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> Recently, a woman got an abortion and part of what the prosecution used against her was data collected from Facebook Two crucial details you omitted: 1. Fac

> Recently, a woman got an abortion and part of what the prosecution used against her was data collected from Facebook Two crucial details you omitted: 1. Facebook didn't just hand over the data. It was a court order. At no point had the data just randomly got collected in some dragnet. They got a targeted precise warrant from the court to obtain specific messages of a specific person. Unless you got a court warrant against you, I don't see a reason to worry about here. None of this is related to "data collection". 2. It was unencrypted messages where the defendant was conspiring with another person to perform an abortion past 23 weeks (aka 5mo+, which is illegal almost everywhere in the world), and then conceal the crime by burning (in a literal fire) the physical evidence. Mind you, abortions are totally legal up to 22 weeks in Nebraska. Meanwhile, EU has only 2 countries with limits up to 24 weeks, with the rest being 20 weeks or less[0]. Tldr: if you send an unencrypted message to your crime co-conspirator (where you are discussing specific details of your actual plan to commit a crime), and then get caught via other methods, don't be surprised when the court sends a legal order to obtain your unencrypted messages as evidence. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Europe

pclmulqdq 4y ago
It is a lot easier to get a court order for something than you probably think. Dragnet versions of court orders also exist, such as geofence warrants. Also, that data is often sold packaged up and sold to third parties via data brokers. The FBI has been known to buy data from data brokers instead of getting it by court order.
- filoleg 4y ago
  Sure, those things might happen. None of those things happened in that Nebraska case though, so using it to as a specific example to support your claim feels a bit off. Especially considering the fact that the original comment omitted some pretty crucial details that end up painting the overall situation in a very different light.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    What happened in the Nebraska case was more subtly bad: if the government had to subpoena HER for her location data on that day, there would likely be no criminal conviction at all. The 5th amendment would be a valid excuse to avoid giving out the data. However, they only had to subpoena Facebook, whose data is not covered by 5th amendment protections, and who would like to maintain a friendly relationship with governments. EDIT: This is generally called the principal-agent problem, and there are lots of rules around agent behavior when it traditionally applies (eg attorney-client privilege and doctor-patient confidentiality). Also, you should note that there are lots of crimes, and you probably commit a lot of them. If you have ever used someone else's WiFi without permission, that's one. If you carried a screwdriver or a sharpie into a store, that's a separate crime. The list goes on and on.
    - eurleif 4y ago
      The fifth amendment provides a right not to testify against yourself. It has little to do with documents, whether they are in your possession or someone else's. The fourth amendment is the one that applies there. If her phone were recording location data locally (or if she were keeping a paper diary of her location, for that matter), the government could have obtained that information with a search warrant, and it would have been perfectly admissible.
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        What you're saying is true only if the data is unencrypted or not password-protected. If the data is encrypted, the government would have to crack it (which is not usually possible with decent encryption and anything short of the NSA breathing down your neck). They could not just ask you for the password.
        eurleif 4y ago
        The case law on compelled decryption is less clear-cut than you're describing. (Possible exceptions include: biometric, as opposed to password/passcode, encryption; and the government being able to prove that the defendant knows the password.) Moreover, even when the government can't obtain the decryption key from the defendant, cracking the encryption is not the only possibility. They could also seize the device while it is running, with the decryption key and/or decrypted data already in memory. That was done in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, for example. Also, this is entirely different from your original claim, because it has nothing to do with where the encrypted data is stored. If you store encrypted data in the cloud, then the fifth amendment provides you with the same degree of protection from disclosing the decryption key as it would for locally-stored encrypted data.

pclmulqdq 4y ago

It is a lot easier to get a court order for something than you probably think. Dragnet versions of court orders also exist, such as geofence warrants. Also, that data is often sold packaged up and sold to third parties via data brokers. The FBI has been known to buy data from data brokers instead of getting it by court order.

filoleg 4y ago
Sure, those things might happen. None of those things happened in that Nebraska case though, so using it to as a specific example to support your claim feels a bit off. Especially considering the fact that the original comment omitted some pretty crucial details that end up painting the overall situation in a very different light.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  What happened in the Nebraska case was more subtly bad: if the government had to subpoena HER for her location data on that day, there would likely be no criminal conviction at all. The 5th amendment would be a valid excuse to avoid giving out the data. However, they only had to subpoena Facebook, whose data is not covered by 5th amendment protections, and who would like to maintain a friendly relationship with governments. EDIT: This is generally called the principal-agent problem, and there are lots of rules around agent behavior when it traditionally applies (eg attorney-client privilege and doctor-patient confidentiality). Also, you should note that there are lots of crimes, and you probably commit a lot of them. If you have ever used someone else's WiFi without permission, that's one. If you carried a screwdriver or a sharpie into a store, that's a separate crime. The list goes on and on.
  - eurleif 4y ago
    The fifth amendment provides a right not to testify against yourself. It has little to do with documents, whether they are in your possession or someone else's. The fourth amendment is the one that applies there. If her phone were recording location data locally (or if she were keeping a paper diary of her location, for that matter), the government could have obtained that information with a search warrant, and it would have been perfectly admissible.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      What you're saying is true only if the data is unencrypted or not password-protected. If the data is encrypted, the government would have to crack it (which is not usually possible with decent encryption and anything short of the NSA breathing down your neck). They could not just ask you for the password.
      - eurleif 4y ago
        The case law on compelled decryption is less clear-cut than you're describing. (Possible exceptions include: biometric, as opposed to password/passcode, encryption; and the government being able to prove that the defendant knows the password.) Moreover, even when the government can't obtain the decryption key from the defendant, cracking the encryption is not the only possibility. They could also seize the device while it is running, with the decryption key and/or decrypted data already in memory. That was done in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, for example. Also, this is entirely different from your original claim, because it has nothing to do with where the encrypted data is stored. If you store encrypted data in the cloud, then the fifth amendment provides you with the same degree of protection from disclosing the decryption key as it would for locally-stored encrypted data.