Don’t Even Think About, Big Brother Will Find Out

Texas Governor signs anti-abortion bill

Don’t Even Think About It, Big Brother Will Find Out

Post Roe reversal vigilantes, zealots & prosecutors digging in 

So, “here’s the deal,” all women who might be pregnant (and their possible supporters) and is considering ending it: in many of the red states – where anyone “aiding or abetting” abortion-seekers is committing either a criminal act or one that enables private citizens to sue with a guaranteed reward (under so-called “PAGA” or private attorney general acts) – you could easily have to surrender your smart phone or computer to those seeking to prosecute or sue anyone even thinking about getting an abortion or helping someone who wants one. Actually, these now-legally-empowered vigilantes and right-wing prosecutors can even troll the Web seeking information about a target’s recent travels, their texts, emails and even private medical records. For those in red states seeking abortions in blue states, the risks are obvious. And for those in blue states helping?

“History has repeatedly demonstrated that whenever people’s personal data are tracked and stored, there’s always a risk that they could be misused or abused. With the Supreme Court’s Friday overruling of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally, collected location data, text messages, search histories, emails and seemingly innocuous menstrual period and ovulation-tracking apps could be used to prosecute people who seek an abortion — or medical care for a miscarriage — as well as those who assist them.

“In the digital age, this decision opens the door to law enforcement and private bounty hunters seeking vast amounts of private data from ordinary Americans,” said Alexandra Reeve Givens, president and chief executive of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based digital rights nonprofit…

“Until May, anyone could buy a weekly trove of data on clients at more than 600 Planned Parenthood sites around the country for as little as $160, according to a recent Vice investigation. The files included approximate patient addresses — derived from where their cellphones ‘sleep’ at night — income brackets, time spent at the clinic, and the top places people visited before and afterward.

“It’s all possible because federal law — specifically the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — protects the privacy of medical files at your doctor’s office, but not any information that third-party apps or tech companies collect about you. This is also true if an app that collects your data shares that information with a third party that might abuse it.” Barbara Ortutay writing for the June 30th Associated Press. But if you are in a red state that is looking to enforce out-of-state solicitations and arrest local residents willing to travel to get an abortion, is there legal peril to all concerned in such efforts?

Indeed, while Interstate Commerce and movement of American citizens would seem to be constitutionally protected, given the 6-3 right-wing complexion of the US Supreme Court today, particularly with their clear alignment with NRA and evangelical values have preempted several once-constitutionally protected rights, who knows what could happen under new Supreme Court review. Writing for the June 29th Washington Post, Caroline Kitchener and Devlin Barrett: “The National Association of Christian Lawmakers, an antiabortion organization led by Republican state legislators, has begun working with the authors of the Texas abortion ban to explore model legislation that would restrict people from crossing state lines for abortions, said Texas state representative Tom Oliverson (R), the charter chair of the group’s national legislative council.

“‘Just because you jump across a state line doesn’t mean your home state doesn’t have jurisdiction,’ said Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel for the Thomas More Society. ‘It’s not a free abortion card when you drive across the state line.’

“The Biden Justice Department has already warned states that it would fight such laws, saying they violate the right to interstate commerce… In relying on private citizens to enforce civil litigation, rather than attempting to impose a state-enforced ban on receiving abortions across state lines, such a law is more difficult to challenge in court because abortion rights groups don’t have a clear person to sue… Like the Texas abortion ban, the proposal itself could have a chilling effect, where doctors in surrounding states stop performing abortions before courts have an opportunity to intervene, worried that they may face lawsuits if they violate the law.”

Between red state prosecutors’ seizing private devices as part of a “criminal investigation,” valid under local law, or PAGA vigilantes’ conducting “discovery” in their lawsuits, the threat to privacy is monumental. States like California and Connecticut have passed laws protecting their residents from such extra-territorial efforts, but the Supreme Court has yet to review the validity of law on both sides of this confrontation. We even have to ask if the First Amendment protects pro-abortion political actions and fund-raising in red states, which most of us would have assumed are constitutionally protected freedoms. But looking at the Dobbs vs Jackson ruling reversing Roe vs Wade, we just might not want to rush to that assumption.

If the United States were hopelessly divided before the radical right-wing Supreme Court began reversing decades of civil and individual rights laws and rulings, it is so vastly more divided today than at any time since the Civil War. As voters are gerrymandered and excluded in red states, many have given up trying to have their voices heard in election. And so the radical right-wing vice gets an even tighter grip on… well… everything. When it comes to individual rights, the Constitution appeals to have been repealed.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as most other developed democracies have long since declared, the United States is NOT a representative democracy… but is moving firmly into an area of minority rule against the wishes of the majority.