Meta-provided FB chats led a woman to plead guilty to abortion-related charges | Hacker News Reader

Meta-provided FB chats led a woman to plead guilty to abortion-related charges

theverge.com

38 pointsyincrash38 comments

Meta complies with legal warrant. The end.

I would not hold Meta at fault here. This travesty is basically on every uncompromising anti-abortion activist who have goaded their spineless representatives and government officials to put vulnerable women in this situation.

In short, Nebraska government and attorney general are shit bags. The woman and Meta haven't done anything wrong. Meta should however advertise that only WhatsApp chat is E2E encrypted and that anything discussed on Messenger can be obtained via a warrant.

One can hold both parties responsible. And we should. There are steps they could take, as you have pointed out, that they have not.

They help write the law, they dictate most of our lives. When it comes time for them make a moral stand we defend them, "they're just following orders."

The only thing they meaningfully punished for is not making money. No wonder our world isn't going great.

A warrant they wouldn't be able to comply with if they e2e encrypted their chat.

^^^^^^^ THIS!!!

But no, Meta wants to sniff your conversations so they can sell you shit. The cost of Meta's advertising is your freedom.

Draconian, privacy invasive law enforced on woman by discovering her chat history.

More people need reminded what can happen to them if they discuss controversial or illegal things on these ubiquitous chat programs.

People don't understand that a "private" chat is not the same as "end to end encrypted so that the provider can't see it".

Even if messages are set to disappear, they most likely will be logged anyway (Snapchat).

Don't use meta products. The end

> The charges include having an abortion after 20 weeks, false reporting, and tampering with human skeletal remains.

This article has been posted before under different titles, and somehow everyone conveniently ignores this part.

They also like to leave out that abortion in the first trimester is legal in Nebraska: https://www.abortionfinder.org/abortion-guides-by-state/abor...

People are mentioning it a lot. "Everybody conveniently ignores X" is a very common form of fallacious meta-argument, especially on divided topics.

Very odd that FB chat is not using end-to-end encryption by default. Why would you even make this opt-in?

>Why would you even make this opt-in?

Businesses are not your friend

The real issue is obviously people are mad that abortion laws are being enforced. If two people were coordinating their intentions to murder their friend and get rid of the body, would you be mad if the company turned over their "private" chats? If no, then it's not a tech/privacy issue at all.

It is valid to argue the opinion that some businesses should not record or store chats, or should use E2E encryption.

It is also valid to argue the opinion that a law could be beyond a certain threshold of immorality where a business should prefer the risk of a federal lawsuit over complying.

It is also valid to argue the opinion opposite to these two opinions.

My point being that it is the antithesis of reason to assert that these opinions simply can not be held, or are somehow fundamentally invalid.

Well, yes, I would be. Let the state find another way to catch murderers; I would like to retain the ability to have private conversations.

>Court and police records show that police began investigating 17-year-old Celeste Burgess and her mother Jessica Burgess after receiving a tip-off that the pair had illegally buried a stillborn child given birth to prematurely by Celeste. The two women told detective Ben McBride of the Norfolk, Nebraska Police Division that they’d discussed the matter on Facebook Messenger, which prompted the state to issue Meta with a search warrant for their chat history and data including log-in timestamps and photos.[1]

Police were given a tip. They talked to the women, who then admitted to coordinating the crime over chat. A warrant was issued. No 4th amendment was violated.

1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/10/23299502/facebook-chat-me...

Except it wasn’t murder; it was a young woman — with support and consent of her mother — attempting to practice bodily autonomy.

Call it whatever makes you feel better, it doesn't change the law, which doesn't make this a tech/privacy issue.

Murder by another name is still murder.

Dude, if you want to make women second class citizens, just come right out and say it. No need to be shy about it.

Dude, if you enjoy killing babies, just come right out and say it. You'll be applauded for being so brave.

> Burgess was about 23 weeks along in her pregnancy

23 weeks... I don't know of any country that allows a 23 week abortion.

Planned parenthood will do an in office abortion up to 24 weeks, later in exceptional circumstances or for medical reasons. They say so on their website. Their accounting is from end of last period though so the actual pregnancy will usually be a couple of weeks shorter along.

Source your facts please.

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/blog/how-far-along-can-you...

> Their accounting is from end of last period though so the actual pregnancy will usually be a couple of weeks shorter along.

All pregnancies are dated are from the date of the last period, there is no other standard in US/Canada: https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/week1.html

Canada allows abortions up until the moment of birth. There are no legal restrictions whatsoever.

Even progressive countries in Europe typically set limits of 10-14 weeks, outside of medical necessity or other exceptional cases.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Canada https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Europe

From your own source:

“Abortion is subject to provincial healthcare regulatory rules and guidelines for physicians. No provinces offer abortion on request at 24 weeks and beyond, although there are exceptions for certain medical complications.”

Sounds like the state is simply removing themselves from the process altogether and allowing healthcare professionals to do what they do best: provide healthcare. Let’s not pretend they’re out here providing third trimester terminations on a whim.

We (as in the US) have states that allow it.

For reference this is what a 23-week baby looks like: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families...

> This is HN, some people here probably advocate for abortion after birth.

That’s called murder - the ending of a person, which by the law is a fully born human being. I doubt anybody sane on either side of the political spectrum supports that.

Still, it is something I wonder about.

Coming out of the womb doesn't radically change a baby. It is obviously an important event, but a lot of important events happen in the womb, and a lot of important event happen later too. It is more of an arbitrary cutoff.

And it is not completely insane to "abort after birth". It was even suggested to someone I know. The thing is, before birth, they detected potential for some terrible disorder, the kind that result in a (likely short) lifetime of suffering. The doctor asked the mother something along the lines of: "if we find out that the newborn baby has the disorder, we can make a medical error and...". Thankfully, it all went fine, and the baby is now a healthy middle-aged man with kids and good job.

So, what do you make of it? Could the diagnosis be done in the proper time frame, it would have been an obvious case for abortion, usually the kind of case that warrants an abortion at any stage even in places that are generally against abortion. But just because it took a few minutes after birth to get a proper diagnosis, then it becomes murder?

It is not an easy question. The point between acceptable abortion and murder is somewhere between fertilization and childhood, but where exactly? Many people in the "pro-choice" side of the political spectrum put it at birth, but it is still somewhat arbitrary. Just like the "first heartbeat" criteria of the "pro-life" camp is also arbitrary.

Raising the life you birth into the world is one of the responsibilities assumed when choosing to be a parent.

But if they believe they have a good cause to commit infanticide, let them argue it in front of a jury of their peers.

But the same could be said about the life that is about to be born. Life doesn't start the instant the body leaves the womb. Abortion could also be judged in front of a jury.

What I meant is that the line between abortion and infanticide, choice and life, is blurry. And you must admit that if you believe that parents have the responsibility to raise the life they birth, then anti-abortion laws make sense, and if you think that parents should have the right to chose, then legalizing infanticide (within limits) is one thing you should consider.

I am not picking a side here, I am just saying that if you have an opinion on the matter, the cutoff you chose, being the first heartbeat, a certain number of weeks, or birth, it is arbitrary.

There are many anti-women's healthcare advocates actually believe that this is what pro-choice individuals want. It's sometimes said as tongue-in-cheek, but there are people that really believe Planned Parenthood wants post-birth abortions to be legal.

Care of the Fox Entertainment conglomerate. They’ve been claiming this for years now, and their fans eat it up.

Another successful story cast as if it were news.

The politics are messy indeed but see the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and the various debates around it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born-Alive_Abortion_Survivors_...

The history of infanticide and how it was regarded in various places, even into the 20th Century, is complex to say the least:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide

please elaborate?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com