This is not a drill.
The nightmare scenario for personal privacy in a world where women are stripped of their reproductive rights is coming to pass:
Meta, Google, other tech companies are providing police with evidence to help prosecute women who seek or perform abortions
Very illuminating context on Meta / Google turning over data to law enforcement for women who are seeking or perform abortions, from @alex
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These companies, who have built billion dollar businesses off user data, almost all of it shared by users of their own volition, because the service is "free", have and have had 0 incentive to prioritize user/data privacy because we have no privacy regulation that really hits these companies where it hurts ๐ต
They sell it and give it up to LE or anyone else.
$7.8 million for sharing user data with FG/GOOG/SNAP. for this mental health app isn't even scratching the surface
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/03/05/ftc-betterhelp-online-counseling-service-shared-data/11407521002/
@alaric @mimsical people still using #NSAbook / #StasiBook post - #Snowden should really reevaluate how they use #tech and either stop using it since they're basically unpaid "unofficial employees" of #SurveillanceCapitalism aka. #Cyberfacism or fucking get their shit together and learn fundamentals in #ITsec, #InfoSec, #OpSec & #ComSec...
@[email protected] THIS IS WHY PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER EVER TRUST ANY CORPORATION! THEY'LL ALWAYS BE BETRAYED IF THEY DO!! ALSO: LEARN TO USE PROPER #E2EE aka. #GnuPG & #OpenPGP and no, going to another #SingleVendor / #SingleProvider solution won't help. Regarldess if #ProtonMail, #Tutanote, #Signal, #WhatsApp, etc.
@mimsical This is not a great article and the headline is egregious. The need to make every article boil down to "tech companies bad" obfuscates the core issue and therefore the potential responses..
The real, but less clickworthy headline would be "Prosecutors and judges are using the law to go after women getting abortions".
Tech companies can't just "turn over" data, they have to comply with ECPA/SCA, which requires a signed warrant* for content.
*Offer does not apply to FAA702
@mimsical All of these examples seem to be utilizing targeted search warrants aimed at individual women and signed by a judge. State search warrants often do not have affidavits or potentially charged crimes attached, so to the companies there is no good way to tell if this is an abortion-related investigation.
The companies are bound by state and federal law to respond to search warrants. They can fight and give notice, but in the end that is the law.
@mimsical If the companies declined to answer a search warrant, the judge could issue an arrest warrant for the tech co lawyer or another corporate officer.
The article implies that tech companies can just decide to not turn over data, and that is incorrect. What can be done?
1) The companies can be more aggressive with notification, although it's pretty standard for warrants to come with gag orders in lots of cases.
2) They can try to fight more warrants, but which ones is the hard part.
@mimsical 3) We could amend ECPA/SCA to set standards for interstate warrants to require affidavits or a citation of the law the target is presumed to have violated. That would, at least, give the companies more to work on.
4) California could try to create a conflict of laws and promise to not enforce abortion-related search and arrest warrants on behalf of other states. This seems like a serious full-faith-and-credit issue and I think we know what SCOTUS would do.
@mimsical 5) The companies can continue to roll out E2EE as widely as possible. This is the only realistic tech response.
I know a bunch of civil liberties lawyers are looking into other options, but they aren't great.
In the end, if the law criminalizes fundamental reproductive rights then the massive power of the criminal justice system can be perverted to go after innocent women. That's the problem.
@alex Makes perfect sense. But also illustrates, as you say, that E2EE is the primary "good" solution, for now.
From my perspective, it sure makes Tim Cook's priorities of late (the imessage encryption, not a commentary on ATT) look like the right ones.
@joshsternberg @mimsical @alex
@brooklynmarie
"what if these tech companies just didn't collect that kind of very specific data in the first place? no data collection, nothing to turn over, yeah?"
Please, Josh. Now you're just talking crazy talk. Tech companies not slurping every bit of private data they can for maximum resale and state benefit? What will you crazy kids think of next?
@mimsical iMessage has been (mostly) E2EE for a while, but encryption for iCloud backups is definitely a good response to this threat. Those backups are extremely rich hunting grounds for LE.
Unfortunately, the process is so complicated that I expect usage of that feature is <1%.
@mimsical If we were going to reduce the power of search warrants against lots of crimes, I would start with the geofence warrants. Those do not have to show probable cause against individuals and I could easily see a DA who sees themself as governor issue geofence warrants around reproductive health clinics.
I'm not sure how this would play out across state lines.
@alex @mimsical
'The real, but less clickworthy headline would be "Prosecutors and judges are using the law to go after women getting abortions".
This is exactly the point made in the last few paragraphs, when it should be the lede.
At the same time, there is a ton of info that is *not* in private chats that surveillance-based companies collect that they shouldn't be collecting. If you don't have it, you can't turn it over. That part *is* on them.
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#Privacy protection has been stricken & apps are subject to being data-mined to prosecute women.
Dating apps, health apps, shopping apps... all this #data can be used to prosecute a #woman in an #abortion case.
#RoeVsWade was sentenced on the premise that because the right to privacy IS NOT ENUMERATED in the constitution, it is illegal.
(๐ท๐ฐ๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ณ๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต๐ด, ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฐ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ณ๐ณ๐บ/ ๐ญ๐ช๐ท๐ฆ/ ๐ด๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฑ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ, ๐ฆ๐ต๐ค... ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ)
๐ ๐๐ก๐๐๐ #๐๐๐ง๐ ๐ช๐๐ฆ๐๐๐ฌ
๐บ#WomenRights
@mimsical THIS IS WHY PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER EVER TRUST ANY CORPORATION!
THEY'LL ALWAYS BE BETRAYED IF THEY DO!!
ALSO: LEARN TO USE PROPER #E2EE aka. #GnuPG & #OpenPGP and no, going to another #SingleVendor / #SingleProvider solution won't help.
Regarldess if #ProtonMail, #Tutanota, #Signal, #WhatsApp, #Threema, etc.
@[email protected] amd that's why noone.should.trust any #platform with #security or #encryption. Or as @[email protected] once said: " Iโm gonna tell you a secret about โlogless VPNsโ โ they donโt exist. Noone is going to risk jail for your $5/mo " - https://mobile.twitter.com/thegrugq/status/1085614812581715968 Also "#LawfulInterception" exists and EVERY SINGLE PROVIDER WILL SNITCH ON CUSTOMERS before risking getting unplugged by regulators and to be hold in contempt for customer's actions.
@mimsical for the last time to everyone: ENCRYPT YOUR SHIT!
Attached: 1 image @[email protected] @[email protected] And yes, #Thunderbird - which is included in #Ubuntu LTS for over a decade, which is completely free - also does #GnuPG / #OpenPGP transparently. To the point that I've to do more steps to sent an unencrypted eMail, as it defaults to encrypted eMails. https://mstdn.party/@husbandpanda/109974401951231194
@[email protected] @[email protected] I can hear Jacob "ioerror" Appelbaum scream "#ToldYaSo!"...
@catraxx @mimsical Or did people not expect that #NSAbook / #StasiBook will shaft them harder than #ANรM did when it turned out it was a #honeypot aka. #OperationIronside / #OperationTrojanShield?
NEVER EVER TRUST PLATFORMS!
The article (which, ugh, co-mingles a bunch of issues without properly addressing any of them) says Meta gets 400,000+ government requests for user data per year, so about 1,100 per day. The cost of protecting privacy by reviewing every request is a disincentive to do so. Tough shit
Meta (et al.) need to figure out how many experts they need to hire to effectively deal with those requests. Right now that is cost that they are externalizing onto their users/public. That *is* on them.
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