not exactly a fresh idea, but I wanted to write it.)

lern_too_spel 4y ago
Doing math always has been and always will be legal. It also always has been and always will be legal for a judge to compel you to show your work.
- lliamander 4y ago
  Making it necessary for a judge to order you to hand over your encryption keys is better than the alternative.
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    Barely, stuff like this tends to get unread-rubberstamped. Arguably, that's worse than giving the executive overreaching privileges (which can be openly challenged), because it creates the illusion of judicial oversight.
samuel 4y ago
Math enables encryption but by itself doesn't encrypt. Software does.

meerita 4y ago

Society is lost on silly causes. I wish they were aware of the encryption debate, privacy and less goverment. But all the signs goes in the opposite direction: more goverment control, more corpos control to censor, etc.

formerly_proven 4y ago
"Both sides" are similarly authoritarian nowadays, so as far as the political mainstream goes, for both of them "more state power" is the answer to pretty much any question.
- meerita 4y ago
  That's my point: society is lost on silly causes and letting any goverment to rule like an tyrany.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

Shouldn't it bring about a demand to change laws if that's what the people want, rather than trying to hide from authorities? Not suggesting that everybody should not be doing the latter at any and all opportunity, mind you. "Tech companies" will not save you. They may act like they are sticking their neck out , but it's all just calculated to a cost/benefit. Ask the Uyghurs and Yemenis how bravely these vaunted companies that do business in China and Saudi have been standing up for their rights. How many companies were waving the rainbow flag in the 1980s? Corporations act the way they do not because they are leaders in human rights, it's because of the attitudes of the people in the societies they operate in. You are forcing them to act in a particular way. They are not the leaders, you are. They are followers. Don't let them try to take credit or fool you into thinking they are leading these movements or that you owe them anything or need them to bring about further change.

rjsw 4y ago

If Target can work out that a woman is pregnant then why does ending of Roe require breaking encryption.

betwixthewires 4y ago

The connection between the two is really tenuous, I think the author is reaching here. You have a right to free speech as per the 1st, that includes transmitting gibberish, you have a right against unlawful searches and seizures as per the 4th, they have to basically already know what you're up to in order to force you to cooperate in an investigation, you have a right against self incrimination as per the 5th. That about covers encryption. I'm not quite sure what part of the constitution covers abortion, and I'm familiar with the ruling. While I don't want to comment on whether abortion should be legal or not in any given state, I think it's pretty obvious to anyone with more than a cursory understanding on this topic that it is not actually constitutionally protected in the US, regardless whether you feel it should be or not.

robonerd 4y ago
> I'm not quite sure what part of the constitution covers abortion, and I'm familiar with the ruling. You don't seem to be asking, but for Roe vs Wade it's the 14th Amendment. Whether or not you agree with it, if you're familiar with the ruling then you must know that much.
- lliamander 4y ago
  The constitutional case there is far weaker than the case for encryption (or firearms, for that matter).
  - robonerd 4y ago
    You don't have to agree with a ruling to understand a ruling. In this case, understanding Roe vs Wade means understanding that it was argued using the 14th Amendment. Whether or not you agree with Roe vs Wade is rather irrelevant.
    - betwixthewires 4y ago
      It's very relevant; the current public abortion debate is a direct consequence of the fact that the supreme court doesn't agree with the ruling. You don't have to agree with it to understand it, nor to understand that it is incorrect. When this future ruling comes down, I highly doubt you'll be citing it as justification for it's own existence and saying that disagreement is irrelevant. Those that are happy with it won't be either, they'll justify it by saying it is the correct one, in their opinion. Whether one agrees or not is at the core of the conversation.

hnta828282 4y ago

The title confused me. It made sense that the end of Roe (fish eggs) will make a sea change, but I wondered how could it possibly be related to encryption.

shp0ngle 4y ago

I don't follow the connection between Roe and encryption, at all? This article says "because abortion can now be illegal, everything that I like will be illegal", and something about Xinjiang. Anyway I am pro-life and I don't think allowing abortion (and interpreting "right to privacy" from 1868 as "right to abortion" as Roe v Wade has done) is "progress" and being against abortion is "oppression", so I guess this article does not apply to me.

mlatu 4y ago
it's rather simple, really: her body, her decision. my communication, my decision.
MandieD 4y ago
I am still here and now a mother because where I was ten years ago considered my ectopic pregnancy to be a medical emergency and not a moral issue. Had I been a non-rich woman in El Salvador, Ireland[0] or in some of the states where legislators think like you, there's a good chance I wouldn't be. [0] Today, Ireland has a relatively high level of personal freedom for women of reproductive age. 10 years ago, I would have been able to get treatment for the ectopic pregnancy beyond "watch and see", but not the fallopian tube-preserving method I had the option of here, because it was just targeted to the ectopic pregnancy, not removal of the tube that incidentally ended the pregnancy and is the only permissible treatment according to certain readings of Catholic canon law. Even though I'm not Catholic.

aaron695 4y ago