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Mother And Daughter Face Criminal Charges After Facebook Divulges Their Conversation About Abortion

...You may want to double check your privacy settings.

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Right over there, officer. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Years ago when I was a dish washer at a Mexican restaurant whose recipes were about as authentic as Taco Bell’s, I remember coming across what looked to be the top of a beer bottle. You know how Snapple caps have the little trivia facts under them? This was like that, but the beer bottle top said, “Help, I’m stuck in the brewery!” Since then, those little tongue-in-cheek jokes have had a special place in my taco-loving brain. Its forefront… in the back of my mind, I’m always a little suspicious of when companies hide a little message in a bottle — you never know when they’re just joking. Last month, a rogue Google employee turned heads when they declared that Google’s AI had achieved sentience. Cute idea, it got some play, but was largely brushed off. Because scientists are actively trying to get us to live in “Black Mirror” episodes, Facebook released its own AI that did its own message in a bottle and dunked on the company for releasing private data.

If only a certain mother-daughter duo would have been privy to Chatbot’s insider knowledge:

Facebook turned over the chats of a mother and her daughter to Nebraska police after they were served with a warrant as part of an investigation into an illegal abortion, court documents show.

The investigation, which was launched in April before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, is one of the few known instances of Facebook’s turning over information to help law enforcement officials pursue an abortion case — but it is also an example of a scenario that abortion rights experts have warned will be more common as all abortions becomes illegal in many states.

Madison County prosecutors say Jessica Burgess, 41, acquired and gave abortion pills to her daughter, Celeste, who was 17 at the time, and then helped her bury and then rebury the fetus. The Norfolk Daily News first reported the case. The two were charged last month and have pleaded not guilty. A lawyer for the two women didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The degree to which data-collecting apps would be involved with the criminalization of having a uterus post-Dobbs has been a high-alert concern for the last few months now. Period tracking apps have been a target for concern; I think that people should also be wary of their interactions with Amazon. But Facebook was not the immediate target of suspicion. Considering that Meta’s influence on communication stretches worldwide, maybe more caution should have been give toward one of the world’s largest surveillance sites.

“I know from prior training and experience, and conversations with other seasoned criminal investigators, that people involved in criminal activity frequently have conversations regarding their criminal activities through various social networking sites, i.e. Facebook,” [Detective Ben] McBride said in his warrant application.

Prosecutors charged Jessica Burgess with three felonies and two misdemeanors and Celeste Burgess with a felony and two misdemeanors. All charges were related to performing an abortion, concealing a body and providing false information.

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This is unlikely to be the only case like this in the near future. Despite being signed off on by a Republican Court, the Dobbs decision is a huge greenlight for state actors to intervene in private affairs. Take a few minutes out of your day to learn about double encryption in the meantime.

Facebook Messenger offers end-to-end encryption, meaning chats between two users will be visible only on users’ phones and aren’t readable by Facebook or any government entity that makes a legal request to the company. But the option is available only to people using the Messenger app on mobile devices, and messages are encrypted only after users select the option to mark chats as “secret.”

And when you talk to friends and family, it may be in your best interests to assume that a detective is behind your shoulder. Because this time, one was.

Facebook Turned Over Chat Messages Between Mother And Daughter Now Charged Over Abortion [NBC News]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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