As per requests, sending "Internet Users' Safety in a Post-Roe World"
in its entirety
Hello all. I don't usually email full text of my blog posts to these
lists these days, but I've received requests for this one in full, so an
exception today, on this significantly important topic. -L
- - - - -
Internet Users' Safety in a Post-Roe World
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected]
18 June 2022
https://lauren.vortex.com/2022/06/18/internet-users-safety-in-a-post-roe-world
TL;DR: By no later than early this July, it is highly probable that a
nearly half-century nationwide precedent providing women with
abortion-related protections will be partly or completely reversed by
the current U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS). This sea change, especially
impacting women's rights but with even broader implications now and into
the future, would immediately and dramatically affect many policy and
operational aspects of numerous important Internet firms. Unless
effective planning for this situation takes place imminently, the safety
of women, the well-being of Internet users more generally, and crucial
services of these firms themselves will in all likelihood be at risk in
critical respects.
- - - - -
Since the recent leak of a SCOTUS draft decision that would effectively
eliminate the national protections of Roe v. Wade, and subsequent
remarks by some of the associated justices, it is now widely assumed
that within a matter of days or weeks a partial or total reversal of Roe
will revert the vast majority of abortion-related matters back to the
individual states.
Many politicians and states have already indicated their plans to
immediately ban most or even all abortions, including in some cases
those related to rape and incest, and even those to preserve the health
of the woman, with only narrow exceptions even to save mothers' lives.
Some of these laws may effectively criminalize miscarriages. Some may
introduce both civil and criminal penalties related to abortion,
possibly bringing homicide or murder charges against involved parties,
potentially including the pregnant women.
Various states plan to try extending their bans and civil/criminal
penalties to include anyone who "participates" in making abortions
possible, even if they are in other states, as when a woman travels to a
different state for an abortion (the legality of one state attempting to
impact actions in another state in this manner is unclear, but with
today's SCOTUS no possibilities can be safely ignored). Actions by some
states to try ban obtaining, ordering, or providing various abortion
drugs are also already being enacted. Note that SCOTUS has to date
permitted to continue the Texas mechanism for suing abortion providers,
which has largely blocked abortions in that state.
"Trigger laws" already in place in some states along with the statements
of state legislators indicate that near total or total abortion bans
will immediately become law in various states if the anticipated SCOTUS
decision is announced.
Anti-abortion and affiliated factions are already planning -- using the
reasoning of the expected SCOTIS decision as a foundation -- for
follow-up actions pushing for national abortion bans, limits on
contraception, banning gay marriage, rolling back LGBTQ+ rights, and
related activities. U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has
recently proclaimed that a nationwide abortion ban is possible if the
GOP retakes the House, Senate, and presidency.
These events are creating what could become an existential threat to
many Internet users and to key aspects of many Internet firms' policy
and operational models.
Given the sweeping and unprecedented scope of the oppressive laws that
would be unleashed on pregnant women and anyone else who becomes
involved with their healthcare, especially given the civil and even
criminal penalties being written into these laws, it seems inevitable
that demands for access to data in the possession of many Internet and
telecommunications firms relating to user activities will drastically
increase.
Search histories (both server and browser) and potentially even stored
email data could be sought looking for queries about abortion services,
abortion drugs, and numerous other related topics. Location data (both
targeting specific users, and data from broader geofence warrants
associated with, for example, abortion providers) could be demanded. A
range of other resulting data demands are also highly probable. It is
also expected that there would be even more calls for
government-mandated backdoors into end-to-end encrypted messaging
systems.
Women may put their health and lives at risk by not seeking necessary
health services, for fear of these abortion laws. Women's partners,
other family members, friends, associates, and healthcare providers may
reasonably believe that their livelihoods or freedom may compromised if
they are found to be providing or aiding in any manner related to
abortion services.
Many users may cease using Internet and various telecommunications
services in the manners that they previously would have, out of concerns
that their related activities and other data could ultimately fall into
the hands of state or other officials, and then be used to track and
potentially prosecute them under these abortion-related laws.
This situation is a Trust & Safety emergency of the first order for all
of these firms.
While some firms already provide users a range of search/location
history control tools, I would assert that most users do not understand
them and are frequently unaware of how they are actually configured.
I believe that the best mechanism at this time to help protect women and
affiliated others who would be victimized by these state actions is to
not save the associated data in the first place, unless a user decides
that they desire to have that data saved.
One possibility would be for these firms to proactively offer users the
option to not save (or alternatively, very quickly expunge) their
search, location, and other user activity data associated with abortion
and important related issues -- both on company servers, and within
browser histories if practicable. Users who wished to have any of these
categories of data activity saved as before could choose not to exercise
this option.
Unfortunately, a database of users who opt out of having this data saved
may itself be an attractive data demand target by parties who may assume
that it mainly represents individuals attempting to hide activities
related to abortions. This possibility may argue for the preferred
default behavior being to not save this data, and offering users the
option of saving it if they so choose.
While these changes could be part of a desirable broader effort to give
users more control over which specific aspects of their "personally
sensitive" activity data are saved, this would of course be a
significantly larger project, and time is of the essence given the
imminent SCOTUS ruling.
Obviously I am not here addressing the detailed legal considerations or
potential technical implementation challenges of the proposals above,
and there may exist other ways to quickly ameliorate the risks that I've
described, though practical alternatives are not obvious to me at
present.
However, I do feel strongly that the status quo regarding user activity
data in a post-Roe environment could create a nightmarish situation for
many women and other Internet users, and be extraordinarily challenging
for firms from Trust & Safety and broader policy and operational
aspects.
I strongly recommend that actions be taken immediately to protect
Internet users from the storm that will likely arrive very shortly
indeed.
--Lauren--
https://lauren.vortex.com/2022/06/18/internet-users-safety-in-a-post-roe-world
- - -
Request invite to my private discussion forum: [email protected]
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): https://www.vortex.com/lauren
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
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