Speaker 1: Cool Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Dick It Happened Here, a podcast that is
Speaker 2: quite often about abortion in this country. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Mia Long. Things have been very bad under the last
Speaker 2: administration and the administration before that, and the administration before that,
Speaker 2: and going back a long long time, things have been
Speaker 2: not good. They've been steadily getting worse, and there is
Speaker 2: a lot of fear and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: is very justified that things are going to get even
Speaker 2: worse under Trump. And to talk about what we need
Speaker 2: to be afraid of and what we don't is Kate
Speaker 2: Bertash who's the executive director of the Digital Defense Fund,
Speaker 2: and also Crystal, who's an abortion worker and also a
Speaker 2: volunteer for abortion hotlines. So both of you two, welcome
Speaker 2: to the show.
Speaker 3: Excellent, Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you both, and
Speaker 2: I'm also excited to let Kate talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about what the Digital Defense Fund is.
Speaker 5: Excellent, thanks so much, longtime listener, first time color I suppose.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 5: The Digital Defense Fund is an organization that's been around
Speaker 5: for actually since the last election. It was started in
Speaker 5: response to Trump winning for the first time and We're
Speaker 5: an organization that was put together to provide free digital
Speaker 5: security and technology resources for the frontlines of what then
Speaker 5: was just the abortion access movement. We've since moved to
Speaker 5: support other variety of autonomy and liberation movements, but we
Speaker 5: provide free digital security evaluations trainings. We do a lot
Speaker 5: of project management work to help people set up what
Speaker 5: they'd like to change about their systems and security, and
Speaker 5: we also help people pay for it, which is a
Speaker 5: really wonderful way to get to kind of see through
Speaker 5: our values. So and excited to be on here today
Speaker 5: to talk a little bit more about the implications for
Speaker 5: both organizations and individuals.
Speaker 2: The very first wave impact of this election has been
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of sort of fear about
Speaker 2: what's coming. And I wanted to, I guess, ask you
Speaker 2: about what kinds of fears you've been seeing and and
Speaker 2: maybe talk a little bit about which ones are more
Speaker 2: justified than others, because I think there, I mean, there's
Speaker 2: been some concern that I think is justified as good,
Speaker 2: and there's also been some stuff that is kind of
Speaker 2: not rooted in what the threats are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's a great time anytime this happens
Speaker 5: to sort of get to ask and answer the question,
Speaker 5: which is like, how do we know? And I think
Speaker 5: we're sort of lucky in this way that we know
Speaker 5: what are likely to be risks now to both people
Speaker 5: who are seeking abortions as well as people who help
Speaker 5: them get their folks as well, like Crystal. I know
Speaker 5: we'll provide some additional color to this as well, but
Speaker 5: we know what kind of threats face people facing abortions
Speaker 5: and those who help them, because unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 5: these threats have been happening for the last several decades,
Speaker 5: people have been prosecuted for suspicion of ending their own pregnancies.
Speaker 5: We get a lot of really incredible and insightful data
Speaker 5: from organizations like IF one how who put out these
Speaker 5: reports that are called self care Criminalized, and they look
Speaker 5: backwards across all of the different cases that have happened
Speaker 5: to space and try to come up with sort of
Speaker 5: like these key aspects. And one of the big things
Speaker 5: that we know that I'm sure we're going to talk
Speaker 5: about a lot through this episode is that the core
Speaker 5: way that people come to the attention of law enforcement
Speaker 5: for seeking to allegedly end their own pregnancies is through
Speaker 5: usually someone they know reporting them, or someone responsible for
Speaker 5: their care. So that might be like healthcare worker, social worker,
Speaker 5: other representative agent of the state, and it can be
Speaker 5: really devastating to kind of hear and I think internalize
Speaker 5: that it's often people's family members like X or friends,
Speaker 5: neighbor who might turn somebody in expecting or misunderstanding that
Speaker 5: it is a crime to end your own pregnancy. I
Speaker 5: think one of the things that's really hard about this
Speaker 5: is that it involves some of the ways in which,
Speaker 5: like I guess it's what you would call very unfortunately
Speaker 5: typical policing practices, the way in which people's rights are
Speaker 5: violated when they are interrogated, when they are pressured into
Speaker 5: disclosing information. There's something called consent search that it unfortunately
Speaker 5: be ends being a very common feature of these kinds
Speaker 5: of cases, which is where you're put in a room
Speaker 5: and you're talking to representative agent and state or a
Speaker 5: police officer, and they sort of pressure you into agreeing
Speaker 5: to unlock and disclose often your phone and other device,
Speaker 5: or to otherwise share information quote unquote voluntarily. And it's
Speaker 5: easy to see why people kind of get pressured into that.
Speaker 5: So that is something that tends to happen in many
Speaker 5: kinds of prosecutions of crimes or alleged crimes, and I
Speaker 5: think it's hard for a lot of people to imagine
Speaker 5: what that's like to you know, be pulled over and
Speaker 5: searched in this way, or like they're often like people
Speaker 5: are not the targeted victims of something like stop and frisk,
Speaker 5: and so it's sort of hard to imagine in your
Speaker 5: mind the way in which somebody is information or their
Speaker 5: data or their case comes to the attention of law enforcement.
Speaker 5: And so we like tend to then imagine these other
Speaker 5: threats that feel perhaps closer to our daily experience, especially
Speaker 5: as like often people who are not racially targeted by police,
Speaker 5: who are not targeted by the family policing system or
Speaker 5: have their pregnancies surveilled by the hospital systems. So people
Speaker 5: like to imagine then that. I think a big one
Speaker 5: that we all hear and I think we're all going
Speaker 5: to take a deep breath at the same time is
Speaker 5: period tracking apps. Yeah, I thought it was kind of remarkable,
Speaker 5: as Crystal, I'm sure you've heard this too, mm hm.
Speaker 5: And I would love to at lease space, Crystal for
Speaker 5: you to add any context to sort of like the
Speaker 5: threats that are that are present versus stuff that people imagine.
Speaker 5: I know, we're going to spend a lot of time
Speaker 5: talking about our friend the period.
Speaker 6: So at the time of recording, it's been like about
Speaker 6: almost a month since election.
Speaker 4: Day, and you know, I answer the phone for a.
Speaker 6: Couple of different places, places for both work and volunteering,
Speaker 6: and there's been a lot of fear, you know, and
Speaker 6: not saying that, like abortion access has been without fear
Speaker 6: up until this point, but people are very afraid. And
Speaker 6: you know, I'm getting a lot of questions about people
Speaker 6: asking like can I be arrested for giving you my information?
Speaker 6: Sending in my ID, giving you my real name? Ordering
Speaker 6: medication online? Can the United States get my records if
Speaker 6: I order from this provider overseas? Such as women on
Speaker 6: web and just yeah, people asking like can I be arrested?
Speaker 6: You know, can I do this? Will I be in trouble?
Speaker 4: And it is something that is going We're going to.
Speaker 6: See an increase in criminalization and increase in abortion bans.
Speaker 6: It is a complicated answer, you know. The strait of
Speaker 6: it is that yet you can access abortion medication online
Speaker 6: even if you're in a band state, even if you're
Speaker 6: in a state with a total abortion ban, you can
Speaker 6: order the medication from reliable resources online and have it
Speaker 6: mail to you.
Speaker 4: And people do this every day.
Speaker 6: Hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people do this every day
Speaker 6: without any issue. But there is also risk, and it's
Speaker 6: kind of like what Kate was saying, where people tend
Speaker 6: to it seems like people don't know what the risk
Speaker 6: has been or what it looks like, because, like Kate
Speaker 6: was saying, there's like I been all these years of
Speaker 6: pregnancy criminalization, and we know what it looks like, and
Speaker 6: it tends to not be what people are worrying about
Speaker 6: right now, where people seem to be thinking like that
Speaker 6: the police are going to come and arrest them for
Speaker 6: putting in this order along with hundreds of other people
Speaker 6: in a given day, or that the police are somehow
Speaker 6: going to get their period tracker information on their on
Speaker 6: their phone, and you know, like of course, you know,
Speaker 6: practice dicial security in a way that makes you feel comfortable,
Speaker 6: Like if you don't want to use a period tracking app,
Speaker 6: you know there are safer ones to.
Speaker 4: Use, or you don't have to use it.
Speaker 6: But the fact of the matter is is that even
Speaker 6: if you are using pen and paper to record your period.
Speaker 6: If you have an abusive partner, they're going to be
Speaker 6: able to take pictures and collaborate with police. So the
Speaker 6: biggest threats are always, you know, as the data shown,
Speaker 6: like Kate was saying, going to be healthcare workers and
Speaker 6: the people that you know such as partners, family members, neighbors, friends,
Speaker 6: et cetera, who are going to get access.
Speaker 4: To pictures, screenshots, and of course the police and warrants.
Speaker 6: It's not going to look like the Handmad's scale, where
Speaker 6: somebody's like coming in and going and forcing you to
Speaker 6: do something and dress a certain way or etc. It's
Speaker 6: not going to be like anything new and fancy. It's
Speaker 6: going to be the same old police surveillance and criminalization.
Speaker 4: That we've been seeing.
Speaker 6: But there are ways in which we can protect ourselves
Speaker 6: when we're doing that. When somebody calls and they ask me,
Speaker 6: can I get in trouble for ordering this medication online?
Speaker 6: And people can get really in trouble for anything in
Speaker 6: the United States. You know, if the police want to
Speaker 6: go after you for something, they're going to find something,
Speaker 6: So you just have to not leave evidence. Like so, yeah,
Speaker 6: you can order the medication online, but You can also
Speaker 6: use signal and we can know that Kate's probably going
Speaker 6: to go more into this, but you can make sure
Speaker 6: you have disappearing messages. You can use encrypted emails and
Speaker 6: search engines. You have to make sure you're thinking about
Speaker 6: who can see your data and you know where your
Speaker 6: data is being recorded. And that's really like, if you
Speaker 6: want to protect yourself in terms of avoiding criminalization for
Speaker 6: abortion and pregnancy outcomes, and you know, having a secure
Speaker 6: and safe abortion in the United States, then you have
Speaker 6: to look at the basics like this. And I'm going
Speaker 6: to let Kate talk about that a little bit more
Speaker 6: because I know that you have all the good information
Speaker 6: that the Digital Defense one has looked into about the
Speaker 6: apps and then how to delete data and what data
Speaker 6: to delete and how to think about this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think one of the really tough things, right
Speaker 5: is that like so like neither I or Crystal or attorneys,
Speaker 5: but often people are just getting a lot of advice
Speaker 5: from attorneys, and some of our work here is to
Speaker 5: make sure that like when you get sort of this
Speaker 5: idea of when something might be criminalized, or often like
Speaker 5: in this circumstance where we just like don't know actually
Speaker 5: how it's going to show up a lot. Yet we're
Speaker 5: trying to think about sort of what are the ways
Speaker 5: we can have our digital devices and our technology sort
Speaker 5: of support us with these by default type of settings.
Speaker 5: One of the things that's really tough to I think
Speaker 5: understand until you've been through it is sort of like
Speaker 5: what it looks like when you go through any kind
Speaker 5: of investigation. I think the other hard kind of like
Speaker 5: context to get from the way we talk about it
Speaker 5: now is that a lot of how pregnancy is criminalized,
Speaker 5: that sort of scaffolding, that infrastructure was built during the
Speaker 5: drug war. So one of the most common kinds of
Speaker 5: pregnancy criminalization in America is drug testing people who are
Speaker 5: pregnant or come to give birth without their consent. And
Speaker 5: you know, so we basically consider like being an alleged
Speaker 5: drug user to be the sort of like primary way
Speaker 5: that our decision of like how much the digital evidence
Speaker 5: matters has like kind of come to take shape. So
Speaker 5: often when an investigation is happening, the police will look
Speaker 5: for where are all the sources of information I can
Speaker 5: find about this, because like the human body is like
Speaker 5: not super compliant with like.
Speaker 3: Digital forensic evidence.
Speaker 5: Everydediary processes I think it's like one of the most
Speaker 5: magical things about humans is that, you know, our bodies
Speaker 5: defy the letter of law in so many wonderful ways.
Speaker 5: But that means that they sort of have to then
Speaker 5: go to this like digital body of evidence to kind
Speaker 5: of tell the story or as like all the wonderful
Speaker 5: lawyers that advise us like to say, to sort of
Speaker 5: like be able to draw the dots or the bndes
Speaker 5: between the dots and form this kind of like coherent
Speaker 5: set of facts of what happened between one moment to
Speaker 5: the next. So often when we're like imagining all of
Speaker 5: the data that lives in our phone, because unfortunately, in
Speaker 5: many cases, when you are perhaps coerced into consenting to
Speaker 5: the search of a device, they will often take your
Speaker 5: phone and then have you unlock it. It gets plugged
Speaker 5: into a device that makes clone of the entire drive,
Speaker 5: and then they can sort of with many different techniques
Speaker 5: kind of leisurely look through it for keywords to kind
Speaker 5: of tell where there might be evidence somewhere on your
Speaker 5: phone that you, for example, when on the internet search
Speaker 5: for and purchased abortion medication. So yes, like period track
Speaker 5: and data might be one portion of that but unfortunately,
Speaker 5: in all the cases that we've seen, or at least
Speaker 5: in and most of the ones that we're most familiar with,
Speaker 5: all of that quote unquote plain text data. So where
Speaker 5: you've just written out in your own unencrypted words into
Speaker 5: a search bar in the search engine on your phone,
Speaker 5: or you've sent a text message to a very close
Speaker 5: contact with somebody telling them how you feel about your
Speaker 5: pregnancy that you desire to end it, perhaps your plan
Speaker 5: to buipills, even the receipt that comes into your inbox.
Speaker 5: It's not necessary then to go to all these companies
Speaker 5: and go file a for a warrant and get all
Speaker 5: that information, because now it's in just plain text, quote
Speaker 5: unquote on your phone, and that is far more information
Speaker 5: than the abstract information that might come out of a
Speaker 5: period tracker. So unfortunately cops don't tend to use these
Speaker 5: in cases that we've seen because it's quite simply not necessary.
Speaker 5: That kind of like plain text admission of your state
Speaker 5: of mind or the statement of your intent has unfortunately
Speaker 5: been the sort of core evidence that comes up. And
Speaker 5: I think this has like a lot of like really
Speaker 5: quite sad implications. I know, in prior to prepare for
Speaker 5: this episode, we were discussing a couple of cases that
Speaker 5: I know folks might be more familiar with. A big
Speaker 5: one that came up is, you know, the case of
Speaker 5: a mother and daughter out of Nebraska who were having
Speaker 5: a discussion around allegedly helping the daughter to find an
Speaker 5: end for her pregnancy over Meta's Facebook messenger. And I
Speaker 5: think what I find really quite devastating about it, for
Speaker 5: many reasons, is that these messages were actually ones that
Speaker 5: like I think any of us could hope to have
Speaker 5: with a very supportive parent or other person in our life.
Speaker 5: Is like, why we have, you know, these conversations so
Speaker 5: that we can feel connected and support it through such
Speaker 5: a complex and affecting process. It then becomes very sad
Speaker 5: to me that it becomes a criminal matter just because
Speaker 5: it was in a place that that conversation, you know,
Speaker 5: Meta did not have this family's back in terms of
Speaker 5: encrypting those messages or ensuring that they were free to
Speaker 5: speak of what they wish when they wish by default.
Speaker 5: So I think, like when we start to give out advice,
Speaker 5: it's been important for us at Digital Defense Fund to
Speaker 5: kind of work backwards. I know it's been an exist crisis.
Speaker 5: I think for everybody in the digital security space to
Speaker 5: know that like the list of advice I could give
Speaker 5: you on how to protect yourself when going through these transactions,
Speaker 5: or when seeking support, or like just having a normal
Speaker 5: you know, questions and going on the internet being able
Speaker 5: to google them and get them answered. That we have
Speaker 5: to kind of like start from the basics, because like
Speaker 5: you have the right to find information from reliable resources,
Speaker 5: You have the right to buy pills from a reliable source.
Speaker 5: You have the right to like seek that kind of
Speaker 5: connection and support from people in your life. And so
Speaker 5: we're trying to cut down on like all the infinite
Speaker 5: amount of advice that we could give and try to
Speaker 5: like narrow it to like what is actionable, what has
Speaker 5: the greatest impact potentially in the cases we've seen. And
Speaker 5: I know we're going to dig into it, but I
Speaker 5: would love to leave room to tack a little bit
Speaker 5: more about that whenever, it's a good time in this
Speaker 5: conversation to go through our top three action items.
Speaker 2: So before we get to that, unfortunately we are under capitalism,
Speaker 2: which means we have to do these ads. Moving back shortly.
Speaker 4: And we are back another lawsuit. This is a little
Speaker 4: different becase it's not a criminal charge. It was a
Speaker 4: lawsuit in Texas.
Speaker 6: And I want to bring up just as an example
Speaker 6: of like how you know our data can betray us
Speaker 6: in these moments, is there was and this was a
Speaker 6: really silly lawsuit has been dismissed, But there was a
Speaker 6: Texas man who filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing three
Speaker 6: women of helping his exife obtained abortion pills. I believe
Speaker 6: I think it was dismissed last year, or maybe it
Speaker 6: was earlier this year. It wasn't even under the aid
Speaker 6: and event in law in Texas. It was actually, you know,
Speaker 6: they they sought a different avenue. There actually hasn't been
Speaker 6: a successful lawsuit against an abortion seeker under Aida bet
Speaker 6: law or any other law in Texas in the last
Speaker 6: two years, which I think is just something worth bringing up,
Speaker 6: is that, you know, we actually haven't seen that happen
Speaker 6: yet other than this case. But what happened in this
Speaker 6: case is this person was planning on terminating their pregnancy.
Speaker 6: They were talking to some friends who were helping them out,
Speaker 6: and their iPhone was synced up to their iPad. So
Speaker 6: if anyone's familiar with that, you can have your your
Speaker 6: I messages app here on both devices. The I messages
Speaker 6: that are coming to your phone are also going to
Speaker 6: be going to your iPad, And her ex husband took
Speaker 6: pictures of the I messages coming through on her iPad,
Speaker 6: and that was what was used. Even though the lawsuit
Speaker 6: was dismissed because it was a very silly lawsuit, total
Speaker 6: waste of time. But that is the kind of thing
Speaker 6: that we really you really need to be asking yourself,
Speaker 6: is you know, where are my messages going?
Speaker 4: Who is seeing my messages, who is seeing my emails?
Speaker 4: What is it connected to?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Because yeah, because it can just look like that too.
Speaker 3: I would say that's exactly right.
Speaker 5: Is I think I had a good friend who works
Speaker 5: in another area of security who and this is like
Speaker 5: how we learn these things, right, is that folks who
Speaker 5: work in the parts of security that deal with, for example,
Speaker 5: intimate partner violence or the sort of quote unquote in
Speaker 5: household surveillance threat model I think is vastly underestimated. I
Speaker 5: can't recall the figures at the moment, but one of
Speaker 5: those more recent reports from if one how actually had
Speaker 5: detailed just how frequently actually that sort of like how
Speaker 5: it is also this like intimate partner violence situation that
Speaker 5: comes up also in a regnancy or abortion criminalization case,
Speaker 5: and so you know, this person challenged me to think
Speaker 5: about the exact threat model of the unlocked iPad on
Speaker 5: the on the family coffee table, and thinking about like
Speaker 5: when we share information and we share devices kind of
Speaker 5: like where does it go? So Like, Actually, our first
Speaker 5: piece of recommendation that we often give is is it
Speaker 5: can sound deceptively simple and it doesn't sound technical at all,
Speaker 5: but it is to think about like who you are
Speaker 5: telling about your experience and about like you know, your
Speaker 5: abortion or wanting to have an abortion, and then understanding
Speaker 5: whether you've been clear about your boundaries, like do you
Speaker 5: expect them to not share or tell with others? Like
Speaker 5: can you delete any messages with them? Would they ask
Speaker 5: if you ask them after the fact to delete things
Speaker 5: for you, would they absolutely do that. I think you've
Speaker 5: can be really challenging to kind of like zoom out
Speaker 5: and realize, like you know, it's often not as easy
Speaker 5: as it sounds to like kind of do this mental
Speaker 5: inventory and think about all the different ways that like
Speaker 5: me and my best friend talk or you know, when
Speaker 5: I mentioned things to people offhand, we don't have a
Speaker 5: really good I think like social practice of you know,
Speaker 5: understanding the implication of like sharing other people's information without
Speaker 5: their permission, and so like, you know, it's very impactful,
Speaker 5: but also very difficult, and it can't be very individual
Speaker 5: for all of us to kind of think more carefully
Speaker 5: about with whom we share things, and how we ask
Speaker 5: people to keep our confidence, and how we can even
Speaker 5: offer each other the ability to like delete things that
Speaker 5: we don't want to exist indefinitely. I think one of
Speaker 5: the biggest sort of existential struggles that crosses over to
Speaker 5: where people get support for abortions from like organizations also
Speaker 5: includes the fact that I know has been discussed many
Speaker 5: times on this podcast, that there is a difference in
Speaker 5: how much information is kept depending on where you were
Speaker 5: having a conversation on your phone. So an SMS text message,
Speaker 5: those little green bubbles that go back and forth between
Speaker 5: you and possibly other people who are on iOS like
Speaker 5: or iOS and Android combination conversation you're friends with and
Speaker 5: an Android might have a green bubble come back to you.
Speaker 5: That basically means that that is going as an SMS
Speaker 5: text message to your phone carrier, and that means that
Speaker 5: it's going quote unquote in plain text, totally unencrypted to
Speaker 5: the cell tower, and it's being held by that phone
Speaker 5: carrier unencrypted, readable as it is as you typed it
Speaker 5: in as far as.
Speaker 3: We know forever.
Speaker 5: It can vary depending on whether or not you move
Speaker 5: to a different carrier, But unfortunately, phone carriers have a
Speaker 5: very long history also of disclosing that information readily on request,
Speaker 5: either from law enforcement or from other agencies. And I
Speaker 5: think that is troubling. I think, like no person would
Speaker 5: really like to know that, regardless of what that you
Speaker 5: intend to do with your text message. But it's why
Speaker 5: we often then encourage people as like sort of a
Speaker 5: second step to try and use encrypted chat with Signal
Speaker 5: or another trusted and encrypted chat. Again sounds overly simplistic,
Speaker 5: but I think having those disappearing messages on, especially between
Speaker 5: people who are seeking support from one another, whether it's
Speaker 5: somebody in your life or another organization that's helping you
Speaker 5: to get your abortion, there really is something to that
Speaker 5: ability to again speak freely, to be best friends, helping
Speaker 5: your friends you know, allegedly get abortion medication, or to
Speaker 5: being a mom you know there to support your child,
Speaker 5: no matter what. I think, it's just something really wonderful
Speaker 5: about how using disappearing messages with signal like reflects the
Speaker 5: values that we actually have already with each other. And
Speaker 5: just like make sure that technology companies or corporations or
Speaker 5: law enforcement don't get to get in the way of
Speaker 5: how we want to live our lives.
Speaker 7: So yeah, yeah, so really supporting somebody through an abortion
Speaker 7: includes digital security.
Speaker 4: Yes, same with providers to people who are answering the phones.
Speaker 4: Digital security is one of the number one priorities.
Speaker 6: And yeah, if you're supporting somebody with an abortion, that
Speaker 6: should be your number one priority as well.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: And like I bet people like you know, when you
Speaker 5: talk to people like you're often I imagine one of
Speaker 5: the first people that they're expressing themselves to it all
Speaker 5: about what they're going through.
Speaker 3: And you know, I know that that the point is to.
Speaker 5: Help people get to their procedure, but often they're bringing
Speaker 5: a lot of other things with them and they're not
Speaker 5: sure if they're important. I remember, like you mentioning this,
Speaker 5: but just the amount of weight that is for for
Speaker 5: y'all as a support too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And like people are scared for for good reason.
Speaker 6: You know, we do live in a fascist country and
Speaker 6: a police surveillance state, so you know, their fears are founded,
Speaker 6: but there are a lot of excellent resources. They're not alone,
Speaker 6: like you know, you and I know this cap but
Speaker 6: there are so many people who's got the back.
Speaker 4: Of everyone who needs an abortion, and you know, you
Speaker 4: may not know the safe way of going about it.
Speaker 6: But there are people who who are committed to digital
Speaker 6: security and safety and you're in, you're and you avoiding criminalization.
Speaker 6: So you know, part of the service is also reassuring
Speaker 6: people of that too, that it is possible to have
Speaker 6: a safe abortions.
Speaker 7: Even still, the next thing that I know that we
Speaker 7: were talking about Kate in terms of like really practical,
Speaker 7: like what you can do now to protect yourself is
Speaker 7: having a plan for when you need to go get
Speaker 7: health care and you have to interface with like a
Speaker 7: medical team, a medical site such as an er a clinic.
Speaker 4: I'm an obgyn, a doctor of any kind.
Speaker 6: Because I think I believe the number one source of criminalization,
Speaker 6: like who's reporting who who is criminal, Like who's calling
Speaker 6: the police, who's reporting these and giving over the information
Speaker 6: is as often healthcare worker.
Speaker 4: I believe that is the number one source.
Speaker 6: So you know, you do that is something to keep
Speaker 6: you to I am a healthcare worker, but it's it's
Speaker 6: just a fact that that's something that we all need
Speaker 6: to be mindful of. And as a patient somebody is
Speaker 6: seeking healthcare, it's completely appropriate to be thinking of your
Speaker 6: own security and your safety when you're.
Speaker 4: If you need to access healthcare.
Speaker 6: So you know, one thing is that luckily abortion is
Speaker 6: very safe and very effective. And if you don't feel
Speaker 6: comfortable going to an er for very good reasons, there
Speaker 6: are many good reasons to not want to go to
Speaker 6: r including cost, including your safety and security, the chance
Speaker 6: of criminalization. There is a free medical resource and a
Speaker 6: free legal resource that you can call. I'm going to
Speaker 6: talk about the medical resource first. There is the Miscarriage
Speaker 6: an Abortion Hotline or m A hotline dot org. But
Speaker 6: you can call and get some you know, feedback from
Speaker 6: a doctor about Hey, do I even need to go
Speaker 6: to the er?
Speaker 4: Is this normal? Is something wrong? You actually can run
Speaker 4: that by a safe person before just going to the er.
Speaker 6: And that's like one example of like having a plan,
Speaker 6: you know, like Okay, I think I might need to
Speaker 6: go to the er, you know, let me.
Speaker 4: Check with a trusted resource.
Speaker 6: Let me check with the miscarriage and Abortion Hotline if
Speaker 6: I can get some feedback on what's going on with
Speaker 6: some of my symptoms. And you know, it's like this
Speaker 6: extra kind of added support that you can access as
Speaker 6: a pregnant person or you know, if you're having a miscarriage,
Speaker 6: if you're having an abortion, to assess your risk and
Speaker 6: to see if you can avoid even going to a
Speaker 6: medical plight given that you know, going to an emergency
Speaker 6: room in a banned state is something that does increase
Speaker 6: the risk of criminalization.
Speaker 5: Yes, and I think it was from our peers M
Speaker 5: and A hotline, And then I know the other hotline
Speaker 5: that if you have questions also, the repro Legal Hotline
Speaker 5: is a wonderful resource that I know in all the
Speaker 5: show notes will include these. We try to include along
Speaker 5: with the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, so you have folks
Speaker 5: you can call who are professionals to ask about medical questions,
Speaker 5: if folks you can call answer questions about legal questions
Speaker 5: about your abortion of pregnancy experience. I know that it's
Speaker 5: really hard because often when folks are in a hospital setting,
Speaker 5: we're sort of socialized to disclose everything. You know, we
Speaker 5: want to tell our doctor what's wrong and tell them
Speaker 5: everything we took, and you know, you worry it might
Speaker 5: be relevant, but I was reassured, I think by many
Speaker 5: other professionals in the space, that doctors treat based on
Speaker 5: the symptoms that you present with, regardless of how they
Speaker 5: got there. You might be a physician where you don't know.
Speaker 5: So you know, if you just tell folks what's going
Speaker 5: on with your body, what you are seeing, what you
Speaker 5: were feeling and experiencing, it is their job to treat
Speaker 5: you regardless of what you choose to share. And I
Speaker 5: would say that that's actually a true regardless of what
Speaker 5: healthcare condition you come into the ear with, it is
Speaker 5: your right to only disclose as much as you feel
Speaker 5: safe doing so. So I think like that was something
Speaker 5: that I know, again we're not used to thinking about
Speaker 5: that as like a digital security measure, but it is
Speaker 5: an information security measure, and I think an operational security
Speaker 5: measure that you know, we've had to like then realize
Speaker 5: that that's actually probably almost more important to tell people
Speaker 5: before we start getting into this nitty gritty of like
Speaker 5: things to do with your phone, is to understand that
Speaker 5: those principles that we believe that you know, the human again,
Speaker 5: the human body is very varied and how it experiences
Speaker 5: something like pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion, and that you know,
Speaker 5: folks have a responsibility to treat you regardless of you know,
Speaker 5: what's in your phone or what happened before that or
Speaker 5: this like statement of facts that are relevant to a
Speaker 5: courtroom and not to your care.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, do.
Speaker 2: You too have anything else you want to make sure
Speaker 2: the audience knows before we head out?
Speaker 5: Yeah, just kind of like one more piece is kind
Speaker 5: of our last piece of the puzzle, so you know,
Speaker 5: just to rearterrate because I know it's good to hear
Speaker 5: things repeated again, you know, with the actual kind of pregnancy, criminalization,
Speaker 5: digital security advice, we talk about understanding who you're disclosing
Speaker 5: stuff too, making sure they are clear on your expectations.
Speaker 5: Try to if you can have conversations with them in
Speaker 5: a secure place or private place like signal with disappearing
Speaker 5: messages on. For our second item, we're going to make
Speaker 5: a plan for if we need to get care after
Speaker 5: the fact and ensure that we're trying to again have
Speaker 5: our support people. Also understand that you know, doctors treat
Speaker 5: you based on the symptoms you present with. That is,
Speaker 5: you don't have to tell them anything else that you
Speaker 5: do not wish to disclose. And the third thing is
Speaker 5: that something that I think as digital security practitioners we
Speaker 5: kind of forget is super important, which is that, like
Speaker 5: you know, I think I run into this conflict whereas
Speaker 5: like experts or smart people, we try to like imagine
Speaker 5: in our mind, like how we would have this perfectly
Speaker 5: like footprint free abortion, you know, like this like you
Speaker 5: signal use Tori's bitcoin, kind of like strange way of architecting,
Speaker 5: you know, privacy in our mind. And I call it
Speaker 5: the ghost abortion, like that it's it's a myth. You
Speaker 5: can't have one. There's no such thing as an abortion
Speaker 5: that leads no footprint. But I think we forget then
Speaker 5: that it actually is super meaningful to delete what's within
Speaker 5: our power to delete. So our third recommendation for folks
Speaker 5: is to like be aware of what's collected and and
Speaker 5: then ensure that you know that you can delete your
Speaker 5: browser history, you can delete your Google Maps history from
Speaker 5: like driving to the clinic. You can delete your emails,
Speaker 5: you can delete messages on certain platforms. And I think
Speaker 5: just like understanding that deleting what you can is actually
Speaker 5: super meaningful. I actually didn't know untill I got this
Speaker 5: job that certain platforms, like even Google products, like if
Speaker 5: you delete something from it, it is purge from the
Speaker 5: servers like something like two and a half months later.
Speaker 5: So when you delete stuff, it's very meaningful. I think
Speaker 5: there you get more options than ever to decide like
Speaker 5: how long you want to keep something. And it does
Speaker 5: make it so that that primary thing we talked about,
Speaker 5: like if somebody were to take my phone from me
Speaker 5: and to like you know, make a clone of it
Speaker 5: and try to look through it, at least it's deleted.
Speaker 5: That copy is no longer on my device. Even if
Speaker 5: they would have to go to like you know, get
Speaker 5: a warrant later, that.
Speaker 3: Is still great.
Speaker 5: It still gives me and my council time to respond
Speaker 5: and also allows me to access my right to do process.
Speaker 5: And I think so like these are like these three
Speaker 5: simple things I know that will give to link that
Speaker 5: our guide that kind of puts this all in a
Speaker 5: row and very plain language. You also have a Spanish
Speaker 5: language guide for it as well. But just to know that,
Speaker 5: like you know, these things are within our power. I
Speaker 5: think it's really easy to get tangled up in the
Speaker 5: idea of like abstract data and things that are really
Speaker 5: tough for us to always know when they're generated, like
Speaker 5: ad tracker data or you know who is reselling or
Speaker 5: doing something with my period tracking apps? There are great
Speaker 5: options that are local only to your phone, like Yuki app.
Speaker 5: If you are concerned about that other apps, seeing whether
Speaker 5: or not they use best practice of security, if they've
Speaker 5: responded and said like how they would respond to a
Speaker 5: llegal request, that's awesome. I think that just sort of
Speaker 5: taking that uncertainty away is great because tracking your period
Speaker 5: is really important. As Crystal would tell you, it is
Speaker 5: an essential way that you're going to know how pregnant
Speaker 5: you are and find the option that's safest for your circumstances.
Speaker 5: So yeah, and that that I'll pass to Crystal for
Speaker 5: anything else you think our folks should know before we depart.
Speaker 6: Yeah, tracking your period is important because if you don't
Speaker 6: know what's going on with your period and you get pregnant,
Speaker 6: it can delay your care.
Speaker 4: And you know, optimally you're.
Speaker 6: Getting the safe, quickest, most comfortable care for you, right, So.
Speaker 4: It's really good to track that. I use Yuki. What
Speaker 4: I love about Yuki is that it.
Speaker 6: Has a pass code and it stores everything locally and
Speaker 6: you can set to auto delete your data. And I
Speaker 6: love all of those things, so you know, and you know,
Speaker 6: I don't like using my paper calendar. If you love
Speaker 6: using your paper calendar, go use your paper camp. You know,
Speaker 6: whatever you want to do. But it is very important
Speaker 6: to know when your last period was because it can
Speaker 6: just make your care more timely. And that's really important.
Speaker 6: Given the abortion restrictions and the abortion vans now we
Speaker 6: are only you know, admittedly they're going to get worse.
Speaker 6: This is going to get less safe. There is going
Speaker 6: to be greater risk of criminalization. So when people call,
Speaker 6: when people call and they ask like can I access pills.
Speaker 4: Yes you can.
Speaker 6: You know, no matter what Trump does, you're going to
Speaker 6: be able to get abortion pills. There are countries all
Speaker 6: over the world that have total abortion vans and they
Speaker 6: have the use abortion pills all the time. You know,
Speaker 6: it's not new in America. But you know, you do
Speaker 6: have to have a digital security plan while you're doing that.
Speaker 6: Like so yes, you can order pills online, but yes,
Speaker 6: also have a digital security plan and keep this stuff
Speaker 6: in mind. It's really it's part of your healthcare plan.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because you have the right to use safe, accessible,
Speaker 5: common sense like amazing technology products to actually obtain the
Speaker 5: abortion that you want. We really really do believe that
Speaker 5: like that part of autonomy, it includes digital autonomy as
Speaker 5: well as bodely autonomy. They're all part and parsonally can't
Speaker 5: have one without the other. So thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks Fiah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want to close with one more thing
Speaker 2: that is is related to this, but it's also what
Speaker 2: general advice. Don't talk to cops. Oh god, you know,
Speaker 2: I think that the common thing people say it is
Speaker 2: it is legal for them to lie to you, and
Speaker 2: that is true, but it's not just as legal for
Speaker 2: them to lie to you. It is their job to
Speaker 2: lie to you. You cannot trust a single word that
Speaker 2: comes out of their mouths because it is their job
Speaker 2: to get you to confess to a crime or to
Speaker 2: get information out of you. They'll let you confess your crime,
Speaker 2: So invoke your right to remain silent, get a fucking lawyer,
Speaker 2: don't talk to them. And you know, listen, this is
Speaker 2: advice that's not just coming from me, right like this,
Speaker 2: this is the advice you will get from every single
Speaker 2: person who does who does any kind of from offense.
Speaker 2: This is what you'll get from a public defender. This
Speaker 2: is what you'll get from anyone who has even sort
Speaker 2: of interacted with the legal system. And this is also
Speaker 2: true even if they tell you that, oh, you're not
Speaker 2: a suspect, you're just a blah blah blah. We're trying
Speaker 2: to get information. It is their job to lie to you.
Speaker 2: Think about it roughly the same way of like if
Speaker 2: you're dealing with like a country secret police, how much
Speaker 2: information would you give them? The answer is do not.
Speaker 2: Simply do not do this.
Speaker 5: Exactly and you know, no, no matter what that there
Speaker 5: are people again like.
Speaker 3: Crystal Sap who will support you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are amazing teams across the United States, from
Speaker 5: medical support to legal support, were there for you, and
Speaker 5: they would all, I think wholeheartedly endorse as do we.
Speaker 3: Yes, please do not talk to cops. That's a great
Speaker 3: note to end on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, thank you to you both for coming on.
Speaker 2: And maybe we live to see a world better than
Speaker 2: this one where you could just do this stuff and
Speaker 2: not have to have any concerns.
Speaker 6: Yeah, one day, but until then, we can do this
Speaker 6: very securely.
Speaker 5: Yes, we got our own backs. We can do this together.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us on.
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