2y ago

Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges

www.theverge.com Facebook turns over mother and daughter’s chat history to police resulting in abortion charges

Unencrypted chat history is a prime target for police

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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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.
- Maybe just elect non fanatical nut jobs?
  
  Good luck with that. The way voting works in the US basically guarantees a 2-party race. With only 2 parties you end up having policies grouped into these huge bundles, so making an actual decision on any particular issue is incredibly difficult. (Unless you are a billionaire and want to lobby a party for a law)
- Completely right. This is an education issue.
  There are several other issues how these two handled this situation.
  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.
  Don't discuss this or involve anyone else.
  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.
  Why are they even talking to police? Lawyer up, even if the lawyer is free.
  (E2EE is available in Messenger but has to be toggled on manually. It’s on by default in WhatsApp.)
  Facebook messenger and text message is the absolute worse way to discuss things like this. They should've at least turned on E2EE but they already admitted fault and their devices would've been taken away anyway.
  They seem like they together. They should've just discussed this in person.
  
  Granted, I’m lucky enough never to have been arrested or questioned about a crime. I don’t know how difficult and manipulative interrogations are outside of what I’ve seen on TV. Even still, I’m amazed by and critical of people who talk to the police without a lawyer present.
  Even if you think (or know) you’re guilty, that doesn’t mean you should let the system have its way with you.
- This is an older story, and 5 months later Meta announced that they're rolling out full E2EE encryption to Messenger, I don't think that's a coincidence. Are they doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? Probably not, they're a corporation, but this does show that global backlash actually works for something.
  Use end to end encrypted messaging apps, and, if you're in a situation like this, know what they can be forced to share via court order. For example, while WhatsApp has full E2EE and messages can't be turned over, IP addresses can, which can be used to track location, so don't connect to an abortion clinic's wifi for example. Probably just a good rule in general, as law enforcement could subpoena router logs if they have a suspicion.
  Ideally use something that can hand over less metadata like Signal if you're in this sort of situation, they don't even keep IP address, but this is a lesser known app that also relies on the recipient using Signal.
- On one hand - yes Meta followed the legal requirement, but the bigger picture is that people always say “so what it’s
  <insert deficiency>
  just don’t do anything illegal”. But that’s only fine when legality matches morality. And the disparity has been growing lately.
  
  I understand what you are saying but I don't think that having every company coming up with their own definition of morality is the right solution. The only goal of these companies is to create profit, and I doubt that their definition of morality will be overall beneficial.
  
  Oh yeah I agree I didn’t mean it that way either. I just meant it as an argument for privacy/end to end encryption
- They couldve opted to end 2 end encryption just like they do on whatsapp. Then the warrant can eat shit.
  
  While whatsapp is using e2e encryption it is still owned by meta, as such I trust it just as much as plain facebook messenger. Signal ftw.
- A valid warrant that was only possible to get information from because of Meta's policy of "opt-in" for encrypted messages. They are still at fault imho
- The problem is that private messages should be private, meaning Meta should've had no ability whatsoever to share those messages even if served a warrant. Those messages should be E2E encrypted.
  
  Fwiw, Messeger does have e2e encryption, just opt in only afaik. Whether or not you trust meta with that is another matter, but it is there.
  
  I haven't trusted Meta since they IPO'd. I deleted my account sometime back in 2015 or so, had to recreate it when I went on-site as a contractor for a week, and promptly deleted it again.
  But it's good that they have E2E, it should be on by default and not able to be disabled. Regardless, they probably have anything encrypted indexed anyway so they don't lose that little bit of info about you.

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