"Roe v Wade"

[robkelk]

Surprised we didn't have a thread for this already, considering it's the first time I can remember that there was a leak from the US Supreme Court.

Anyway.

American women can obtain abortions in Canada if Roe v. Wade falls, minister says

[Pyeknu]

Humane thing to do. Better thing to do is to permit people to claim asylym if the evangelical whackoids try to prosecute would-be mothers for something like "murder".

[Norgarth]

Beau of the Fifth Column - Let's Talk about SCOTUS, dirty  little secrets, and hypocrisy...

[Jinx999]

The US government system basically requires that the supreme court can at least pretend to not be a bunch of low grade political hacks.

It has chosen to publicly unmask.

This is . . . not good.

[robkelk]

They're talking about this on the province-wide call-in show today.

First half-hour: all callers were men.

So, yeah, even in Canada - edit: or at least Ontario - we don't want women to control their own bodies.

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, our first response here, right now, is to basically consider a bunch of states to be completely no-go zones for us - my husband is queer, I'm trans, and at least a couple of the states being anti-abortion are also very publicly anti-trans and anti-queer, and this combines very unpleasantly with the "let's re-examine all the other precedents regarding anything other than a straight white relationship pairing that has the intention of pumping out babies" opinion in the ruling as released.

Basically, I now have to assume my attempt to assert who I am will land me in a hospital or with a visitation of violence with no protection from the state because I was "asking for it" in places where the state itself has publicly professed its hostility towards me.

[Labster]

As far as we can tell, a lot of civil rights that aren't explicitly codified in the United States are next on the chopping block. The right to contraception will probably be first, so stock up on condoms! And, of course, gay rights is next. Enjoy your marriage, Lynn, while you still have it.

But what else would you expect from a politically polarized, wholly illegitimate Supreme Court?

[robkelk]

First: Even if you have skills we need, there's a waiting list to be allowed to immigrate to Canada... so if you're the type who says or even thinks "If X happens I'm moving to Canada", get your application in now.

Second: Margaret Atwood has never hidden the fact that she wrote The Handmaid's Tale as a cautionary tale.

[robkelk]

Period- and fertility-tracking apps have become weapons in Friday's post-Roe America.

These seemingly innocuous trackers contain tons of data about sexual history, menstruation and pregnancy dates, all of which could now be used to prosecute women seeking abortions — or incite digital witch hunts in states that offer abortion bounties.

[classicdrogn]

I still can't understand why anyone would put that kind of personal data into a cloud-connected app in the first place. Tracking it themselves on a spreadsheet or database to feed into a chart and apply some pattern recognition, sure, but even as nominally anonymized user data? Especially with all the times data breaches of one sort or another are in the news, not to mention when it breaks that coverups of other data breaches were in place for various lengths of time with no solid information on how many never even get reported on.

[LynnInDenver]

I still can't understand why anyone would put that kind of personal data into a cloud-connected app in the first place. Tracking it themselves on a spreadsheet or database to feed into a chart and apply some pattern recognition, sure, but even as nominally anonymized user data? Especially with all the times data breaches of one sort or another are in the news, not to mention when it breaks that coverups of other data breaches were in place for various lengths of time with no solid information on how many never even get reported on.

Simple: the cloud connected app is now the low effort lift for pretty much everyone.

[robkelk]

I still can't understand why anyone would put that kind of personal data into a cloud-connected app in the first place. Tracking it themselves on a spreadsheet or database to feed into a chart and apply some pattern recognition, sure, but even as nominally anonymized user data? Especially with all the times data breaches of one sort or another are in the news, not to mention when it breaks that coverups of other data breaches were in place for various lengths of time with no solid information on how many never even get reported on.

In some cases, they don't even realize that they're doing it.

Unless there are laws against cross-correlating data, it's trivially easy to add to a fertility-planning app a subroutine that says something along the lines of "if the phone that this app is installed on enters a geobounded area previously identified as an abortion clinic, then send a notification to the local police".

This is why North America needs data privacy laws that are at least as strong as the EU's GDPR - to make it flat-out illegal do do such a thing. But I'll bet dollars to donuts that the GOP and the Conservative Party of Canada would do everything in their power to make sure we never get such laws.

[hazard]

Those apps will run in trouble in Europe, but not all nations have declared that 'shifting data for handling in the USA where the US intelligence agencies can get at it is hilariously not legal' yet.

It'll probably come anyway.

[Labster]

The violence against women has already begun.  Okay, I mainly shared that link because of how profoundly weird it is.  TL;DR: Male police officer & Republican candidate for RI state senate punches his female Democratic rival in the face at an abortion rally.  A few hours later he's withdrawn from the race (though MT Gov. Gianforte shows that randomly attacking people is not political career-ending in America).

I still can't understand why anyone would put that kind of personal data into a cloud-connected app in the first place. Tracking it themselves on a spreadsheet or database to feed into a chart and apply some pattern recognition, sure, but even as nominally anonymized user data? Especially with all the times data breaches of one sort or another are in the news, not to mention when it breaks that coverups of other data breaches were in place for various lengths of time with no solid information on how many never even get reported on.

In some cases, they don't even realize that they're doing it.

Unless there are laws against cross-correlating data, it's trivially easy to add to a fertility-planning app a subroutine that says something along the lines of "if the phone that this app is installed on enters a geobounded area previously identified as an abortion clinic, then send a notification to the local police".

This is why North America needs data privacy laws that are at least as strong as the EU's GDPR - to make it flat-out illegal do do such a thing. But I'll bet dollars to donuts that the GOP and the Conservative Party of Canada would do everything in their power to make sure we never get such laws.

We would never give the police all of that correlated data, this isn't a communist regime!  No, the police have to buy it on the open marketplace just like everyone else.

[Labster]

As far as we can tell, a lot of civil rights that aren't explicitly codified in the United States are next on the chopping block.  The right to contraception will probably be first, so stock up on condoms!  And, of course, gay rights is next.  Enjoy your marriage, Lynn, while you still have it.

But what else would you expect from a politically polarized, wholly illegitimate Supreme Court?

After today, I would like to downgrade my assessment of the Supreme Court.  They are mass murderers, since today's ruling is nothing less than the cold-blooded murder of millions.  Their are due no honor or respect, their names are worth less than mud. The Supreme Court are the Ayatollahs of our republic, serving their god Moloch.

[robkelk]

The Register: FTC suddenly gets very stern about not-really-anonymized anonymized data - right after Biden's order to protect women in a post-Roe America.

No new regulations - they're just going to enforce the ones already on the books.

The government agency never said in its guidance that it's acting in response to Biden's order, but it makes clear that reproductive healthcare, the data associated with it, and the threat that data poses to women in states with abortion restrictions is at the core.

---

The Register: SCOTUS judges 'doxxed' after overturning Roe v Wade.

Just the conservative judges, of course, and not the Chief Justice.

And although much of the data shared is public — of course, credit cards and IP addresses don't fall into this bucket — the time and effort put into locating and aggregating this data is worrisome, [Cybersixgill's security research lead Dov] Lerner said, noting that his security shop expects more of these "hacktivist attacks" as the US political climate becomes even more charged.

[robkelk]

The Register: Facebook hands over chats to cops in post-Roe abortion case

Private Facebook chats between a Nebraska mother and her daughter has been used by law enforcement to build a criminal case against the teen for getting a now-illegal abortion in her home state.

This appears to be the first case in post-Roe America of cops obtaining a search warrant and essentially forcing a tech company to help them prosecute an abortion case.

[hazard]

This is unusual how?

Police forcing technology companies to cough up the records of conversations has been a thing for a long time indeed.


Yes, it's new that this happened in an abortion prosecution case, but that's because for some 50 years abortion law was vaguely sensible in the US. Very vaguely.

[robkelk]

Never said it was unusual, just that it was noteworthy.

[Labster]

If anything, the police using big business to take away people’s civil rights is distressingly common.

[hazard]

Actually, the police aren't taking away people's civil rights.

You see, in the USA the 5th Amendment to the Constitution of the USA guarantees that you cannot be compelled to testify against yourself, but if you use an intermediary to pass messages, and that intermediary keeps a record, well, those records are about you, but they aren't yours. And it's not an unreasonable search, so it's not protected by the 4th Amendment.

[robkelk]

Which means you have to be careful which intermediary you use.

Mozilla has a "Privacy Not Included" review site; here's the "Reproductive Health" list, and here's The Register's story about it.

[classicdrogn]

On a more positive note, early this morning I got an email from the Massachusetts board of health assuring me that our lovely commonwealth remains committed to providing for the health and well being of all citizens, and that contraceptives and abortions are and wil remain legal and covered by the state insurance plan. Not that you can walk into a walgreens and whip out your insurance card for a pack of Trojans, but like, birth control pills and IUDs.

Though I dunno, maybe you can get a prescription for condoms as well? Doctors seem perfectly happy to prescribe anything else, if I believe the news -- and it could be quite a boast in its own way. "Yeah, prescription strength, baby. Doc didn't want me makin' him too busy."



Though I have to say that sounds like the kind of line that only works when it's framed as a bit of self-deprecating mockery, actually delivering something like that straight would be the wrong kind of laughable. I suppose that brings back around to the rest of the thread.

[Labster]

Honestly condoms are over-regulated due to their status as medical devices in the United States. Compare Japan, which has a much greater variety of condoms provided by the free market.

In reference to the other thread, this means I’m actually in line with conservative principles on this one, wanting less regulation and more condoms for everyone! Wait, what do you mean that’s not conservative?

But really, free condoms should be government policy. It solves a lot of economic and resource use problems, and for now extinction or “replacement theory” are not at all problems. Economic growth outpaces population growth. And it’s much cheaper birth control than child car seat policies, which have prevented a thousand times more births than children’s lives saved.