Speaker 1: Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to take
Speaker 1: a moment to address the June Supreme Court decision to
Speaker 1: overturn Roe versus Wade. Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care,
Speaker 1: including abortion care, threatens the health and independence of all Americans.
Speaker 1: This decision could also lead to the loss of other rights.
Speaker 1: To learn more about what you can do to help,
Speaker 1: go to choice dot c r D dot c O,
Speaker 1: and I encourage all of y'all to speak up, take care,
Speaker 1: and spread the word. Come in. Decency also does not
Speaker 1: exist in surveillance capitalism. Um just incause anybody's worried about
Speaker 1: that if they can make money on it, they do
Speaker 1: not care how evil it is, and that that is
Speaker 1: a pretty universal lesson. There are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: As a production of My Heart Radio and Unboss Creative,
Speaker 1: I'm Bridget Todd, and this is there are no Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. By now, you probably know that last
Speaker 1: week the Preme Court of the United States overturned Row v. Wade,
Speaker 1: the landmark decision legalizing abortion in the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: I have spent most of my adult life working on
Speaker 1: expanding and protecting abortion access, so I'm not gonna lie
Speaker 1: I took it pretty hard, and even though abortion advocates
Speaker 1: and providers have been expecting this for many, many years
Speaker 1: and preparing for it, it still felt like a punch
Speaker 1: to the gut. I'm angry, I'm numb, but most of all,
Speaker 1: I am just fucking exhausted. Now, let's be clear abortion
Speaker 1: is a technology issue because in the issue isn't so
Speaker 1: much quote back alley abortions and code hanger imagery. It's
Speaker 1: the digital surveillance and criminalization of people suspected of having
Speaker 1: abortions or aiding in abortions in states where expanned. When
Speaker 1: the news broke, there were a ton of questions circulating
Speaker 1: around social media. Should you delete your period track or app?
Speaker 1: How can someone securely find that obtain abortion pills without
Speaker 1: creating a digital paper trail. It's a lot to navigate,
Speaker 1: and I'm not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice.
Speaker 1: Nor am I a cybersecurity or digital security expert. But
Speaker 1: I know somebody who is. I turned to Dr Jen Goldbeck,
Speaker 1: professor at University of Maryland and computer scientist. I found
Speaker 1: Jen on TikTok, where she's been doing a popular series
Speaker 1: teaching people how to more securely access healthcare, including abortion
Speaker 1: care online. So I have to start by really asking
Speaker 1: this kind of grounding question, like in these very weird,
Speaker 1: intense times, like how are you? How are you? I
Speaker 1: know that this time must be uh intense for someone
Speaker 1: with your body of work. How how are you holding up?
Speaker 1: Like not great? If I'm going to be like super honest, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm getting stuff done. It's been really nice being on
Speaker 1: sabbatical this year, um, which I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people think that means you don't have to work for
Speaker 1: a year, But it's just to kind of work on
Speaker 1: different stuff. But you don't have teach classes, you don't
Speaker 1: have to go to all the committee meetings that you
Speaker 1: normally do. So I've been writing a book and it's
Speaker 1: been good to have a slightly work pace. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I deal with a lot of bad stuff
Speaker 1: on the internet, Like that's kind of my job. And
Speaker 1: the bad stuff, man, sure has not stopped in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. Um, so you can get a
Speaker 1: little overwhelming. I'd be really happy for it not to
Speaker 1: be a thing anymore. But I'm still functioning, you know,
Speaker 1: so that that account that as a win. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta get your your w's where you can in these days,
Speaker 1: I feel like for sure, So how did you come
Speaker 1: like you have this? I was reading about your background
Speaker 1: and it's fucking amazing. How did you come to be
Speaker 1: doing this work? Like what brought you to digital security?
Speaker 1: What brought you to really doing in research into the
Speaker 1: way that the implications of the online tools that we
Speaker 1: use every day. It's yeah, you know, so I started
Speaker 1: um I started my pH d in two thousand one,
Speaker 1: and I remember going to my advisor and being like, so,
Speaker 1: social networks, that's the thing that people study in sociology.
Speaker 1: What happens if we put one of those on the web?
Speaker 1: And he's like, interesting ideal, Like maybe try that and
Speaker 1: see what happens. And so my timing was like just
Speaker 1: perfect for you know, at that point, it was blogging,
Speaker 1: and then social media kind of emerged. So I've really
Speaker 1: been studying it since it was a thing and it
Speaker 1: was like it had all this promise to be really great,
Speaker 1: and I think, frankly, it's done a lot of great things,
Speaker 1: especially for traditionally marginalized communities, Like we take a lot
Speaker 1: of crap there, but it also has given us things
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't have in any other way. But it's
Speaker 1: also man like the dark, terrible stuff that goes on there. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you know, as a computer scientist, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of building artificial intelligence and technology that works in that space. UM.
Speaker 1: But I've always had kind of this interdisciplinary bent and
Speaker 1: the department I'm in I'm in which is called Information Studies,
Speaker 1: it lets you do that. You can do whatever you
Speaker 1: want there, which is amazing. And so I've I've kind
Speaker 1: of consider myself like a public anthropologists sort of of
Speaker 1: like the bad Internet. So like you guys really don't
Speaker 1: want to go there, but I'll go there and I'll
Speaker 1: let you know the kind of stuff they're doing. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of demand for for somebody to tell
Speaker 1: people that because the people very rightly don't want to
Speaker 1: go look at it themselves. And so I kind of
Speaker 1: fill that gap, like I'll endure it and then I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what it's about and then we can think
Speaker 1: about that. I know that you've been doing this series
Speaker 1: trying to keep give people information about how to avoid
Speaker 1: being tracked online if they're trying to access an abortion.
Speaker 1: How did this come to be? Like how did you
Speaker 1: start doing this? So you know, I have never had
Speaker 1: an abortion, and I it's I've never been pregnant, right,
Speaker 1: but I have never wanted kids, and so it has
Speaker 1: been a thing my whole life that I've been grateful
Speaker 1: to know was an option. Um, Like I was. I
Speaker 1: was clear from the time I was six years old.
Speaker 1: I thought, you just got pregnant, like you got a cold,
Speaker 1: Like you just woke up one day, you had like
Speaker 1: a big belly and you And I remember telling my
Speaker 1: mom like it's six, Like God, I hope that never
Speaker 1: happens to me, right, Like never a doubt in my
Speaker 1: mind that I didn't want kids. And so you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: like I've always been very careful, but I have always
Speaker 1: known that like if I ended up pregnant, like I
Speaker 1: was not gonna stay pregnant. Um. You know, eventually, after
Speaker 1: about ten years of harassment, managed to get a doctor
Speaker 1: to tie my tubes for me. That's a whole other conversation. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's not a thing that I personally worry about,
Speaker 1: but I am like so aware of, like how important
Speaker 1: for my whole life it has been knowing that I
Speaker 1: would have access to that if I wanted it. Um,
Speaker 1: And knowing all I mean, I know and we all
Speaker 1: do whether we know it or not. I know a
Speaker 1: ton of women who have had abortions and a ton
Speaker 1: of men who have been with women who have had abortions,
Speaker 1: and like how important that is? And uh yeah, like
Speaker 1: you're really good at getting my rage up today, Like
Speaker 1: let it. I mean, it's a raging topic. It is,
Speaker 1: it is. I'm right there with you. It is a
Speaker 1: rag topic. I think a thing like that has built
Speaker 1: up over the last two years. Well more right, I
Speaker 1: mean we have like Trump and then we have COVID,
Speaker 1: and then we have the election in the insurrect action,
Speaker 1: like all of this stuff that's been happening Q and
Speaker 1: on right, which has been a big presence in my life.
Speaker 1: It's like there's I do what I can do, which
Speaker 1: is to sort of bring some light into spaces where
Speaker 1: people might be confused. But I feel very powerless to
Speaker 1: kind of fix what I see as like such a
Speaker 1: big problem, big complicated, festering problem. And this was like
Speaker 1: another one of those things like I can't believe, like
Speaker 1: this is like yet another thing in this string of
Speaker 1: awful stuff. What can I do? Well? The one thing
Speaker 1: that I can do is that, like you can get
Speaker 1: an abortion in a lot of a lot of the
Speaker 1: cases where women need them. You can do it with medication.
Speaker 1: You can do it safely. That is easily accessible online,
Speaker 1: Like you can go online, you can buy it and
Speaker 1: they will send it to your house, no problem, right,
Speaker 1: no matter what state you're in, they'll ship it to
Speaker 1: you from another country. You can get it. And so
Speaker 1: then the concern becomes, well, how are they going to
Speaker 1: track this? And like we all know to be worried
Speaker 1: about that now, but not exactly how it's working. And
Speaker 1: when I do these videos on TikTok talking about this stuff,
Speaker 1: I get a lot of kind of like bros honestly
Speaker 1: in the comments, going like, well, if you just use
Speaker 1: a VPN, it's not going to be a problem, and like,
Speaker 1: I'm all for a VPN, right, Like that will encrypt
Speaker 1: the traffic coming out of your computer, so it's less
Speaker 1: likely to get snooped on. But it does not solve
Speaker 1: any of these problems of like capitalist surveillance, digital tracking,
Speaker 1: all of this, And so people sometimes think like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know there's one thing to do, right, I'll use
Speaker 1: incognito mode on my browser. I'll use a VPN and
Speaker 1: that will protect me and it won't. So I want
Speaker 1: to talk you through here's the entirety of this process.
Speaker 1: If you were to go buy abortion medication and get
Speaker 1: it shipped to you, and here's what you have to
Speaker 1: do for every single one of those ways they're going
Speaker 1: to track you. There's protections that you can take in
Speaker 1: every one of those steps to actually get access to that. So, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a way that makes me feel like a
Speaker 1: little bit of control over what's going on, at least
Speaker 1: helping people know that, Like, if you're going to go
Speaker 1: that route to buy medication online to have an abortion,
Speaker 1: here's the steps that you can take to be really protected. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you you mentioned the response that you got
Speaker 1: from like broby types is something I've sort of been
Speaker 1: wrestling with. Um. I have noticed, this is just my
Speaker 1: anecdotal opinion whatever. I have noticed that the surveillance and
Speaker 1: like digital security space for the last ten years has
Speaker 1: been a little bit I guess browy for the lack
Speaker 1: of for lack of a better phrase, and I guess
Speaker 1: we're in this moment where it's so clear to me, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's always been the case, but in this moment in particular,
Speaker 1: it's so clear to me how important digital security and
Speaker 1: issues are for women, for non binary people, for people
Speaker 1: who are traditionally marginalized. So who are not you know, bros? Um,
Speaker 1: when we think about surveillance, I guess, how do we
Speaker 1: make sure that that doesn't get lost, that the issue
Speaker 1: doesn't does it become like, oh, the face of digital
Speaker 1: security is like a white dude. How can we get
Speaker 1: to a place where we can have a more honest
Speaker 1: understanding of what is at stake for who when it
Speaker 1: comes to digital security and things like us being tracked online? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think you nailed a really important point there.
Speaker 1: It's like the bros are not at risk in the
Speaker 1: same way that women are, that people of color are,
Speaker 1: say trans people now right, I mean they're having all
Speaker 1: of their own big legal issues with with access to healthcare.
Speaker 1: It's not the bros that are having those problems. And
Speaker 1: there's a really interesting dynamic here that I've seen kind
Speaker 1: of before. These social issues, say over the last two
Speaker 1: or three years, have brought this to the forefront. But
Speaker 1: when I would just talk about security and privacy in general,
Speaker 1: you get a response that's like, well, what you just
Speaker 1: said isn't a perfect solution, right. So, when I was
Speaker 1: one of the first videos I did about abortion is like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna search for like abortion related stuff online,
Speaker 1: use incognito mode in your browser at least. And then
Speaker 1: I'm like, you can use the tour browser that pretends
Speaker 1: to prevents you from getting tracked, but at least use
Speaker 1: incognito mode. Now, all incognito mode does is delete your
Speaker 1: search history when you close the window. That is the
Speaker 1: entirety of the protection you get. So it's very insecure
Speaker 1: or but we've seen women already be arrested and charged
Speaker 1: with murder when they have miscarriages because they searched for
Speaker 1: abortion related stuff at some point, and that's just the
Speaker 1: cops taking their computer and looking at their search history
Speaker 1: and it's in there, So like, don't keep your search history.
Speaker 1: It's a thing that's going to get you some percentage
Speaker 1: of safety. And I do that video and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, incognito mode, like it doesn't do this, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't do this, and it's not a perfect solution.
Speaker 1: It's like yeah, man, like I know, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean don't do things. And this is a thing I
Speaker 1: think a lot of security bros get really caught up on,
Speaker 1: is like you don't have a perfect solution, like I
Speaker 1: can find ways that that thing is insecure, and so
Speaker 1: you're dumb and bad and wrong and I'm smarter than you.
Speaker 1: They don't actually come with another solution or like a
Speaker 1: thing that makes it better. They just want to have
Speaker 1: that little power place of like let me explain to you, well,
Speaker 1: you're wrong about this and and and that I feel
Speaker 1: is the real problem where it's like they don't face
Speaker 1: the same issues that we do, whatever those issues are,
Speaker 1: whatever group you're part of, they're kind of safe. It's
Speaker 1: really easy to come from a place of like, well
Speaker 1: you suck and you're wrong and I'm smarter than you,
Speaker 1: and not bring any solutions with that. And I think
Speaker 1: that's sort of what we're dealing with. And frankly that
Speaker 1: we see a lot online is like they're kind of
Speaker 1: used to being in this position of power, and so
Speaker 1: women come along, people of color come along, trans people
Speaker 1: come along, and go, here's the thing that we can
Speaker 1: do to stay safer. They want to kind of reclaim
Speaker 1: that position of power and be like that's not right,
Speaker 1: Like I know better than you, guys. I see that
Speaker 1: kind of power dynamic, which we've seen so many times
Speaker 1: with so many things online just kind of playing out
Speaker 1: in the security space as well. I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of them it's like theoretical, and for us it
Speaker 1: is not theoretical. It is very real world for sure.
Speaker 1: Not everyone is a digital security expert. In fact, the
Speaker 1: people who most need practical advice on how you can
Speaker 1: more securely access abortion online are folks who might not
Speaker 1: necessarily consider themselves techys. This is why Jen keeps accessibility
Speaker 1: the forefront of her work. She wants to make sure
Speaker 1: that the tips and tools that she highlights are accessible
Speaker 1: enough to actually be helpful for the folks who need
Speaker 1: the most. Going back to what you were saying about
Speaker 1: how sometimes you get these growing people responding to you
Speaker 1: about like, oh, you're wrong about this, You're not doing
Speaker 1: that perfectly. I think it's really tricky because the the
Speaker 1: audience that you're speaking to, for the most part, they're
Speaker 1: not going to be digital security experts or tech experts.
Speaker 1: There are people who are looking to access abortion right
Speaker 1: and so you kind of have to walk this line
Speaker 1: of making sure that your tips are accessible for people
Speaker 1: who need them, and those people, by and large, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: are not people who are going to you know already
Speaker 1: be showing up a level of tech expertise, and so
Speaker 1: coming from a place of like, oh, it has to
Speaker 1: be perfect to even be you know, something that you
Speaker 1: put out into the world. Again, I just feel like
Speaker 1: it doesn't reflect where we're actually at, Like, like, how
Speaker 1: do you how do you balance making sure that the
Speaker 1: tips that you give are actually going to be accessible
Speaker 1: for the folks who need them. Yeah, you know, so
Speaker 1: there's there is a nearly perfect way that you could
Speaker 1: buy abortion medication and not be tracked. You take a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of cash, you go buy a burner phone,
Speaker 1: you use it on public WiFi, you use the tour browser,
Speaker 1: You use cash to buy gift cards that you use
Speaker 1: to pay for the medication you have it shipped to.
Speaker 1: This is kind of the big question. Mark someplace that's
Speaker 1: not you and pick it up from there and there's
Speaker 1: no digital trace of you. So great one that's super
Speaker 1: hard to it's very expensive, right, that's not accessible. I
Speaker 1: mean if I I think, like if I were like
Speaker 1: seventeen and needed an abortion and didn't want to tell
Speaker 1: my parents about it, right, I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: part of the audience I'm reaching On TikTok. They're not
Speaker 1: going to use a bunch of cash to go buy
Speaker 1: a burner phone and use publicly and like all use
Speaker 1: the tour browser, right Like, that's not what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And the fact is, like, you know, if we have
Speaker 1: like big government agency right like there's an n s A,
Speaker 1: FBI ci A task force coming to get you, man,
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do right there, they're going to
Speaker 1: figure this out. But the fact is they're not going
Speaker 1: to be going like, oh, abortion medication was like purchased
Speaker 1: by somebody on the Panera WiFi at this time, So
Speaker 1: let's go get the security footage like some ci cs
Speaker 1: I nonsense, Like that's not most of what we're dealing with.
Speaker 1: It's like your neighbor found out you got an abortion
Speaker 1: and they're gonna do the Texas civil suit thing to
Speaker 1: get there ten thousand dollars and turn you in. What's
Speaker 1: gonna make it easier? Um, So I like to give
Speaker 1: you know solutions, what's gonna get you more protection? Like
Speaker 1: delete that search history. It's gonna help. Is it perfect? No?
Speaker 1: But if you do that and you know you use
Speaker 1: a gift card to buy it, and you don't take
Speaker 1: your phone, if you're going to like planned parenthood, so
Speaker 1: you can't get tracked, like we know people are tracking that. Like,
Speaker 1: these are all really simple steps that anybody can do.
Speaker 1: They don't cost you a lot of money. It's just
Speaker 1: kind of changing your habits and being aware. And I
Speaker 1: think having that like one, people are more likely to
Speaker 1: do it. It's accessible to more people, and it's going
Speaker 1: to give a good amount of protection, even if it's
Speaker 1: not perfect. Nobody like the perfect solutions stupid and hard
Speaker 1: and nobody wants it. Yeah, otherwise we'd be doing it
Speaker 1: already with everything. Yeah, exactly. You know. One of the
Speaker 1: tips that you give that I love is that, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, if people don't have the abilities you're like,
Speaker 1: go buy a burner phone. If you don't, if you
Speaker 1: can't buy a burner phone, go to a library. And
Speaker 1: you talk about how public libraries are the bastion of
Speaker 1: privacy protection. Can you tell us so I love that,
Speaker 1: um shout out to librarians. Can you tell us more
Speaker 1: about that? Yeah? I mean if you go back to
Speaker 1: like the George W. Bush administration. Um, so we're looking
Speaker 1: like post nine eleven. I think one of the nine
Speaker 1: eleven hijackers may have looked something up in a library
Speaker 1: ones or or at least part of this whole terrorism
Speaker 1: panic around then was like, oh, people in libraries are
Speaker 1: gonna be doing terrorism there, so we want to be
Speaker 1: able to access all the books that people have checked out.
Speaker 1: Like I'm worried about Jen doing a terrorism I want
Speaker 1: to see everything that she's checked out and everything that
Speaker 1: she's done. And the librarians were like, no, we're not
Speaker 1: doing that. If we have to throw away all of
Speaker 1: our records of books that people have checked out, we
Speaker 1: will do that before we'll turn them over. And I
Speaker 1: think that George W. Bush quote was radical militant librarians, right.
Speaker 1: Um so this, you know, we can kind of go
Speaker 1: back to then and librarians are like no, like people
Speaker 1: should just be able to come here and get information,
Speaker 1: like that's their job. I mean the department that I'm
Speaker 1: in information studies at Maryland we have the Library Science program,
Speaker 1: so professional librarians among other professionals, come out of our school.
Speaker 1: They're very committed to helping people find the information they
Speaker 1: want and giving them protection for that. Um. So, like,
Speaker 1: on one hand, your librarian is likely not going to
Speaker 1: be a digital security expert who will be able to
Speaker 1: track you talk you through how to prevent being tracked.
Speaker 1: But on a lot of those computers, for all sorts
Speaker 1: of reasons, they'll like automatically delete your search history, and
Speaker 1: they're not gonna collect a lot of information about you
Speaker 1: because you know, if you go on the library computer
Speaker 1: before me, they don't want me looking through all of
Speaker 1: your history, right, there's a good reason to keep that private,
Speaker 1: And they have this history of not turning over that
Speaker 1: information and in fact having a lot of legal protection
Speaker 1: from turning that information over to the government. And so
Speaker 1: while they're not going to give you a necessarily a
Speaker 1: ton of great advice on like how to keep your
Speaker 1: phone from being tracked, they will show you how to
Speaker 1: access information and use the Internet in a way that's
Speaker 1: likely to be safe for you. Um, and it's free
Speaker 1: and it's a great resource. And librarians love helping people
Speaker 1: find information. So you know, always your mileage may very
Speaker 1: be cautious about if you're telling them you're searching for
Speaker 1: abortion related information, depending on where you are right but
Speaker 1: if you just want to private search oneto, they absolutely
Speaker 1: should be able to help you set that up. That's
Speaker 1: good advice. I I love librarians. It's like every time
Speaker 1: I hear more about the times of public resources that
Speaker 1: they offer to the community. It's like, we need to
Speaker 1: be talking more about the amazing resource that we have
Speaker 1: available to us in public libraries. Yeah, like they need
Speaker 1: a master's degree to be a library in and if
Speaker 1: if you were experienced with librarians is only like it's
Speaker 1: where I checked out books as a kid, and then
Speaker 1: I returned the books. You go, like, what do they
Speaker 1: need a master's degree for? But it's because they have
Speaker 1: all this expertise on lots of other topics, many of
Speaker 1: which are related to kind of community relations in management,
Speaker 1: because it's a big part of their life. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break that are. Back in the wake of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court striking down ROW, I heard lots of
Speaker 1: well meaning people say things like, well, don't worry because
Speaker 1: we've been here before. But that's not actually true because
Speaker 1: the last time abortion was illegal in the United States,
Speaker 1: in the days before Row became the law of the
Speaker 1: land in ninete, we did not have the vast infrastructure
Speaker 1: of digital surveillance, tracking, and data sharing and selling like
Speaker 1: we do now. We didn't all carry GPS devices in
Speaker 1: our pockets, we did not all create digital paper trails
Speaker 1: of all the information we've ever accessed, and we certainly
Speaker 1: didn't have companies selling and sharing that information with third parties,
Speaker 1: including law enforcement. We did not create digital logs of
Speaker 1: the most sensitive information about our bodies, like our periods,
Speaker 1: onto apps who then go on to share it with
Speaker 1: God knows who. For instance, the popular period tracking app
Speaker 1: flow based a lawsuit last year for sharing people's personal information,
Speaker 1: including quote intimate details about sexual health and menstrual cycles,
Speaker 1: with third parties like Facebook and Google, despite public assurances
Speaker 1: that it would not and they did this because data
Speaker 1: is quote vital to their business, according to the lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Add in laws like s b E in Texas that
Speaker 1: deputized ordinary citizens to turn in anyone they suspect of
Speaker 1: having an abortion or aiding and a betting an abortion
Speaker 1: for a ten dollar reward, and you can serve to
Speaker 1: see the scope of the situation that we're currently facing.
Speaker 1: So I want to set the stage a little bit.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's probably people listening who were like,
Speaker 1: this is I'm learning a lot about the state of
Speaker 1: play as it pertains to digital security and what is
Speaker 1: really at stake with the information that I, you know,
Speaker 1: put on the internet. And that technology has about me.
Speaker 1: And so people, you know, you might I guess that
Speaker 1: you might be thinking like things like when we have
Speaker 1: our periods and you know, the goings on of our
Speaker 1: of our reproductive health, that's probably like protected by HIPPA
Speaker 1: or like common decency, right, But that is not the case.
Speaker 1: So so what is the reality around you know, our
Speaker 1: information and how it can be accessed and perhaps used
Speaker 1: against us? Yeah, so so HIPPA has really gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of attention between like COVID and vaccines and and
Speaker 1: certainly now at this So HIPPA is a law that
Speaker 1: just provides, just applies to your health care providers. So
Speaker 1: your doctor's office, your pharmacy, they're not allowed to give
Speaker 1: away your records. Um that said into ingle. So my dog,
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of rescue golden retrievers um that
Speaker 1: have a variety of issues. And one of my tax
Speaker 1: is very serious anxiety and he's on prozac. So it
Speaker 1: takes prozac every day. And uh, he's on my like
Speaker 1: CBS family account, and I got a text from CBS like, hey,
Speaker 1: Chief Brody, just you know May is National Mental Health
Speaker 1: Awareness Month, and it's like they're sending kind of marketing
Speaker 1: emails or text to my dog because he's on an
Speaker 1: antidepressant UM, which you know sort of shows like they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're following hippo rules for the dog even
Speaker 1: if they don't have to. But they can still use
Speaker 1: it internally for things, right, So hippa, it's not It
Speaker 1: doesn't have anything to do with privacy. Really. It has
Speaker 1: to do with how your medical records are sent around
Speaker 1: and that they can't be released. You do get some
Speaker 1: privacy from that, but not anything relating to apps, the
Speaker 1: internet people, just your doctor and your pharmacy basically, So
Speaker 1: ignore hippa. It doesn't apply to anything that we're worried about. Essentially, um,
Speaker 1: common decency all so does not exist in surveillance capitalism. UM,
Speaker 1: Just in case anybody's worried about that, if they can
Speaker 1: make money on it, they do not care how evil
Speaker 1: it is, and that that is a pretty universal lesson.
Speaker 1: I am an optimist and I keep going, yeah, but
Speaker 1: they wouldn't do that, and like, yeah, they totally would.
Speaker 1: They are they have been for ten years. Like, um,
Speaker 1: you're just not going to get a lot of protection.
Speaker 1: What we've seen with like period tracking apps, UM, is
Speaker 1: that a lot of them were sharing information, and they
Speaker 1: do it in a variety of ways. So some full
Speaker 1: on released your period data and your health data to
Speaker 1: Facebook and Google. They got in big trouble for doing that,
Speaker 1: So that can totally happen. Um, some of it is
Speaker 1: is a little more passive, right, So they might use
Speaker 1: a third party to do like analytics. So I want
Speaker 1: to know, like, does Jen come to the app other
Speaker 1: than when she's logging her symptoms or her cycle info?
Speaker 1: So do I come to it in the middle of
Speaker 1: the month and look for anything? Do I use it
Speaker 1: for anything other than just like putting stuff in? So
Speaker 1: that could be interesting them to know, and it may
Speaker 1: help them develop new features or you know, decide things.
Speaker 1: But writing code to do those sorts of analytics is
Speaker 1: pretty heavy duty. There's plenty of third parties who will
Speaker 1: do it for you, So they might partner with a
Speaker 1: third party to do analytics, but that third party the
Speaker 1: necessarily gets access to some of their data. So it
Speaker 1: might not be every single thing that I've logged in
Speaker 1: the app, but there's a lot that they can infer.
Speaker 1: There's a lot that they're going to collect and save,
Speaker 1: and so your information can be leaking out in ways
Speaker 1: that even the app may not necessarily intend. And those
Speaker 1: analytics parties absolutely could use it for marketing, right, they
Speaker 1: may show ads in the app to help pay for it.
Speaker 1: So it's a free app, but we'll show you like
Speaker 1: little banner ads at the bottom. It might be coming
Speaker 1: from there. So there's a ton of ways that um,
Speaker 1: even not being hacked, which is the thing we could
Speaker 1: talk about. UM, your data can get shared with third
Speaker 1: parties by those apps. And if we're looking then at
Speaker 1: places like Texas, for example, where there's a ten dollar
Speaker 1: incentive for me to find out anybody who gotten abortion.
Speaker 1: That's data that it would be really interesting for me
Speaker 1: as an evil person to try to find a way
Speaker 1: to track down through data brokers online advertisers that maybe
Speaker 1: incorporating it into their background. Wow. I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: you brought up the like quote like bounty hunter policies
Speaker 1: and states like Texas, because I do think that highlights
Speaker 1: the just the real world stakes of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about and how important it is that we really understand
Speaker 1: what we're doing when we give in for what we
Speaker 1: might be doing when we give our information to these apps.
Speaker 1: I guess this, I mean I don't know. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is too black and white of a question, but what
Speaker 1: do you say that people in the wake of row v.
Speaker 1: Wade being struck down. Should folks be thinking about the
Speaker 1: leading period tracker apps? Should they be like is that
Speaker 1: is that too like black and white or simplistic of
Speaker 1: a way to even be framing it? Or what do
Speaker 1: you think? I mean, I think it's a really useful framing. Um,
Speaker 1: whether or not you do you know, it's going to
Speaker 1: depend on frankly, where you are, what kind of support
Speaker 1: you have, um, what level of worry you have? Right? So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned I had my tubes tile, so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get pregnant. I guess it could fail.
Speaker 1: And if I got pregnant, um Man, I'm like a
Speaker 1: well off white woman, right, I could go to Canada.
Speaker 1: If I couldn't get an abortion in the US, I
Speaker 1: could go to Canada. I know how to cover my tracks.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have all the resources and privilege and
Speaker 1: money necessary to get an abortion if I wanted one. Um,
Speaker 1: if I were in a kind of rural, really Bible
Speaker 1: belty anti abortion place, and I'm a younger woman without
Speaker 1: a lot of financial resources, so I couldn't travel by
Speaker 1: myself to a state that could do an abortion for me.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm too young, I don't have the money for it.
Speaker 1: My parents would catch me that kind of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: And you know that people around you are really excited
Speaker 1: about bounty hunting people who get abortions, then yeah, like
Speaker 1: maybe start tracking that on paper like I did in
Speaker 1: high school. I have little red dots in my planner. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think it's gonna be the main
Speaker 1: place people go to. You always can lie right, like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I did have my period last month, and you just
Speaker 1: find however many days and you plunk it in there
Speaker 1: and you've got a record that that makes it look
Speaker 1: like you weren't pregnant even if you were. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you're worried about people like checking in
Speaker 1: on that, right, somebody gets ahold of your phone, are
Speaker 1: they gonna go look at it to see when you
Speaker 1: had your last period. I don't think it's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: And look, generally, I think everyone should be wary about
Speaker 1: logging any kind of personal information like this in any app,
Speaker 1: even if there's not a law that would get in
Speaker 1: the way of your health care, because it's almost always
Speaker 1: going to be monetized and sold to advertisers. I mean,
Speaker 1: you earlier today or earlier, I think it was this week,
Speaker 1: you were posting on TikTok about elevated access. You know,
Speaker 1: the pilots who you know, will they take donations and
Speaker 1: they'll fly people every all of the like, like all
Speaker 1: everywhere in the United States other than Alaska and Hawaii
Speaker 1: to get abortions like a portion care or gender affirming care.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the fact that we're in
Speaker 1: this place where we have to have pilots taking donations
Speaker 1: to shuttle people to get healthcare, where we have to
Speaker 1: be deleting our period tracker apps, you know, so we
Speaker 1: don't get criminalized for abortion care. Like, what do you
Speaker 1: make of the fact that we're in this place where
Speaker 1: these kinds of things they sound so wild, but they
Speaker 1: are very necessary. Yeah, I mean I have kind of
Speaker 1: the pessimistic view and the optimistic view together. So the
Speaker 1: pessimistic view is that, um, this this seems to me
Speaker 1: a pretty linear path towards authoritarianism that started in right. Um,
Speaker 1: we certainly saw this with like the rise of Trump
Speaker 1: and his rallies and and chance for people to be
Speaker 1: arrested and chance to you know, take people down and
Speaker 1: physical violence in those spaces. And we saw steady increases
Speaker 1: in that and kind of normalization of that kind of
Speaker 1: hate and language and violence over the course of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. Um, and this kind of other ring, right,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing it, you know where we wait. I mean,
Speaker 1: this has been a very long battle for the anti
Speaker 1: abortion camp. So I don't like they maybe are in
Speaker 1: a position to achieve it now, um, but they've been
Speaker 1: trying to do that for a long time. Do you
Speaker 1: especially look at like right now, like the anti trans
Speaker 1: and anti gay measures. You know, I'm in Florida, um Man.
Speaker 1: Stuff is a nightmare here right, um, where you know
Speaker 1: you're having like gay teachers quitting their jobs because they're
Speaker 1: not even allowed, Like students found out that they were
Speaker 1: married to somebody of the same gender and and they're like,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to get fired for that, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's happening in Florida now, that kind of mothering, Right,
Speaker 1: who is the enemy and and let's start doing stuff
Speaker 1: against them? I mean it's such textbook authoritarianism, and and
Speaker 1: so we've really seen I think a ramping up of
Speaker 1: that not that things were great for women seeking abortions,
Speaker 1: or trans people or gay people. But we've seen progress, right,
Speaker 1: and things have kind of been progressing, and now we've
Speaker 1: seen a really aggressive backlash that and some success with
Speaker 1: that backlash. Um, so that's really upsetting, But I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like a path that we have
Speaker 1: been on, you know, for the better part of the
Speaker 1: last decade, and hopefully we get out of that. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, right. I mean, I think the next
Speaker 1: couple of elections, the midterms, in the next presidential election,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll give us an insight of how much staying
Speaker 1: power that has. The optimistic side that I have is
Speaker 1: man or a lot of people trying to do something
Speaker 1: about it. So the elevated access, I mean, these pilots
Speaker 1: getting together, Like how awesome is it that there's this
Speaker 1: like network of pilots that are like, we will pick
Speaker 1: you up in Texas if you need gender firming care,
Speaker 1: and we will take you to Colorado and you can
Speaker 1: get it there. You need an abortion, like we'll come
Speaker 1: get you. Somebody else will pay for it, and we'll
Speaker 1: take you somewhere. Um. You know, my TikTok series is
Speaker 1: a little cheap free thing. But it's like I've spent
Speaker 1: two decades building this knowledge and I'm gonna drop it
Speaker 1: to you in one minute segments for as long as
Speaker 1: I have to to kind of protect that. And there's
Speaker 1: great resources, you know in the abortion space that are like,
Speaker 1: tell us what state you're in, We're going to tell
Speaker 1: you how you can get abortion medication or see a provider. Well,
Speaker 1: here's what your legal options are. And if we have
Speaker 1: to send you to a pharmacy in India, we have
Speaker 1: vetted them. We know that it's trustworthy. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of people. I mean, first, the majority of people want
Speaker 1: abortion access to be a thing right, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people are willing to take action. And frankly, this
Speaker 1: is another great thing that I see from social media
Speaker 1: is it allows us to kind of organize those movements
Speaker 1: nationwide from people who are like sitting at home and
Speaker 1: just want to help. Um. So I'm optimistic in that
Speaker 1: space that there's gonna be a lot of people working
Speaker 1: at the grassroots level to fight this kind of legal
Speaker 1: authoritarianism that you know, I'm I hope we see our
Speaker 1: way out of but I think it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: little while oh my god. I mean, I have been
Speaker 1: in the like abortion space for a long time, and
Speaker 1: it's truly the only thing that gives me hope is
Speaker 1: that the space of abortion provider, abortion advocates and their allies.
Speaker 1: It is such a dynamic, a space filled with dynamic,
Speaker 1: creative people who want to fucking help. And you know,
Speaker 1: I hear things all the time where it will be like, oh,
Speaker 1: a bunch of teens in Texas took down the bounty
Speaker 1: Hunter tipline website, you know, by organizing on TikTok. Like,
Speaker 1: I'll hear these things and it's like, as I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of faith in our elected
Speaker 1: officials to have our back, but I I believe in us,
Speaker 1: like I believe in you know, uh, the power of
Speaker 1: the people who care, and we're the majority. Like I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that you brought that up. I think for
Speaker 1: so long we've allowed anti we've about anti abortion folks
Speaker 1: to set the narrative of what we how we talk
Speaker 1: about abortion. And the reality is eighty percent of Americans
Speaker 1: support abortion access and wanted to be protected, and so
Speaker 1: people who are outside out of step with that, they
Speaker 1: are the extremists and there's not too there's not both
Speaker 1: sides to it. There's not two sides about it. We
Speaker 1: need to make sure that we're making that very clear.
Speaker 1: And we talk about abortion that the majority of the
Speaker 1: of the country, there's not a pocket anywhere where the
Speaker 1: majority of people are against abortion access. It is. It
Speaker 1: is popular, we all and we've decided. And so people
Speaker 1: who are fighting against it, they are the ones that
Speaker 1: that are the extremists, not us. I also obviously am
Speaker 1: like a huge supporter of abortion access. And what we've
Speaker 1: sort of seen in the last few weeks, right since
Speaker 1: we got this leak decision, is one states where abortion
Speaker 1: is is already legal and not really threatened, are making
Speaker 1: it easier to get an abortion right. So we've actually
Speaker 1: seen a liberalizing of abortion access in those states, which
Speaker 1: I think is awesome. Um. The other thing that we're seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, on one hand, you look at like Oklahoma, right,
Speaker 1: so they just passed this bill today yesterday, UM, defining
Speaker 1: like human life at fertilization. Uh, and I mean ghoulish
Speaker 1: right is absolutely unscientific. Nobody understands the implications of what
Speaker 1: they've just done. And I people are going to start
Speaker 1: to see it because those of us who are in
Speaker 1: favor of not just abortion excess, but like women's health
Speaker 1: care access go so no more IVF then, for example
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma, um so, man, even if you're against abortion
Speaker 1: and you want to have a family, if you do IVF, well,
Speaker 1: all those frozen embryos that you haven't used, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do about them? Because those are now human
Speaker 1: lives that you're in charge of. Um And even the
Speaker 1: people who think there should be limits on abortion, the
Speaker 1: percentage who think a topic pregnancies should not be allowed
Speaker 1: to be aborted, they have to try to move that
Speaker 1: inviable like ball of cells into the units where it
Speaker 1: never can implant that you have to do that extra
Speaker 1: medical procedure. No. I mean, the number of people who
Speaker 1: think that's a good idea are just infintesimal. And yet
Speaker 1: we're seeing it legislatively. And so the hope is that
Speaker 1: what this will do is really open the eyes of
Speaker 1: a lot of people too. It's not these things that
Speaker 1: you're seeing on the posters. It's like people trying to
Speaker 1: have IVF, people who have completely inviable for nancies, people
Speaker 1: who you know, find out six or eight weeks into
Speaker 1: their pregnancy that that they're pregnant and you're not giving
Speaker 1: them any options. You know. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: galvanize a lot of people who maybe haven't thought this
Speaker 1: was an issue that affected them that much because they're like,
Speaker 1: they had kids, they're find having more kids. Um, they
Speaker 1: maybe have a religious position, you know. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to bring this community together and get things seen
Speaker 1: by people who don't normally think about the issue more.
Speaker 1: After a quick break, let's get right back into it. So,
Speaker 1: you know you were talking earlier about apps and how
Speaker 1: anything that can be for sale will be for sale.
Speaker 1: I'm in in in this day and age in my life,
Speaker 1: I am like a fairly parent and white person when
Speaker 1: it comes to this stuff. Like I own an iPhone,
Speaker 1: but other than that, I don't have any kind of
Speaker 1: quote smart device is in my home. But that was
Speaker 1: a journey. I went from like thinking it was so
Speaker 1: cool that I could come into my apartment and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: Google playing Madonna and it would start playing, and then
Speaker 1: you know, now I don't have any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I guess there's probably people who are listening right now, um,
Speaker 1: who are thinking like wow, I you know, I have
Speaker 1: never really thought about digital security and this all feels
Speaker 1: super overwhelming and hard. You know, what do you say
Speaker 1: to those people who are just sort of starting to
Speaker 1: think about the implications of the technology that we use,
Speaker 1: and they're like, gee, this is a lot. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I guess two points there. One is so I
Speaker 1: also don't have any of those technologies. I call them
Speaker 1: in home surveillance devices because that's like what they are. Um,
Speaker 1: it's work man. Like, when we bought this house that
Speaker 1: I'm in now, we had to buy a TV, like
Speaker 1: we bought it fresh. We had to buy everything to
Speaker 1: go and we didn't move stuff to it. Finding a
Speaker 1: TV that doesn't have voice control, right because if you
Speaker 1: look at the terms of service on those TVs are like,
Speaker 1: don't have sensitive conversations in front of your TV because
Speaker 1: we can't guarantee your privacy, and has like no, if
Speaker 1: I have to, I will get in there with a
Speaker 1: soldering iron and pick up microphone out and I have to. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was it was a little bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So on one hand, like obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of the tradeoff we talked about with all of this
Speaker 1: is like there's convenience on one side, right, it's easy
Speaker 1: to do the thing that lets you be surveilled by design, right,
Speaker 1: and then it's harder to do things that protect your privacy.
Speaker 1: So you want to think about where you fall on
Speaker 1: the scale. I also have an iPhone, Right, it would
Speaker 1: be more secure if I just had a flip phone.
Speaker 1: And there's just like too many things I would not
Speaker 1: be able to do if I didn't have that. UM,
Speaker 1: But you want to think about what is the most
Speaker 1: evil thing that a person could do with what I'm
Speaker 1: doing with my current digital setup. So, for example, your
Speaker 1: Internet search history or the history of websites that you
Speaker 1: go visit. I think the first law that was signed
Speaker 1: into effect when Trump became president UM was blocking an
Speaker 1: Obama administration regular lation that said your internet service provider,
Speaker 1: so Comcast or Exfinity or a T and T, whoever
Speaker 1: gets you your internet to your house. Obama put in
Speaker 1: a regulation that said they can't look at your search history,
Speaker 1: your web browsing history and use that for advertising for monetization.
Speaker 1: And then the very first law that the Trump administration
Speaker 1: signed into effect was removing that regulation. Now, this was
Speaker 1: a rule that was supported by like percent of Americans
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, internet service providers shouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: snoop on what I'm doing, and they overrode that rule
Speaker 1: anyway and said, go ahead and do that. Right, say
Speaker 1: about everything you do online and it's worse than you think,
Speaker 1: Like go back and look at your searchain history, right,
Speaker 1: it's like cringe worthy awful stuff like why did I
Speaker 1: search for like kangaroo sex? Like, oh, you know there's
Speaker 1: like a commercial that came up. Um, could people twist
Speaker 1: that and give it in a way that makes you
Speaker 1: look bad? They totally can, right, Um, all of that
Speaker 1: everything you do online, everything you buy, everything you search for,
Speaker 1: every website you go to, every action you do on
Speaker 1: it is being aggregated in the back end and used
Speaker 1: to target you. Everywhere you move with your phone on
Speaker 1: is being used to target you. And understand where you are.
Speaker 1: Be creative about how evil it can be because that's happening.
Speaker 1: And if we look at abortion, for example, before before
Speaker 1: any of this row you wade stuff over the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, we know, for example, that there's anti
Speaker 1: abortion groups that we're setting up geo fenced advertising. So
Speaker 1: basically you can draw a little map and say, anytime
Speaker 1: anybody walks into this space, I want to start sending
Speaker 1: them ads, and they would draw it in a one
Speaker 1: block radius around planned parenthoods or abortion providers, and then
Speaker 1: if you crossed into that space, you would start being
Speaker 1: targeted for months with anti abortion advertising. We know that
Speaker 1: they're doing that, and they can collect data from our
Speaker 1: phones if we engage with any of that content, and
Speaker 1: so your privacy or anonymity goes away. So as you
Speaker 1: think about the convenience that you get from bringing your
Speaker 1: phone to your doctor's office, a thing you should totally
Speaker 1: be able to do, you want to think about if
Speaker 1: you should. That said, the onus should not be on
Speaker 1: individuals for this right. It's a thing that should make
Speaker 1: us push really hard for better privacy protections. They have
Speaker 1: it in Europe, right, none of this stuff would be
Speaker 1: legal in Europe in the way that it is here.
Speaker 1: They have in California to a certain extent. Um, we
Speaker 1: really need much better federal privacy laws and that will
Speaker 1: resolve a lot of these issues, and it's the thing
Speaker 1: that people should be pushing for. Um. The Electronic Frontier
Speaker 1: Foundation is a great place to go. Look um it's
Speaker 1: e f dot org. They have a whole legislative sections
Speaker 1: so you can see on the local state federal level,
Speaker 1: what legislations being in place, and like write some letters
Speaker 1: if you care about it. I'm still glad that you
Speaker 1: mentioned them. I love E F F shout out to them. UM,
Speaker 1: So you know you've mentioned a couple of like really
Speaker 1: great tips for folks if you're if you're you know it,
Speaker 1: looking for abortion pills and you want to do it,
Speaker 1: you know in a way that you're going to be
Speaker 1: less likely to be tracked you using a tour browser
Speaker 1: using incognito mode when you search, um using public WiFi.
Speaker 1: Are there other tips that you want to shout out
Speaker 1: for folks if you if they if they might need
Speaker 1: this information. So, so that's all important stuff, I would
Speaker 1: say for sure. The most important one is that you
Speaker 1: are not paying with a credit card or a debit
Speaker 1: card connected to your name. So figure out how much
Speaker 1: your medication is going to cost, use cash by like
Speaker 1: a Visa Vanilla gift card, which you can get anywhere
Speaker 1: for that amount, and then pay with the Visa Vanilla
Speaker 1: gift card. Um. So much of how we're tracked is
Speaker 1: through credit card number. UM, so definitely do that. And
Speaker 1: the other way that we're really easily tracked is through
Speaker 1: email address. So set up a fresh email address that
Speaker 1: you are only using to buy this abortion medication. UM.
Speaker 1: Proton mail is the one site that I recommended for this.
Speaker 1: It's free, it's encrypted, it's really good and secure. UM.
Speaker 1: You can just set up email address, use it to
Speaker 1: buy your medicine. Don't use it for anything else. If
Speaker 1: you do that, gift card fresh email address on something
Speaker 1: like proton mail. You know I loved Gmail, I use
Speaker 1: it right, but they track the hell out of you
Speaker 1: on Gmail. So proton mail email address, Vanilla gift card, UM,
Speaker 1: you you get eight of the protection from acting just
Speaker 1: from those two measures. So UM, you know that's easy
Speaker 1: and accessible to anybody. Definitely do that. That's really helpful.
Speaker 1: And I guess you know. One of my last questions
Speaker 1: for you. I usually ask folks who are doing tough work,
Speaker 1: whether it's digital surveillance or you know, abortion, like fighting
Speaker 1: for abortion access. I usually ask, like, what keeps you
Speaker 1: grounded and happy in this work? And I feel like
Speaker 1: I might know for you. You You know you're just like
Speaker 1: this from looking up looking you up online, I know
Speaker 1: that you're like a really cool person, like you're an
Speaker 1: ultra marathon or like you have all of this you
Speaker 1: have a whole dynamic list of really incredible interests. You
Speaker 1: also run Golden Ratio, a nonprofit that helps dogs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I grew up with the Golden Retrievers and I
Speaker 1: had a couple of dogs that I got his puppies
Speaker 1: and when they died, you know, ten years ago. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I had been wanting to rescue and just
Speaker 1: wasn't sure how to do it. You know, I got
Speaker 1: my first dog, like as I was moving out of
Speaker 1: the dorms, right, so I didn't like quite know how
Speaker 1: to adult with a dog. Um. But you know, at
Speaker 1: that point I was like, okay, like let's start doing rescues.
Speaker 1: So we started fostering um and then kind of fell
Speaker 1: into this space of rescuing senior dogs and then dogs
Speaker 1: with special medical conditions. So we're kind of like the
Speaker 1: Island of misfit toys. Um we have We just lost
Speaker 1: one this week actually, um, one of our epileptic dogs. UM.
Speaker 1: So he was number six. We have five right now,
Speaker 1: but we have a blind diabetic, we have a tripod.
Speaker 1: We have the one on prozac who also has really
Speaker 1: bad allergies. So all the dogs basically that nobody else
Speaker 1: wants to deal with because they're like way too much work. Uh.
Speaker 1: They come to us and uh and we share them
Speaker 1: online because they are both like super joyful just existing.
Speaker 1: But also the transformations that these dogs make. You know,
Speaker 1: Remy who's are blind diabetic, we got him last July. Um.
Speaker 1: He was on a chain in the backyard for five years.
Speaker 1: He had never been to the vet. He had a
Speaker 1: perfect rectangle of baldness between his shoulder blades where the
Speaker 1: chain connected to his collar and had just rubbed the
Speaker 1: fur off. He had lined his ease or luck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had never had his diabetes treated. He was blind,
Speaker 1: no training, obviously, no house breaking, and they're like, here
Speaker 1: have this dog and uh, you know, his fur had
Speaker 1: fallen out, like he was just a mess. And now
Speaker 1: he is like he comes up and he like rests
Speaker 1: his chin on my chest and he's it's fluffy monster,
Speaker 1: and his like vision is coming back and he plays
Speaker 1: with all the other dogs. And to watch that transformation
Speaker 1: of these dogs who have had, like you know, some
Speaker 1: have had like okay, slightly neglectable backgrounds, and some have
Speaker 1: come from like really profound abuse. Um to come here,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when we're in Florida, they like can
Speaker 1: go into the ocean in our backyard and swim around
Speaker 1: and we get to see that transformation, and then we
Speaker 1: share it with people online. It's been a really it's
Speaker 1: kind of an amazing thing. So there're a lot of work,
Speaker 1: but like, how how much happier does it get than
Speaker 1: like sick golden retrievers just really wanting to love on
Speaker 1: you all the time. It's a top notch balance against
Speaker 1: all this bad stuff on the internet. While Americans overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: support the right of an individual to make their own
Speaker 1: decisions about abortion, unfortunately that right is no longer protected
Speaker 1: everywhere in the United States. The Supreme Court overturned Roe
Speaker 1: versus weighed on June. Abortion is a basic health care
Speaker 1: need for millions of people who can become pregnant, and
Speaker 1: everyone should have their freedom to decide what's best for
Speaker 1: themselves and their families, including when it comes to ending
Speaker 1: a pregnancy. This decision has dire consequences for individual health
Speaker 1: and safety, and could have harsh repercussions for other landmark decisions.
Speaker 1: Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion care, threatens
Speaker 1: the health and independence of all Americans. Even if you
Speaker 1: live in a state where abortion rights are upheld. Access
Speaker 1: to safe medical procedures shouldn't be determined by location, and
Speaker 1: it should not be the privilege of a small few.
Speaker 1: You can help by donating to local abortion funds. To
Speaker 1: find out where to donate for each state, visit donations
Speaker 1: for abortion dot com. That's the number four. And if
Speaker 1: you where someone you know needs help or you want
Speaker 1: to get more involved, here are five resources. One Shout
Speaker 1: Your Abortion as a campaign to normalize abortion too. Don't
Speaker 1: Ban Equality as a campaign for companies to take a
Speaker 1: stand against abortion restrictions. Three Abortion dot Cafe has information
Speaker 1: about where to find clinics. Four Plan the Pills dot
Speaker 1: org provides early at home abortion pills, but you can
Speaker 1: keep in your medicine cabinet. And five Choice dot cr
Speaker 1: D dot CEO has a collection of these resources and more.
Speaker 1: I encourage all of y'all to speak up, take care,
Speaker 1: and spread the word. Got a story about an interesting
Speaker 1: thing in tech, or just want to say hi, You
Speaker 1: can be us at Hello at tangodi dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi dot com.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 1: me Brigittad. It's a production of I heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tara Harrison
Speaker 1: is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our
Speaker 1: contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Dodd. If you want
Speaker 1: to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts