this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1874605

A 17-year-old from Nebraska and her mother are facing criminal charges including performing an illegal abortion and concealing a dead body after police obtained the pair’s private chat history from Facebook, court documents published by Motherboard show.

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[–] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just yesterday here on Lemmy, I mentioned the dangers of violating privacy, and some commenters went on about "what dangers?" Implying there were none...

Is it not enough to gesture broadly?

[–] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No one has anything to hide, until they do

[–] waspentalive@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

I once heard that "Anyone can be charged with a crime if they can be watched closely enough for long enough."

[–] kevincox@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

People are getting all upset at Facebook/Meta here but they were served a valid warrant. I don't think there is much to get mad about them here. The takeaway I get is this:

Avoid giving data to others. No matter how trustworthy they are (not that Meta is) they can be legally compelled to release it. Trust only in cryptography.

There is of course the other question of if abortion being illegal is a policy that most people agree with...but that is a whole different kettle of fish that I won't get into here.

[–] octet33@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So either FB isn't actually E2E, or their implementation is Twitter-grade broken.

[–] redballooon@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Who said facebooks private chat would be e2e?

[–] MrFagtron9000@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Facebook doesn't use e2e.

There is a private chat e2e feature, but then your chats don't show up on PC.

America is a terrifying church with guns. I pity the citizens.

[–] Boldizzle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

And y'all thought China having your data was something to be afraid of.

[–] Raphael@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When you oppose the left-wing, you're defending this.

[–] ghariksforge@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

There is no way for these companies to say no to law enforcement. That is why you should stay away from corporate social media.

[–] Fickle_Ferret@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Meta needs to be destroyed. No organisation, person, or people should hold that much power.

[–] ezmack@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Regardless of what you think about abortion laws people just gotta come to terms with the fact that your phone and computer are not reliable partners in crime

[–] super_user_do@feddit.it 1 points 1 year ago

America fuck yeahhh 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅

[–] GraceGH@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Jesus Christ, we really do already live in hell don't we

[–] emi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

Gonna Re-Share this resource... PLEASE forward to individuals who may need it! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/digital-security-and-privacy-tips-those-involved-abortion-access

[–] Mikina@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm almost certain that if something like this happened to any fediverse instance - that a local police enforcement would contact the admin and asked for user's data, which they are required by law to provide or they would go to jail/get a hefty fine and possibly a criminal record, they would do that too. That's also why E2E is required, to prevent such problems for instance admins - but then again, there's really nothing you can do against local law, and if it requires that you have to be able to cooperate, well... Then there's not much the admin can do, without putting himself in a real risk of prosecution, because he is breaking the law by have E2E.

That's also a good reason to be careful when selecting your home instance, and making sure that you choose one in a country that has all right laws in that regard.

Of course, that's assuming the police makes contact. I don't suppose that the admins would be searching through the DMs of people to snitch on them. And if Meta is doing that preemtively and is actively snitching on people - that's downright evil.

[–] wtry@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remember folks, when subverting a theocratic hellscape, use something encrypted.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This isn't subversion, or any sort of theocratic hellscape.

Girl could have gotten an abortion 100% legally up through 20 weeks of preganancy. At 24 weeks the fetus becomes viable outside the womb. At 28 weeks she (with the assistance of her mother) took meds to kill the fetus and induce a stillbirth, commenting that she couldn't wait to be able to wear jeans again.

She goes through natural labor to pass the stillbirth outside of any medical facility or supervision, burns the remains, and buries them on a farm. When questioned by police, she and her mother admit to using Facebook Messenger to discuss their plans.

The only thing in any way related to the romanticized fiction of some sort of downtrodden freedom seeker you're talking about is that using encrypted communications would have prevented their discussions from being available to be subpeona'd. That said, admitting to police you even had those discussions in the first place kind of defeats the damn purpose.

[–] wtry@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I've taken the liberty of re-reading the article and have some things to point out 1. the girl was 17, a literal child, something you seemed to forget in your comment 2. You mentioned that she wanted to wear jeans again and that that was the motive, but the word 'jeans' wasn't even mentioned, which makes me wonder if you're tampering with anything in your comment coming from the article. All that considered you have a good point with some things such as in this specific situation such as them confessing to conspiracy was not a good idea, but I will still say use something end to end encrypted when doing something like this.

[–] brainrein@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

We don’t even know if she had an abortion. May she had a miscarriage and was just trying to avoid what’s happening now, being accused of having had an abortion.

Now that sounds a lot like theocratic hellscape…

[–] Technomancer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

She aborted at 28 weeks. That's nearly 6 and a half months pregnant. Most babies can survive outside the womb when they're around 22 to 23 weeks. This was a baby, not some tiny fetus.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I was born decades ago and 2 months early; in the glass box for weeeeks to beat the 11% survival-at-all stats.

Having said that, IT'S STILL NOT FACEBOOK'S BUSINESS as a conveyor and not a filter.

[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Tyfud@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good job victim blaming dude. This mother and daughter did absolutely nothing wrong here.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Tyfud@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

You're still victim blaming.

[–] Dr_Cog@mander.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

The only crime here is the crime against humanity of taking away a person's agency over their own body

[–] Dioxy@programming.dev 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Chippyr@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago

She was 7 months pregnant. That baby is viable outside the womb in many scenarios. It’s disgusting to abort a child at that point. The local law allows abortions up to 5 months into the pregnancy (20 weeks). That’s plenty of time to make a decision, and a pretty liberal allowance. Prosecution of this mother and daughter is justified and there is nothing wrong with Meta complying with the info request.