5 ms·

I don't entirely follow the logic of this article: abortion is illegal in some states and Google knows your search and location history. So it seems like it's s

I don't entirely follow the logic of this article: abortion is illegal in some states and Google knows your search and location history. So it seems like it's saying police will scour account data to target women with the intention of getting an abortion. How? We know that at the federal level the government can dig into our Google profile data or that a police officer might ask you to hand over your phone. Short of a court order I don't see how our data is compromised like this article implies.

jlkuester7 4y ago
My (someone uncharitable) interpretation of the article is: - People who thing big corps and the government are their friend are not worried about data privacy. - The government suddenly made a change that made a lot of people realize that is is not necessarily their friend (aka they are no longer comfortable with the government have access to there entire life's worth of data). - Now we have to end surveillance capitalism because it is dangerous... I agree with the conclusion, but it is depressing that it has taking this long for people to reach it.
mjburgess 4y ago
States can pass laws requiring, eg., google to provide location data relevant to the crime (in that state) of abortion. It's also pretty trivial to "suspect" someone of a crime for "being in some area" and then get a warrent for the data. Abortion being illegal in some states seems like it might be a shock to the privacy system that's needed. If US states are clearly abusing their citizens en-mass in a way most people disagree with, corporate american enabling this will not be seen positively.
- mwt 4y ago
  > ... corporate american enabling this will not be seen positively. I don't think this is true in red states or for the minority views that determine what is and is not illegal in this country, or at least it won't play out like you wish. Certainly I don't see this playing out along this optimistic path. Politicians in Texas and Mississippi will frame it as companies helping dutiful law enforcement investigate evil crimes and ergo it's fine that Google was tracking everybody all along. Single-issue voters would be happy to see abortion providers or seekers behind bars and couldn't care less if the fourth amendment was violated along the way. Just look at how conservatives (ok, well, a good chunk of all mainstream politicians) and voters viewed the FBI vs. Apple conflict from a few years ago - it was "we have to make sure the cops can get the bad guys so of course the cops should have access to whatever information they need" not "I have a right to privacy - time to stop using these services until they respect it"
woodruffw 4y ago
I think the implication is that local police would seek court orders for this kind of data. That’s not a particularly difficult step for them, and Google is unlikely to resist a lawful court order. Hence the need to make those lawful orders as fruitless as possible.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  It's unfortunately kind of a backwards solution. Any convenience or technology can be exploited by an unjust government. Saying the solution for cruel abortion law is to stop carrying user data is like saying the solution for overarmed police is to stop manufacturing bullets, or saying that the solution for unfettered wiretapping is to tear up the telephone system. A society is not going to backstop the lack of a virtuous government by regressing its technological resources. The right solution is to insist on a virtuous government and wield all power necessary to cause that to exist.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    No. What we're saying is that if you build a gigantic surveillance and propaganda machine it will be used by the powerful to hurt the powerless. The solution is not to build the giant surveillance and propaganda machine just because you perceive it is merely helping the powerful at some particular moment in time. Your telephone example is also dead wrong. The solution is to use an e2ee voice communication platform in addition to reigning in the rampant abuse by cops and domestic spying. Or in a counterfactual alternate past hefore that was possible, it would be to break up the large telephone providers that anything like a clipper chip or bulk wiretapping at the exchange without a warrant is impossible to coordinate and keep secret. Similarly the overarmed police would be far less of a problem if there wasn't a massive corporate arms industry.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      An e2ee solution is no good if the government is unjust, they just declare end-to-end encryption illegal and start arresting people the moment the signal hits the wire. Similarly, one can't expect an unjust government to reign in wire tapping, nor can one expect an unjust government to break up a telephone monopoly to enforce decentralization of potential surveillance threats. And that's the problem with trying to solve an unjust government in this way. For any technological countermeasure, you can just imagine that the government is sufficiently unjust to render that countermeasure's use itself a threat to the user. People, not technology, reign in governments.
zinodaur 4y ago
One way mentioned in the article: geofenced subpoenas. E.g. Ohio police tell Google to give them the information of all the people who went to an abortion clinic in Indiana (the geofenced) because they are suspected of a crime, then the Ohio police can check the list of those people and see if any of them fall under their jurisdiction
- tomrod 4y ago
  Surely such fishing and dragnets have Constitutional boundaries?
  - bryananderson 4y ago
    How many surveillance-state abuses have we said this about in the last 21 years? Always the answer is “yes in theory, but in practice the state does it anyway and courts usually defer to its judgment”.
madeofpalk 4y ago
> How? > [...] > Short of a court order You cannot give data you do not have in response to a court order.
titzer 4y ago
If you told me in 1996 (first year on the internet, quite a hopeful young lad) that in the future, $MEGACORP would know where I was within meters every minute of every day, I would have told you it was a dystopia, regardless of what they planned to use that data for. This is a digital dystopia that we sleepwalked into.
braingenious 4y ago
Court orders are obtainable by police from local and state governments. Google is not a criminal defense firm.
pyuser583 4y ago
A few years ago, not far from where I live, a pregnant woman was given a water bottle by her ex boyfriend. The water tasted bitter, so she spit it out. She took it to the police. Her ex-boyfriend had ground up an abortion pill and put it in her water. How did he get the pill? From a website that sold the pills to “pregnant women” who couldn’t get them legally, no questions asked. The police seized the website owners assets, and her client list. She was sentenced to probation, but decided to spent her time in probation smoking pot, and so got a slightly longer probation with more drug tests. The police had no problem hunting down a black market purveyor at abortion pills using DNS and email. In this area abortion is now illegal. If this same situation had happened now, that list of clients would become a list of future defendants. I heard the police did check the client list to make sure the site wasn’t primarily a way for men to force women to have abortions.

jlkuester7 4y ago

My (someone uncharitable) interpretation of the article is: - People who thing big corps and the government are their friend are not worried about data privacy. - The government suddenly made a change that made a lot of people realize that is is not necessarily their friend (aka they are no longer comfortable with the government have access to there entire life's worth of data). - Now we have to end surveillance capitalism because it is dangerous... I agree with the conclusion, but it is depressing that it has taking this long for people to reach it.

mjburgess 4y ago

States can pass laws requiring, eg., google to provide location data relevant to the crime (in that state) of abortion. It's also pretty trivial to "suspect" someone of a crime for "being in some area" and then get a warrent for the data. Abortion being illegal in some states seems like it might be a shock to the privacy system that's needed. If US states are clearly abusing their citizens en-mass in a way most people disagree with, corporate american enabling this will not be seen positively.

mwt 4y ago
> ... corporate american enabling this will not be seen positively. I don't think this is true in red states or for the minority views that determine what is and is not illegal in this country, or at least it won't play out like you wish. Certainly I don't see this playing out along this optimistic path. Politicians in Texas and Mississippi will frame it as companies helping dutiful law enforcement investigate evil crimes and ergo it's fine that Google was tracking everybody all along. Single-issue voters would be happy to see abortion providers or seekers behind bars and couldn't care less if the fourth amendment was violated along the way. Just look at how conservatives (ok, well, a good chunk of all mainstream politicians) and voters viewed the FBI vs. Apple conflict from a few years ago - it was "we have to make sure the cops can get the bad guys so of course the cops should have access to whatever information they need" not "I have a right to privacy - time to stop using these services until they respect it"

woodruffw 4y ago

I think the implication is that local police would seek court orders for this kind of data. That’s not a particularly difficult step for them, and Google is unlikely to resist a lawful court order. Hence the need to make those lawful orders as fruitless as possible.

shadowgovt 4y ago
It's unfortunately kind of a backwards solution. Any convenience or technology can be exploited by an unjust government. Saying the solution for cruel abortion law is to stop carrying user data is like saying the solution for overarmed police is to stop manufacturing bullets, or saying that the solution for unfettered wiretapping is to tear up the telephone system. A society is not going to backstop the lack of a virtuous government by regressing its technological resources. The right solution is to insist on a virtuous government and wield all power necessary to cause that to exist.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  No. What we're saying is that if you build a gigantic surveillance and propaganda machine it will be used by the powerful to hurt the powerless. The solution is not to build the giant surveillance and propaganda machine just because you perceive it is merely helping the powerful at some particular moment in time. Your telephone example is also dead wrong. The solution is to use an e2ee voice communication platform in addition to reigning in the rampant abuse by cops and domestic spying. Or in a counterfactual alternate past hefore that was possible, it would be to break up the large telephone providers that anything like a clipper chip or bulk wiretapping at the exchange without a warrant is impossible to coordinate and keep secret. Similarly the overarmed police would be far less of a problem if there wasn't a massive corporate arms industry.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    An e2ee solution is no good if the government is unjust, they just declare end-to-end encryption illegal and start arresting people the moment the signal hits the wire. Similarly, one can't expect an unjust government to reign in wire tapping, nor can one expect an unjust government to break up a telephone monopoly to enforce decentralization of potential surveillance threats. And that's the problem with trying to solve an unjust government in this way. For any technological countermeasure, you can just imagine that the government is sufficiently unjust to render that countermeasure's use itself a threat to the user. People, not technology, reign in governments.

zinodaur 4y ago

One way mentioned in the article: geofenced subpoenas. E.g. Ohio police tell Google to give them the information of all the people who went to an abortion clinic in Indiana (the geofenced) because they are suspected of a crime, then the Ohio police can check the list of those people and see if any of them fall under their jurisdiction

tomrod 4y ago
Surely such fishing and dragnets have Constitutional boundaries?
- bryananderson 4y ago
  How many surveillance-state abuses have we said this about in the last 21 years? Always the answer is “yes in theory, but in practice the state does it anyway and courts usually defer to its judgment”.

madeofpalk 4y ago

> How? > [...] > Short of a court order You cannot give data you do not have in response to a court order.

titzer 4y ago

If you told me in 1996 (first year on the internet, quite a hopeful young lad) that in the future, $MEGACORP would know where I was within meters every minute of every day, I would have told you it was a dystopia, regardless of what they planned to use that data for. This is a digital dystopia that we sleepwalked into.

braingenious 4y ago

Court orders are obtainable by police from local and state governments. Google is not a criminal defense firm.

pyuser583 4y ago

A few years ago, not far from where I live, a pregnant woman was given a water bottle by her ex boyfriend. The water tasted bitter, so she spit it out. She took it to the police. Her ex-boyfriend had ground up an abortion pill and put it in her water. How did he get the pill? From a website that sold the pills to “pregnant women” who couldn’t get them legally, no questions asked. The police seized the website owners assets, and her client list. She was sentenced to probation, but decided to spent her time in probation smoking pot, and so got a slightly longer probation with more drug tests. The police had no problem hunting down a black market purveyor at abortion pills using DNS and email. In this area abortion is now illegal. If this same situation had happened now, that list of clients would become a list of future defendants. I heard the police did check the client list to make sure the site wasn’t primarily a way for men to force women to have abortions.