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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]
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  Read the opinion for Roe. It wasn’t privacy exactly. Rather, the court wasn’t actually sure it was freedom/autonomy or privacy. Both the 9th and 14th amendments are argued. The 10th is not mentioned, which if we steelman the argument, must be. A bit of a nitpick, but the reason Roe has been considered to have “shakey limbs” (see Ginsberg’s comments on the case) is the court was ambiguous on why it was decided as it was.
- Aunche 4y ago
  The Dobbs draft does not argue against the right of privacy. In fact, it reaffirms several rulings where this is applied. The difference is that none of those conflicted with what Roe v. Wade called "potential life." Alito's argument is that the way Roe v. Wade establishes this balance is inherently legislative, which represents a major abuse of court power, and Alito wants this power to the restored to the states.
- tomp 4y ago
  This “privacy” was clearly a made up argument. It doesn’t apply in any other case (e.g. “selling your kidney” is also privacy without interference of the state yet nevertheless illegal). You can easily overturn Roe while leaving all other rights in place.
  - pas 4y ago
    Of course you can, the law doesn't have to be simple, carve outs are perfectly okay, if that is what the people (seem to) want. That said there is the very simple argument that selling your kidney should be allowed. And if we are worried about someone exploiting others by forcing them to sell their kidneys then we can regulate the commerce part (set minimum price, blind donors to recipients), just as the medical market is regulated. (And in general if oppression/exploitation is a concern then the law should address that - provide a social safety net so people don't have to even think about to sell their kidney for money, instead of regulating the symptom.)
fzeroracer 4y ago
The entire underpinnings of Roe v Wade rely on the concept that we as individuals have a constitutional right to privacy. That was the logic used for the ruling: That the government cannot intrude on abortion because it violates a woman's rights to privacy. Now with the supreme court set to argue that there is no constitutional right to abortion this also follows that there is no constitutional right to privacy either. The argument is essentially that the constitution does not directly spell out a right to either, therefore the previous rulings are null and void. Anyone that cares even an iota about privacy should be very concerned about this.
- ng12 4y ago
  This is not true, the 4a never gave you unrestricted right to privacy. As a simple example: the 4a will not get you out of a breathalyzer test if you get pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving. I am all for reasonable abortion access but Roe was a disastrously bad ruling in many ways.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    The right to privacy as it pertains to Roe v Wade and many other precedents primarily stems from the 14th amendment's guarantee of due process, not the 4th amendment's freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
  - fzeroracer 4y ago
    Correct, the 4th amendment doesn't give you an unrestricted right to privacy, but the court argued that such a right existed through other precedent and Roe v Wade. So by that argument: Do you agree that the government has the right to ban encryption and other details relating to privacy? Because if you want to argue that there is no constitutional right to privacy then that's the route you get to go down. Alito is arguing that if it's not directly in the constitution it does not exist. Frankly I'm not willing to accept any challenge to Roe v Wade because the people doing so aim to destroy abortion no matter how many other rights or precedent they have to trample over. If abortion is banned they will stop at nothing to destroy encryption and privacy in order to prosecute anyone that ever has an abortion, even across state lines.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
In addition to the rationale given by the other responders, the overturning of Roe v Wade means you have many states where abortion access is not just legal, but guaranteed and protected, and other states where not only is abortion illegal, but anyone who assists someone in getting an abortion is guilty of a crime. I've heard it said that this is the biggest incompatible coexistence of state laws since free states vs slave states. So it's very likely you'll have law enforcement in forced-birth states try to subpoena data from tech companies where servers and workers are in abortion-legal states. The argument is that strong encryption will prevent these kinds of immoral (from the perspective of the author) data requests from being fulfilled.
- Buttons840 4y ago
  The hotness of abortion (can you even conceive of a more controversial issue?) and the geographical nature of having people travel to other states to get abortions, while some states try to limit what you can and cannot do in other states, this does seem like the most likely to cause civil war (most likely of the many unlikely possibilities). The legal shenanigans we see happening could deepen this divide, as you say, and transform it into a economic divide as well. Will we one day seek companies that do not host their data in certain states? How will this effect those states where nobody wants to do business? Texas recently passed a law that Twitter cannot censor people based on political views, and that it is illegal for Twitter to simply leave the state. We may see this play out, where a state feels wronged by a "foreign" company in another state, yet may not have the power to enforce any punishment on the company in those other states, again, furthering the divide.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Civil war seems far-fetched; states have a lot less autonomy today than they did before the last civil war, specifically because of that civil war. The ability of a state to successfully wage war against others has been largely scrutinized and corrected. I think the most likely outcome is Congress passes a federal law (which inevitably pisses off one side, the other, or maybe even the extremes of both sides) and the losing side gets back to the status quo of seething mostly-peacefully about it.

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]
SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
Read the opinion for Roe. It wasn’t privacy exactly. Rather, the court wasn’t actually sure it was freedom/autonomy or privacy. Both the 9th and 14th amendments are argued. The 10th is not mentioned, which if we steelman the argument, must be. A bit of a nitpick, but the reason Roe has been considered to have “shakey limbs” (see Ginsberg’s comments on the case) is the court was ambiguous on why it was decided as it was.
Aunche 4y ago
The Dobbs draft does not argue against the right of privacy. In fact, it reaffirms several rulings where this is applied. The difference is that none of those conflicted with what Roe v. Wade called "potential life." Alito's argument is that the way Roe v. Wade establishes this balance is inherently legislative, which represents a major abuse of court power, and Alito wants this power to the restored to the states.
tomp 4y ago
This “privacy” was clearly a made up argument. It doesn’t apply in any other case (e.g. “selling your kidney” is also privacy without interference of the state yet nevertheless illegal). You can easily overturn Roe while leaving all other rights in place.
- pas 4y ago
  Of course you can, the law doesn't have to be simple, carve outs are perfectly okay, if that is what the people (seem to) want. That said there is the very simple argument that selling your kidney should be allowed. And if we are worried about someone exploiting others by forcing them to sell their kidneys then we can regulate the commerce part (set minimum price, blind donors to recipients), just as the medical market is regulated. (And in general if oppression/exploitation is a concern then the law should address that - provide a social safety net so people don't have to even think about to sell their kidney for money, instead of regulating the symptom.)

fzeroracer 4y ago

The entire underpinnings of Roe v Wade rely on the concept that we as individuals have a constitutional right to privacy. That was the logic used for the ruling: That the government cannot intrude on abortion because it violates a woman's rights to privacy. Now with the supreme court set to argue that there is no constitutional right to abortion this also follows that there is no constitutional right to privacy either. The argument is essentially that the constitution does not directly spell out a right to either, therefore the previous rulings are null and void. Anyone that cares even an iota about privacy should be very concerned about this.

ng12 4y ago
This is not true, the 4a never gave you unrestricted right to privacy. As a simple example: the 4a will not get you out of a breathalyzer test if you get pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving. I am all for reasonable abortion access but Roe was a disastrously bad ruling in many ways.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  The right to privacy as it pertains to Roe v Wade and many other precedents primarily stems from the 14th amendment's guarantee of due process, not the 4th amendment's freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  Correct, the 4th amendment doesn't give you an unrestricted right to privacy, but the court argued that such a right existed through other precedent and Roe v Wade. So by that argument: Do you agree that the government has the right to ban encryption and other details relating to privacy? Because if you want to argue that there is no constitutional right to privacy then that's the route you get to go down. Alito is arguing that if it's not directly in the constitution it does not exist. Frankly I'm not willing to accept any challenge to Roe v Wade because the people doing so aim to destroy abortion no matter how many other rights or precedent they have to trample over. If abortion is banned they will stop at nothing to destroy encryption and privacy in order to prosecute anyone that ever has an abortion, even across state lines.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

In addition to the rationale given by the other responders, the overturning of Roe v Wade means you have many states where abortion access is not just legal, but guaranteed and protected, and other states where not only is abortion illegal, but anyone who assists someone in getting an abortion is guilty of a crime. I've heard it said that this is the biggest incompatible coexistence of state laws since free states vs slave states. So it's very likely you'll have law enforcement in forced-birth states try to subpoena data from tech companies where servers and workers are in abortion-legal states. The argument is that strong encryption will prevent these kinds of immoral (from the perspective of the author) data requests from being fulfilled.

Buttons840 4y ago
The hotness of abortion (can you even conceive of a more controversial issue?) and the geographical nature of having people travel to other states to get abortions, while some states try to limit what you can and cannot do in other states, this does seem like the most likely to cause civil war (most likely of the many unlikely possibilities). The legal shenanigans we see happening could deepen this divide, as you say, and transform it into a economic divide as well. Will we one day seek companies that do not host their data in certain states? How will this effect those states where nobody wants to do business? Texas recently passed a law that Twitter cannot censor people based on political views, and that it is illegal for Twitter to simply leave the state. We may see this play out, where a state feels wronged by a "foreign" company in another state, yet may not have the power to enforce any punishment on the company in those other states, again, furthering the divide.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Civil war seems far-fetched; states have a lot less autonomy today than they did before the last civil war, specifically because of that civil war. The ability of a state to successfully wage war against others has been largely scrutinized and corrected. I think the most likely outcome is Congress passes a federal law (which inevitably pisses off one side, the other, or maybe even the extremes of both sides) and the losing side gets back to the status quo of seething mostly-peacefully about it.