- Police request social media user data to help prosecute after a crime has been committed.
- In some cases, the crime is abortion and social apps are flipping users’ chat logs and search histories.
- One legal expert said social platforms may cooperate with law enforcement even if they are not legally required to do so.
As Nationwide abortion ban Law enforcement agencies are using social media platforms to build cases to prosecute women seeking abortion or abortion-inducing drugs. Online platforms such as Google and Facebook can also help.
This spring, a woman named Jessica Burgess and her daughter go to trial in Nebraska Allegedly performing an illegal abortion, with key evidence provided by Facebook’s parent company, Meta. Burgess is said to have helped her daughter find and take abortion-inducing drugs. The teenage Burgess has also been charged with illegally disposing of the remains of her unborn child.
TechCrunch It reported that internal chat logs were provided to law enforcement officers by a social media company.
meta said statement Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Agency, which overturned abortion rights nationwide and allowed bans in several states, in the Nebraska case, “validity from local law enforcement In response to “legal warrants”.
And the warrant that Mehta responded to in this case “didn’t mention abortion” — coincidentally because law enforcement requested chat logs while investigating the disposal of the teen’s remains. Drug Controversy Revealed — Subsequent indictments have revealed how data released by social media companies can be used to prosecute people for abortions, even when they are being investigated for other reasons.
pharmacies sharing data
research by pro publica We discovered that an online pharmacy that sells abortion drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol shares sensitive data such as users’ web addresses, relative locations, and search data with Google and other third-party sites . .
ProPublica collects user data on at least nine online pharmacy sites that offer abortion pills by mail, including Abortion Ease, BestAbortionPill.com, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, Secure Abortion Pills, AbortionRx, Generic Abortion Pills, and Abortion Privacy. I found a web tracker. and Online Abortion Pills Rx.
None of the pharmacies immediately responded to the insider’s request for comment.
An FBI representative told Insider that it “couldn’t respond” to Insider’s detailed request for information about the criteria police officers need to issue a request for a civilian’s social media or internet history. Information, and the channels used by officers to make those requests.
Representatives for Google and the Los Angeles and New York police departments, the nation’s two largest law enforcement agencies, did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.
A Meta spokesperson told Insider, “We will comply with government requests for user information only if we have a good faith belief that the law requires it.” “Furthermore, we assess whether the request is consistent with internationally recognized human rights standards, such as due process, privacy, freedom of expression and the rule of law. Only produce information.If we decide the request is insufficient or too broad, we will remand the request and fight it in court if necessary.Providing the government with a “back door” to people’s information is not is not. ”
according to the inside statistics Powered by Meta, the company responds to government requests for user data more than 70% of the time and receives over 400,000 requests annually.
“Social media companies are encouraged to cooperate with law enforcement when they make legitimate requests for information,” said Eric Goldman, a law professor at the University of Santa Clara School of Law and co-director of the school’s high school. We hope so, and we have to.” The Tech Law Institute told his Insider. “But we also know that social media is less likely to stand up to unreasonable demands from law enforcement, either because they fear their own liability or because it is too expensive to stand up.”
Goldman cites examples of Internet services going to court to protect their users’ interests, but “these are the exceptions.”
“There are thousands of requests for each of these cases, and thousands of other decisions that the company has made just by handing over the data, because it’s easier and faster,” Goldman said. Law enforcement agencies know they can make social media requests, including court requests that do not comply with the law, and most requests are accepted simply because they are the method of least resistance for social media services. I expect.”
No incentive to protect privacy
Lawsuits against abortion seekers are increasingly informed by user data provided by social media companies, but it’s not the only prosecution based on the information people share online.
Public social media posts can be used to file lawsuits for major cases such as child abuse and murder, as well as minor cases that may affect the First Amendment. Jokester tweeted threats to airlines and Meme interpreted by DOJ as election interference.
Personal content by users, such as location data and messages, requires a warrant before law enforcement can turn it over.
But “social media companies don’t really have an incentive to protect privacy,” Sharon Docter, PhD, JD, a professor of legal affairs and new media at California Lutheran University, told Insider. She said the burden of doing so falls on individual users, as the platform itself is unlikely to prioritize user privacy.
“Social media users should be concerned about their privacy and users should weigh the fact that their digital footprints could be used by law enforcement with a valid search warrant. “And by considering sending encrypted messages, making sure location data is turned off, and making every effort to understand the privacy policies of the platforms you use, We must do everything we can to protect your privacy.”
Docter and Goldman told Insider they were unlikely to expect social media companies to change their policies or standardize encryption. But overly broad demands by governments are a key point in the problem, Goldman notes, and social media isn’t cooperating with law enforcement in the first place.
Goldman told the insider, “All the social media services that channel my fears about being a pawn in the law enforcement game seem misguided to me. It’s a pawn,” he said. Or get mad at Facebook and Google for complying with sometimes illegal demands instead of overreaching governments.
“We’re saying, ‘Law enforcement is just trying to do their job,’ and ‘If they do something wrong along the way, if they find the bad guys, The ends justify the means,’” Goldman added. It’s hard. Maybe they don’t deserve that benefit.”
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