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Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Aside from any moral or political views, it amuses me when people do criminal acts and fail to realize police can inspect personal data like text messages, email, and social media. I think people smart enough to realize that are smart enough to avoid committing a crime in the first place. Though there are smart criminals that get away with it, you just don't hear about them because they don't get caught. In any case I tend to think being stupid is prerequisite to being a criminal.
The only crime here is the crime against humanity of taking away a person's agency over their own body
They had the agency to take care of this for 20 damn weeks into the pregnancy where they were at 100% legally, even disregarding the options we all have to prevent conception in the first place.
On top of that, fetuses are viable outside the womb at 24 weeks, assuming the pregnant woman doesn't kill it at week 28 using medicine as this one did. I can't help but feel that makes 24 weeks a pretty important deadline for when this sort of choice is more than just about the pregnant woman.
I think that misses the point of this story. The fact is, the government has complete access to your digital communications.
Now let's run this scenario in a state with a zero abortion policy
That's a massive oversimplification of things. Intentionally removing nuance doesn't help people.
Even if the difference is largely academic, the police needed a warrant to get this info from Facebook. This info was not directly government owned and directly available to law enforcement.
Proper opsec and infosec is all about controlling for the threat level of your adversary. If you have nation state level adversaries then yes, you're screwed by simple merit of doing things online where the US government has major internet relays tapped at the source. That isn't the case here and black and white statements just muddy the waters and make proper security feel impossible to the average person. Don't help the powers that be to make you and others feel helpless. That helps no one.
The threat level here was minor. They told the police where to look for evidence.
Beyond that, I'm not personally going to continue into the rabbit hole of the current hellscape post the godawful repeal of Roe v Wade. That situation is absolutely fucked.
As always, don't talk with police, and don't discuss illegal activity unencrypted or connected to your real life identity.
You’re right, and there’s two things going on here, one group of people is debating the morality of what these people did in the first place, but the other take is platform compliance with law enforcement and more generally the government’s ability to access your data.
You’re contrasting that a warrant should not really be a concern compared with the government’s ability to perform truly invasive surveillance potentially without any warrant.
I don’t know that you really disagree with person you’re replying to, though. Yeah, if people are doing something their government classifies as illegal, talking about it on unencrypted spaces where it’s subject to a warrant is dumb.
Very few people would be alarmed when Facebook turns over data related to human traffickers. Some would. But for those who are focused on morality, would it matter if the method was, say, the NSA cracking encryption without a warrant? Or tapping communications through an encryption back door?They’d probably be more worried about admitting the evidence than whether the method should be allowed.
It’s certainly worth considering that if governments are criminalizing behavior people believe ought not to be a crime, they need to be more aware that communication security is a thing and there are methods and tools to help with that, and powers the government have to thwart it. But who the government is going after will make people care about the issue differently.
Thinking about hypotheticals where this plays out in other scenarios doesn’t seem like an oversimplification, it’s a valid consideration, at least for public awareness.
In the USA there's due process required for authorities to gain access to your private data, not true in many countries.
A person has to assume anything put out there over the internet or phone network can be inspected under criminal investigation. One has to be a dumb ass not to realize that. I've even seen stories of criminals making social media posts showing off their robbery loot. Also the style of wearing their pants falling down. Make sure to trip and fall when running from the cops. Good thing criminals make it easy for police.
Yeah, always invoke your right to remain silent. I watch a lot of crime shows, actually my wife is more into it than me so I get roped into watching them. It baffles me how criminals will sit there and let police interrogate them until they confess. Maybe it's because they think they can talk their way out of it, but then why confess. As a US citizen you can shut down an interview with police any time you want. But it's good suspects are stupid like that, makes it easy for police. They have a tough job dealing with all the knuckleheads out there.
This is only the case when the data is being obtained by traditional means. As we've seen recently, authorities buying data from data brokers completely circumvents any sense of due process on a technicality.
Oh absolutely. Even if you are entirely innocent, the police use psycological manipulation as routine part of interrogation. They'd sometimes rather you get confused as to whether you actually may have done something wrong, and eventually admit to something you didn't do, than to let you go as innocent. There is absolutely nothing good that can come out of "cooperating" (such a loaded and innacurate word in this context), whether you're innocent or guilty.
Yes you can make yourself a prime suspect by talking too much, even if you're completely innocent. If you don't have a solid alibi and you "know too much" you're it.
I think there used to be a lot more railroading of innocent suspects back in the day, but with modern advances in forensic technology that happens greatly less. Still happens though. You know that cliché about every convict saying he's innocent. After the stuff I've seen watching these crime documentaries for years, I start to think maybe half of them are telling the truth.
Yeah it’s horrible for innocent people to be deprived of life against their own will
yeah horrible to be forced into a shit life they didn't ask for
Wow what a brave person arguing for the rights of those who can't speak for themselves! How do you know what the fetus wants?
I can’t think of a single organism that doesn’t have a survival instinct
Its a survivorship bias. Because only stupid criminals get caught, and those are the ones hou hear about, you assume all of them are stupid.
Good job victim blaming dude. This mother and daughter did absolutely nothing wrong here.
What? They had 20 weeks to do this properly with medical supervision but waited to do shit until week 28 of pregnancy, then most importantly broke rule #1: Don't talk to the fucking police. They admitted to the police that they planned it using FB messenger. Whether the police got the DMs isn't as relevant as the fact that when they were questioned they admitted it.
You're still victim blaming.
The victim in question openly stated they wanted an abortion at 28 weeks so they could wear jeans again.
Please stop using the phrase "victim blaming" to abrogate the necessity for critical thought.
This isn't some "she shouldn't have dressed like a slut" situation.
At some point people need to be held accountable to some absolute minimum level of personal responsibility.
Let's be honest here.
How long do you think that child would last being parented by someone who wanted their child aborted so they could wear their jeans again.
Abortions should be easily available to any and all women, in every state.
I don't agree with their decision making length, but if abortion wasnt such a fucking touchy subject, the woman probably would have done so as soon as she found out.
Her body, her choice.
Men and politics need to get the fuck out of the way.
Why are we pretending like adoption does not exist? You're skipping options here.
Abortion being a touchy subject (agreed that it shouldn't be) leading to her waiting longer is pure speculation.
She literally had 20 weeks to do it legally with no problems.
And she didn't. And mostly men around america make it a massive political issue. I'm not condoning the length of time it took her to decide.
But I'm also not conding your response saying she had x amount of time, avoiding my inquiry about the ability to not be a good parent. What's worse? A small amount of time for a fetus, or a lifetime when the kid boils to death in the car cause mommy wanted to go shopping?
Quit wishing misery on birthed children all in the name of a life. It doesn't work that way.
If it was her body her choice, and she had education about it, or possibly free access to birth control, this might not have been a story. Sadly, it seems America is walking backwards with women's reproductive rights.
I'm not going to get worked up about a woman aborting her fetus for whatever reason. Make all other options more attainable and then it's a conversation to have, but not really. If I found out my wife would have a higher than average statistical chance of dying while giving birth, she could make her choice. My preference would be, let's just try for another and hope it doesn't put her life at more risk.
This isn't the case here, but how about we throw pitchforks at the penis that impregnated this young woman? It does take 2.
Umm an abortion at 28 weeks is illegal almost everywhere in the world dude, except in extreme circumstances like safety of the mother. Many EU countries limit abortion to first 12 weeks or so.
Doesn't make it any better.
There are hundreds of possible reasons for why this 17 year old did not manage to go through the abortion in time. But you really really want her to be an evil murderer who did this... For what? You really think she did this because she is just an awful human being and therefore now as punishment deserves to have to go through pregnancy and childbirth?
It is her body not yours. When you get pregnant and feel the moral obligation to go through the whole process of birthing it than you can still make this decision. But it's not yours to make or judge about because it's the actual already living body of another person.
Men can have an opinion on the matter. We are talking about potential children here so if course everyone will have an opinion. Saying Men shouldn't have an opinion on this matter only proved that you shouldn't have an opinion.
Having a vagina is not a prerequisite to have an opinion on abortion.
In any case, the best argument I can think of about abortion is that the fetus seem to have a consciousness at around 24 weeks. Consciousness is what we care to protect. In my opinion, at 24 weeks, a fetus is a person worth of protection.
I'll admit you make some fair points.
This pair are completely incompetent and should absolutely never become parents/grandparents.
However the fact that police investigated, asked for chat logs from a social media provider, and are intimidating the two of them and we're all talking about it is the entire point.
Fear. They want us to be at reach others throats on this issue.
You sound like a reasonable person. I think we can both agree that what the police are doing right now is wrong. Even at 20 weeks, which is very late in the pregnancy game, as you say, the decision for what to do with her body should have been between her and her doctor only.
We should not have courts getting involved in this crap again like it's pre the 70s all over. Those were not good times for women.
The two of them could absolutely have been smarter about what they did. But what they did shouldn't be receiving national attention because it should have stayed between the two of them and their doctor.
It amuses me people use anything Facebook created.