December 6, 2024 • 33 mins
Mia talks with Kate Bertash, the executive director of the Digital Defense Fund, and Crystal, a reproductive health worker, about which of the myriad concerns set off by Trump's election are more valid than others and what people can do to avoid criminalization.
Sources:
https://mahotline.org
https://reprolegalhelpline.org
https://digitaldefensefund.org/ddf-guides/abortion-privacy-top-3
https://digitaldefensefund.org/ddf-guides/abortion-privacy
https://ifwhenhow.org/resources/selfcare-criminalized/
https://medium.com/@Kendra_Serra/fear-uncertainty-and-period-trackers-340ab8fdff74
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Dick It Happened Here, a podcast that is
quite often about abortion in this country. I'm your host,
Mia Long. Things have been very bad under the last
administration and the administration before that, and the administration before that,
and going back a long long time, things have been
not good. They've been steadily getting worse, and there is
(00:25):
a lot of fear and I think a lot of
is very justified that things are going to get even
worse under Trump. And to talk about what we need
to be afraid of and what we don't is Kate
Bertash who's the executive director of the Digital Defense Fund,
and also Crystal, who's an abortion worker and also a
volunteer for abortion hotlines. So both of you two, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Excellent, Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you both, and
I'm also excited to let Kate talk a little bit
about what the Digital Defense Fund is.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Excellent, thanks so much, longtime listener, first time color I suppose.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
The Digital Defense Fund is an organization that's been around
for actually since the last election. It was started in
response to Trump winning for the first time and We're
an organization that was put together to provide free digital
security and technology resources for the frontlines of what then
was just the abortion access movement. We've since moved to
(01:21):
support other variety of autonomy and liberation movements, but we
provide free digital security evaluations trainings. We do a lot
of project management work to help people set up what
they'd like to change about their systems and security, and
we also help people pay for it, which is a
really wonderful way to get to kind of see through
our values. So and excited to be on here today
(01:42):
to talk a little bit more about the implications for
both organizations and individuals.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
The very first wave impact of this election has been
a lot of a lot of sort of fear about
what's coming. And I wanted to, I guess, ask you
about what kinds of fears you've been seeing and and
maybe talk a little bit about which ones are more
justified than others, because I think there, I mean, there's
been some concern that I think is justified as good,
(02:08):
and there's also been some stuff that is kind of
not rooted in what the threats are.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Yeah, I think it's a great time anytime this happens
to sort of get to ask and answer the question,
which is like, how do we know? And I think
we're sort of lucky in this way that we know
what are likely to be risks now to both people
who are seeking abortions as well as people who help
them get their folks as well, like Crystal. I know
we'll provide some additional color to this as well, but
we know what kind of threats face people facing abortions
(02:36):
and those who help them, because unfortunately a lot of
these threats have been happening for the last several decades,
people have been prosecuted for suspicion of ending their own pregnancies.
We get a lot of really incredible and insightful data
from organizations like IF one how who put out these
reports that are called self care Criminalized, and they look
backwards across all of the different cases that have happened
(02:59):
to space and try to come up with sort of
like these key aspects. And one of the big things
that we know that I'm sure we're going to talk
about a lot through this episode is that the core
way that people come to the attention of law enforcement
for seeking to allegedly end their own pregnancies is through
usually someone they know reporting them, or someone responsible for
their care. So that might be like healthcare worker, social worker,
(03:21):
other representative agent of the state, and it can be
really devastating to kind of hear and I think internalize
that it's often people's family members like X or friends,
neighbor who might turn somebody in expecting or misunderstanding that
it is a crime to end your own pregnancy. I
think one of the things that's really hard about this
(03:43):
is that it involves some of the ways in which,
like I guess it's what you would call very unfortunately
typical policing practices, the way in which people's rights are
violated when they are interrogated, when they are pressured into
disclosing information. There's something called consent search that it unfortunately
be ends being a very common feature of these kinds
of cases, which is where you're put in a room
(04:04):
and you're talking to representative agent and state or a
police officer, and they sort of pressure you into agreeing
to unlock and disclose often your phone and other device,
or to otherwise share information quote unquote voluntarily. And it's
easy to see why people kind of get pressured into that.
So that is something that tends to happen in many
(04:24):
kinds of prosecutions of crimes or alleged crimes, and I
think it's hard for a lot of people to imagine
what that's like to you know, be pulled over and
searched in this way, or like they're often like people
are not the targeted victims of something like stop and frisk,
and so it's sort of hard to imagine in your
mind the way in which somebody is information or their
(04:46):
data or their case comes to the attention of law enforcement.
And so we like tend to then imagine these other
threats that feel perhaps closer to our daily experience, especially
as like often people who are not racially targeted by police,
who are not targeted by the family policing system or
have their pregnancies surveilled by the hospital systems. So people
like to imagine then that. I think a big one
(05:08):
that we all hear and I think we're all going
to take a deep breath at the same time is
period tracking apps. Yeah, I thought it was kind of remarkable,
as Crystal, I'm sure you've heard this too, mm hm.
And I would love to at lease space, Crystal for
you to add any context to sort of like the
threats that are that are present versus stuff that people imagine.
I know, we're going to spend a lot of time
(05:28):
talking about our friend the period.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
So at the time of recording, it's been like about
almost a month since election.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Day, and you know, I answer the phone for a.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
Couple of different places, places for both work and volunteering,
and there's been a lot of fear, you know, and
not saying that, like abortion access has been without fear
up until this point, but people are very afraid. And
you know, I'm getting a lot of questions about people
asking like can I be arrested for giving you my information?
(06:04):
Sending in my ID, giving you my real name? Ordering
medication online? Can the United States get my records if
I order from this provider overseas? Such as women on
web and just yeah, people asking like can I be arrested?
You know, can I do this? Will I be in trouble?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And it is something that is going We're going to.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
See an increase in criminalization and increase in abortion bans.
It is a complicated answer, you know. The strait of
it is that yet you can access abortion medication online
even if you're in a band state, even if you're
in a state with a total abortion ban, you can
order the medication from reliable resources online and have it
mail to you.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
And people do this every day.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people do this every day
without any issue. But there is also risk, and it's
kind of like what Kate was saying, where people tend
to it seems like people don't know what the risk
has been or what it looks like, because, like Kate
was saying, there's like I been all these years of
pregnancy criminalization, and we know what it looks like, and
(07:08):
it tends to not be what people are worrying about
right now, where people seem to be thinking like that
the police are going to come and arrest them for
putting in this order along with hundreds of other people
in a given day, or that the police are somehow
going to get their period tracker information on their on
their phone, and you know, like of course, you know,
practice dicial security in a way that makes you feel comfortable,
(07:31):
Like if you don't want to use a period tracking app,
you know there are safer ones to.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Use, or you don't have to use it.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
But the fact of the matter is is that even
if you are using pen and paper to record your period.
If you have an abusive partner, they're going to be
able to take pictures and collaborate with police. So the
biggest threats are always, you know, as the data shown,
like Kate was saying, going to be healthcare workers and
the people that you know such as partners, family members, neighbors, friends,
(08:00):
et cetera, who are going to get access.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
To pictures, screenshots, and of course the police and warrants.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
It's not going to look like the Handmad's scale, where
somebody's like coming in and going and forcing you to
do something and dress a certain way or etc. It's
not going to be like anything new and fancy. It's
going to be the same old police surveillance and criminalization.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
That we've been seeing.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
But there are ways in which we can protect ourselves
when we're doing that. When somebody calls and they ask me,
can I get in trouble for ordering this medication online?
And people can get really in trouble for anything in
the United States. You know, if the police want to
go after you for something, they're going to find something,
So you just have to not leave evidence. Like so, yeah,
you can order the medication online, but You can also
(08:46):
use signal and we can know that Kate's probably going
to go more into this, but you can make sure
you have disappearing messages. You can use encrypted emails and
search engines. You have to make sure you're thinking about
who can see your data and you know where your
data is being recorded. And that's really like, if you
want to protect yourself in terms of avoiding criminalization for
(09:07):
abortion and pregnancy outcomes, and you know, having a secure
and safe abortion in the United States, then you have
to look at the basics like this. And I'm going
to let Kate talk about that a little bit more
because I know that you have all the good information
that the Digital Defense one has looked into about the
apps and then how to delete data and what data
to delete and how to think about this.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Yeah, I think one of the really tough things, right
is that like so like neither I or Crystal or attorneys,
but often people are just getting a lot of advice
from attorneys, and some of our work here is to
make sure that like when you get sort of this
idea of when something might be criminalized, or often like
in this circumstance where we just like don't know actually
how it's going to show up a lot. Yet we're
(09:51):
trying to think about sort of what are the ways
we can have our digital devices and our technology sort
of support us with these by default type of settings.
One of the things that's really tough to I think
understand until you've been through it is sort of like
what it looks like when you go through any kind
of investigation. I think the other hard kind of like
(10:12):
context to get from the way we talk about it
now is that a lot of how pregnancy is criminalized,
that sort of scaffolding, that infrastructure was built during the
drug war. So one of the most common kinds of
pregnancy criminalization in America is drug testing people who are
pregnant or come to give birth without their consent. And
you know, so we basically consider like being an alleged
(10:33):
drug user to be the sort of like primary way
that our decision of like how much the digital evidence
matters has like kind of come to take shape. So
often when an investigation is happening, the police will look
for where are all the sources of information I can
find about this, because like the human body is like
not super compliant with like.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Digital forensic evidence.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
Everydediary processes I think it's like one of the most
magical things about humans is that, you know, our bodies
defy the letter of law in so many wonderful ways.
But that means that they sort of have to then
go to this like digital body of evidence to kind
of tell the story or as like all the wonderful
lawyers that advise us like to say, to sort of
like be able to draw the dots or the bndes
(11:14):
between the dots and form this kind of like coherent
set of facts of what happened between one moment to
the next. So often when we're like imagining all of
the data that lives in our phone, because unfortunately, in
many cases, when you are perhaps coerced into consenting to
the search of a device, they will often take your
phone and then have you unlock it. It gets plugged
(11:35):
into a device that makes clone of the entire drive,
and then they can sort of with many different techniques
kind of leisurely look through it for keywords to kind
of tell where there might be evidence somewhere on your
phone that you, for example, when on the internet search
for and purchased abortion medication. So yes, like period track
and data might be one portion of that but unfortunately,
(11:57):
in all the cases that we've seen, or at least
in and most of the ones that we're most familiar with,
all of that quote unquote plain text data. So where
you've just written out in your own unencrypted words into
a search bar in the search engine on your phone,
or you've sent a text message to a very close
contact with somebody telling them how you feel about your
(12:18):
pregnancy that you desire to end it, perhaps your plan
to buipills, even the receipt that comes into your inbox.
It's not necessary then to go to all these companies
and go file a for a warrant and get all
that information, because now it's in just plain text, quote
unquote on your phone, and that is far more information
than the abstract information that might come out of a
(12:40):
period tracker. So unfortunately cops don't tend to use these
in cases that we've seen because it's quite simply not necessary.
That kind of like plain text admission of your state
of mind or the statement of your intent has unfortunately
been the sort of core evidence that comes up. And
I think this has like a lot of like really
quite sad implications. I know, in prior to prepare for
this episode, we were discussing a couple of cases that
(13:03):
I know folks might be more familiar with. A big
one that came up is, you know, the case of
a mother and daughter out of Nebraska who were having
a discussion around allegedly helping the daughter to find an
end for her pregnancy over Meta's Facebook messenger. And I
think what I find really quite devastating about it, for
many reasons, is that these messages were actually ones that
(13:24):
like I think any of us could hope to have
with a very supportive parent or other person in our life.
Is like, why we have, you know, these conversations so
that we can feel connected and support it through such
a complex and affecting process. It then becomes very sad
to me that it becomes a criminal matter just because
it was in a place that that conversation, you know,
(13:44):
Meta did not have this family's back in terms of
encrypting those messages or ensuring that they were free to
speak of what they wish when they wish by default.
So I think, like when we start to give out advice,
it's been important for us at Digital Defense Fund to
kind of work backwards. I know it's been an exist crisis.
I think for everybody in the digital security space to
know that like the list of advice I could give
(14:06):
you on how to protect yourself when going through these transactions,
or when seeking support, or like just having a normal
you know, questions and going on the internet being able
to google them and get them answered. That we have
to kind of like start from the basics, because like
you have the right to find information from reliable resources,
You have the right to buy pills from a reliable source.
You have the right to like seek that kind of
(14:29):
connection and support from people in your life. And so
we're trying to cut down on like all the infinite
amount of advice that we could give and try to
like narrow it to like what is actionable, what has
the greatest impact potentially in the cases we've seen. And
I know we're going to dig into it, but I
would love to leave room to tack a little bit
more about that whenever, it's a good time in this
(14:49):
conversation to go through our top three action items.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So before we get to that, unfortunately we are under capitalism,
which means we have to do these ads. Moving back shortly.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And we are back another lawsuit. This is a little
different becase it's not a criminal charge. It was a
lawsuit in Texas.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
And I want to bring up just as an example
of like how you know our data can betray us
in these moments, is there was and this was a
really silly lawsuit has been dismissed, But there was a
Texas man who filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing three
women of helping his exife obtained abortion pills. I believe
I think it was dismissed last year, or maybe it
(15:38):
was earlier this year. It wasn't even under the aid
and event in law in Texas. It was actually, you know,
they they sought a different avenue. There actually hasn't been
a successful lawsuit against an abortion seeker under Aida bet
law or any other law in Texas in the last
two years, which I think is just something worth bringing up,
is that, you know, we actually haven't seen that happen
(15:59):
yet other than this case. But what happened in this
case is this person was planning on terminating their pregnancy.
They were talking to some friends who were helping them out,
and their iPhone was synced up to their iPad. So
if anyone's familiar with that, you can have your your
I messages app here on both devices. The I messages
that are coming to your phone are also going to
(16:20):
be going to your iPad, And her ex husband took
pictures of the I messages coming through on her iPad,
and that was what was used. Even though the lawsuit
was dismissed because it was a very silly lawsuit, total
waste of time. But that is the kind of thing
that we really you really need to be asking yourself,
(16:41):
is you know, where are my messages going?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Who is seeing my messages, who is seeing my emails?
What is it connected to?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Because yeah, because it can just look like that too.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I would say that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Is I think I had a good friend who works
in another area of security who and this is like
how we learn these things, right, is that folks who
work in the parts of security that deal with, for example,
intimate partner violence or the sort of quote unquote in
household surveillance threat model I think is vastly underestimated. I
can't recall the figures at the moment, but one of
those more recent reports from if one how actually had
(17:14):
detailed just how frequently actually that sort of like how
it is also this like intimate partner violence situation that
comes up also in a regnancy or abortion criminalization case,
and so you know, this person challenged me to think
about the exact threat model of the unlocked iPad on
the on the family coffee table, and thinking about like
when we share information and we share devices kind of
(17:37):
like where does it go? So Like, Actually, our first
piece of recommendation that we often give is is it
can sound deceptively simple and it doesn't sound technical at all,
but it is to think about like who you are
telling about your experience and about like you know, your
abortion or wanting to have an abortion, and then understanding
whether you've been clear about your boundaries, like do you
(17:58):
expect them to not share or tell with others? Like
can you delete any messages with them? Would they ask
if you ask them after the fact to delete things
for you, would they absolutely do that. I think you've
can be really challenging to kind of like zoom out
and realize, like you know, it's often not as easy
as it sounds to like kind of do this mental
inventory and think about all the different ways that like
me and my best friend talk or you know, when
(18:21):
I mentioned things to people offhand, we don't have a
really good I think like social practice of you know,
understanding the implication of like sharing other people's information without
their permission, and so like, you know, it's very impactful,
but also very difficult, and it can't be very individual
for all of us to kind of think more carefully
about with whom we share things, and how we ask
(18:41):
people to keep our confidence, and how we can even
offer each other the ability to like delete things that
we don't want to exist indefinitely. I think one of
the biggest sort of existential struggles that crosses over to
where people get support for abortions from like organizations also
includes the fact that I know has been discussed many
times on this podcast, that there is a difference in
(19:02):
how much information is kept depending on where you were
having a conversation on your phone. So an SMS text message,
those little green bubbles that go back and forth between
you and possibly other people who are on iOS like
or iOS and Android combination conversation you're friends with and
an Android might have a green bubble come back to you.
That basically means that that is going as an SMS
(19:24):
text message to your phone carrier, and that means that
it's going quote unquote in plain text, totally unencrypted to
the cell tower, and it's being held by that phone
carrier unencrypted, readable as it is as you typed it
in as far as.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
We know forever.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
It can vary depending on whether or not you move
to a different carrier, But unfortunately, phone carriers have a
very long history also of disclosing that information readily on request,
either from law enforcement or from other agencies. And I
think that is troubling. I think, like no person would
really like to know that, regardless of what that you
intend to do with your text message. But it's why
we often then encourage people as like sort of a
(20:02):
second step to try and use encrypted chat with Signal
or another trusted and encrypted chat. Again sounds overly simplistic,
but I think having those disappearing messages on, especially between
people who are seeking support from one another, whether it's
somebody in your life or another organization that's helping you
to get your abortion, there really is something to that
(20:23):
ability to again speak freely, to be best friends, helping
your friends you know, allegedly get abortion medication, or to
being a mom you know there to support your child,
no matter what. I think, it's just something really wonderful
about how using disappearing messages with signal like reflects the
values that we actually have already with each other. And
just like make sure that technology companies or corporations or
(20:45):
law enforcement don't get to get in the way of
how we want to live our lives.
Speaker 7 (20:49):
So yeah, yeah, so really supporting somebody through an abortion
includes digital security.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Yes, same with providers to people who are answering the phones.
Digital security is one of the number one priorities.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
And yeah, if you're supporting somebody with an abortion, that
should be your number one priority as well.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Well.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
And like I bet people like you know, when you
talk to people like you're often I imagine one of
the first people that they're expressing themselves to it all
about what they're going through.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And you know, I know that that the point is to.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Help people get to their procedure, but often they're bringing
a lot of other things with them and they're not
sure if they're important. I remember, like you mentioning this,
but just the amount of weight that is for for
y'all as a support too.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, And like people are scared for for good reason.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
You know, we do live in a fascist country and
a police surveillance state, so you know, their fears are founded,
but there are a lot of excellent resources. They're not alone,
like you know, you and I know this cap but
there are so many people who's got the back.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Of everyone who needs an abortion, and you know, you
may not know the safe way of going about it.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
But there are people who who are committed to digital
security and safety and you're in, you're and you avoiding criminalization.
So you know, part of the service is also reassuring
people of that too, that it is possible to have
a safe abortions.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
Even still, the next thing that I know that we
were talking about Kate in terms of like really practical,
like what you can do now to protect yourself is
having a plan for when you need to go get
(22:28):
health care and you have to interface with like a
medical team, a medical site such as an er a clinic.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
I'm an obgyn, a doctor of any kind.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
Because I think I believe the number one source of criminalization,
like who's reporting who who is criminal, Like who's calling
the police, who's reporting these and giving over the information
is as often healthcare worker.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
I believe that is the number one source.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
So you know, you do that is something to keep
you to I am a healthcare worker, but it's it's
just a fact that that's something that we all need
to be mindful of. And as a patient somebody is
seeking healthcare, it's completely appropriate to be thinking of your
own security and your safety when you're.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
If you need to access healthcare.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
So you know, one thing is that luckily abortion is
very safe and very effective. And if you don't feel
comfortable going to an er for very good reasons, there
are many good reasons to not want to go to
r including cost, including your safety and security, the chance
of criminalization. There is a free medical resource and a
(23:36):
free legal resource that you can call. I'm going to
talk about the medical resource first. There is the Miscarriage
an Abortion Hotline or m A hotline dot org. But
you can call and get some you know, feedback from
a doctor about Hey, do I even need to go
to the er?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Is this normal? Is something wrong? You actually can run
that by a safe person before just going to the er.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
And that's like one example of like having a plan,
you know, like Okay, I think I might need to
go to the er, you know, let me.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Check with a trusted resource.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Let me check with the miscarriage and Abortion Hotline if
I can get some feedback on what's going on with
some of my symptoms. And you know, it's like this
extra kind of added support that you can access as
a pregnant person or you know, if you're having a miscarriage,
if you're having an abortion, to assess your risk and
to see if you can avoid even going to a
(24:30):
medical plight given that you know, going to an emergency
room in a banned state is something that does increase
the risk of criminalization.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Yes, and I think it was from our peers M
and A hotline, And then I know the other hotline
that if you have questions also, the repro Legal Hotline
is a wonderful resource that I know in all the
show notes will include these. We try to include along
with the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, so you have folks
you can call who are professionals to ask about medical questions,
(25:00):
if folks you can call answer questions about legal questions
about your abortion of pregnancy experience. I know that it's
really hard because often when folks are in a hospital setting,
we're sort of socialized to disclose everything. You know, we
want to tell our doctor what's wrong and tell them
everything we took, and you know, you worry it might
(25:22):
be relevant, but I was reassured, I think by many
other professionals in the space, that doctors treat based on
the symptoms that you present with, regardless of how they
got there. You might be a physician where you don't know.
So you know, if you just tell folks what's going
on with your body, what you are seeing, what you
were feeling and experiencing, it is their job to treat
you regardless of what you choose to share. And I
(25:43):
would say that that's actually a true regardless of what
healthcare condition you come into the ear with, it is
your right to only disclose as much as you feel
safe doing so. So I think like that was something
that I know, again we're not used to thinking about
that as like a digital security measure, but it is
an information security measure, and I think an operational security
measure that you know, we've had to like then realize
(26:06):
that that's actually probably almost more important to tell people
before we start getting into this nitty gritty of like
things to do with your phone, is to understand that
those principles that we believe that you know, the human again,
the human body is very varied and how it experiences
something like pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion, and that you know,
folks have a responsibility to treat you regardless of you know,
(26:27):
what's in your phone or what happened before that or
this like statement of facts that are relevant to a
courtroom and not to your care.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
So, yeah, do.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You too have anything else you want to make sure
the audience knows before we head out?
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Yeah, just kind of like one more piece is kind
of our last piece of the puzzle, so you know,
just to rearterrate because I know it's good to hear
things repeated again, you know, with the actual kind of pregnancy, criminalization,
digital security advice, we talk about understanding who you're disclosing
stuff too, making sure they are clear on your expectations.
Try to if you can have conversations with them in
a secure place or private place like signal with disappearing
(27:01):
messages on. For our second item, we're going to make
a plan for if we need to get care after
the fact and ensure that we're trying to again have
our support people. Also understand that you know, doctors treat
you based on the symptoms you present with. That is,
you don't have to tell them anything else that you
do not wish to disclose. And the third thing is
that something that I think as digital security practitioners we
kind of forget is super important, which is that, like
(27:24):
you know, I think I run into this conflict whereas
like experts or smart people, we try to like imagine
in our mind, like how we would have this perfectly
like footprint free abortion, you know, like this like you
signal use Tori's bitcoin, kind of like strange way of architecting,
you know, privacy in our mind. And I call it
the ghost abortion, like that it's it's a myth. You
(27:46):
can't have one. There's no such thing as an abortion
that leads no footprint. But I think we forget then
that it actually is super meaningful to delete what's within
our power to delete. So our third recommendation for folks
is to like be aware of what's collected and and
then ensure that you know that you can delete your
browser history, you can delete your Google Maps history from
like driving to the clinic. You can delete your emails,
(28:08):
you can delete messages on certain platforms. And I think
just like understanding that deleting what you can is actually
super meaningful. I actually didn't know untill I got this
job that certain platforms, like even Google products, like if
you delete something from it, it is purge from the
servers like something like two and a half months later.
So when you delete stuff, it's very meaningful. I think
there you get more options than ever to decide like
(28:29):
how long you want to keep something. And it does
make it so that that primary thing we talked about,
like if somebody were to take my phone from me
and to like you know, make a clone of it
and try to look through it, at least it's deleted.
That copy is no longer on my device. Even if
they would have to go to like you know, get
a warrant later, that.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Is still great.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
It still gives me and my council time to respond
and also allows me to access my right to do process.
And I think so like these are like these three
simple things I know that will give to link that
our guide that kind of puts this all in a
row and very plain language. You also have a Spanish
language guide for it as well. But just to know that,
like you know, these things are within our power. I
think it's really easy to get tangled up in the
(29:08):
idea of like abstract data and things that are really
tough for us to always know when they're generated, like
ad tracker data or you know who is reselling or
doing something with my period tracking apps? There are great
options that are local only to your phone, like Yuki app.
If you are concerned about that other apps, seeing whether
or not they use best practice of security, if they've
responded and said like how they would respond to a
(29:28):
llegal request, that's awesome. I think that just sort of
taking that uncertainty away is great because tracking your period
is really important. As Crystal would tell you, it is
an essential way that you're going to know how pregnant
you are and find the option that's safest for your circumstances.
So yeah, and that that I'll pass to Crystal for
anything else you think our folks should know before we depart.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
Yeah, tracking your period is important because if you don't
know what's going on with your period and you get pregnant,
it can delay your care.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
And you know, optimally you're.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Getting the safe, quickest, most comfortable care for you, right, So.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
It's really good to track that. I use Yuki. What
I love about Yuki is that it.
Speaker 6 (30:08):
Has a pass code and it stores everything locally and
you can set to auto delete your data. And I
love all of those things, so you know, and you know,
I don't like using my paper calendar. If you love
using your paper calendar, go use your paper camp. You know,
whatever you want to do. But it is very important
to know when your last period was because it can
(30:30):
just make your care more timely. And that's really important.
Given the abortion restrictions and the abortion vans now we
are only you know, admittedly they're going to get worse.
This is going to get less safe. There is going
to be greater risk of criminalization. So when people call,
when people call and they ask like can I access pills.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Yes you can.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
You know, no matter what Trump does, you're going to
be able to get abortion pills. There are countries all
over the world that have total abortion vans and they
have the use abortion pills all the time. You know,
it's not new in America. But you know, you do
have to have a digital security plan while you're doing that.
Like so yes, you can order pills online, but yes,
(31:11):
also have a digital security plan and keep this stuff
in mind. It's really it's part of your healthcare plan.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
Now.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Yeah, because you have the right to use safe, accessible,
common sense like amazing technology products to actually obtain the
abortion that you want. We really really do believe that
like that part of autonomy, it includes digital autonomy as
well as bodely autonomy. They're all part and parsonally can't
have one without the other. So thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Yeah, thanks Fiah.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, and I want to close with one more thing
that is is related to this, but it's also what
general advice. Don't talk to cops. Oh god, you know,
I think that the common thing people say it is
it is legal for them to lie to you, and
that is true, but it's not just as legal for
them to lie to you. It is their job to
lie to you. You cannot trust a single word that
comes out of their mouths because it is their job
to get you to confess to a crime or to
(32:04):
get information out of you. They'll let you confess your crime,
So invoke your right to remain silent, get a fucking lawyer,
don't talk to them. And you know, listen, this is
advice that's not just coming from me, right like this,
this is the advice you will get from every single
person who does who does any kind of from offense.
This is what you'll get from a public defender. This
is what you'll get from anyone who has even sort
(32:24):
of interacted with the legal system. And this is also
true even if they tell you that, oh, you're not
a suspect, you're just a blah blah blah. We're trying
to get information. It is their job to lie to you.
Think about it roughly the same way of like if
you're dealing with like a country secret police, how much
information would you give them? The answer is do not.
Simply do not do this.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
Exactly and you know, no, no matter what that there
are people again like.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Crystal Sap who will support you.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Yeah, there are amazing teams across the United States, from
medical support to legal support, were there for you, and
they would all, I think wholeheartedly endorse as do we.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yes, please do not talk to cops. That's a great
note to end on.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, yeah, well, thank you to you both for coming on.
And maybe we live to see a world better than
this one where you could just do this stuff and
not have to have any concerns.
Speaker 6 (33:10):
Yeah, one day, but until then, we can do this
very securely.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
Yes, we got our own backs. We can do this together.
Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
It Could Happened Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com or check us out from the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We can
now find sources for it could Happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Cool Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Dick It Happened Here, a podcast that is
quite often about abortion in this country. I'm your host,
Mia Long. Things have been very bad under the last
administration and the administration before that, and the administration before that,
and going back a long long time, things have been
not good. They've been steadily getting worse, and there is
(00:25):
a lot of fear and I think a lot of
is very justified that things are going to get even
worse under Trump. And to talk about what we need
to be afraid of and what we don't is Kate
Bertash who's the executive director of the Digital Defense Fund,
and also Crystal, who's an abortion worker and also a
volunteer for abortion hotlines. So both of you two, welcome
to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Excellent, Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you both, and
I'm also excited to let Kate talk a little bit
about what the Digital Defense Fund is.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Excellent, thanks so much, longtime listener, first time color I suppose.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
The Digital Defense Fund is an organization that's been around
for actually since the last election. It was started in
response to Trump winning for the first time and We're
an organization that was put together to provide free digital
security and technology resources for the frontlines of what then
was just the abortion access movement. We've since moved to
(01:21):
support other variety of autonomy and liberation movements, but we
provide free digital security evaluations trainings. We do a lot
of project management work to help people set up what
they'd like to change about their systems and security, and
we also help people pay for it, which is a
really wonderful way to get to kind of see through
our values. So and excited to be on here today
(01:42):
to talk a little bit more about the implications for
both organizations and individuals.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
The very first wave impact of this election has been
a lot of a lot of sort of fear about
what's coming. And I wanted to, I guess, ask you
about what kinds of fears you've been seeing and and
maybe talk a little bit about which ones are more
justified than others, because I think there, I mean, there's
been some concern that I think is justified as good,
(02:08):
and there's also been some stuff that is kind of
not rooted in what the threats are.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Yeah, I think it's a great time anytime this happens
to sort of get to ask and answer the question,
which is like, how do we know? And I think
we're sort of lucky in this way that we know
what are likely to be risks now to both people
who are seeking abortions as well as people who help
them get their folks as well, like Crystal. I know
we'll provide some additional color to this as well, but
we know what kind of threats face people facing abortions
(02:36):
and those who help them, because unfortunately a lot of
these threats have been happening for the last several decades,
people have been prosecuted for suspicion of ending their own pregnancies.
We get a lot of really incredible and insightful data
from organizations like IF one how who put out these
reports that are called self care Criminalized, and they look
backwards across all of the different cases that have happened
(02:59):
to space and try to come up with sort of
like these key aspects. And one of the big things
that we know that I'm sure we're going to talk
about a lot through this episode is that the core
way that people come to the attention of law enforcement
for seeking to allegedly end their own pregnancies is through
usually someone they know reporting them, or someone responsible for
their care. So that might be like healthcare worker, social worker,
(03:21):
other representative agent of the state, and it can be
really devastating to kind of hear and I think internalize
that it's often people's family members like X or friends,
neighbor who might turn somebody in expecting or misunderstanding that
it is a crime to end your own pregnancy. I
think one of the things that's really hard about this
(03:43):
is that it involves some of the ways in which,
like I guess it's what you would call very unfortunately
typical policing practices, the way in which people's rights are
violated when they are interrogated, when they are pressured into
disclosing information. There's something called consent search that it unfortunately
be ends being a very common feature of these kinds
of cases, which is where you're put in a room
(04:04):
and you're talking to representative agent and state or a
police officer, and they sort of pressure you into agreeing
to unlock and disclose often your phone and other device,
or to otherwise share information quote unquote voluntarily. And it's
easy to see why people kind of get pressured into that.
So that is something that tends to happen in many
(04:24):
kinds of prosecutions of crimes or alleged crimes, and I
think it's hard for a lot of people to imagine
what that's like to you know, be pulled over and
searched in this way, or like they're often like people
are not the targeted victims of something like stop and frisk,
and so it's sort of hard to imagine in your
mind the way in which somebody is information or their
(04:46):
data or their case comes to the attention of law enforcement.
And so we like tend to then imagine these other
threats that feel perhaps closer to our daily experience, especially
as like often people who are not racially targeted by police,
who are not targeted by the family policing system or
have their pregnancies surveilled by the hospital systems. So people
like to imagine then that. I think a big one
(05:08):
that we all hear and I think we're all going
to take a deep breath at the same time is
period tracking apps. Yeah, I thought it was kind of remarkable,
as Crystal, I'm sure you've heard this too, mm hm.
And I would love to at lease space, Crystal for
you to add any context to sort of like the
threats that are that are present versus stuff that people imagine.
I know, we're going to spend a lot of time
(05:28):
talking about our friend the period.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
So at the time of recording, it's been like about
almost a month since election.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Day, and you know, I answer the phone for a.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
Couple of different places, places for both work and volunteering,
and there's been a lot of fear, you know, and
not saying that, like abortion access has been without fear
up until this point, but people are very afraid. And
you know, I'm getting a lot of questions about people
asking like can I be arrested for giving you my information?
(06:04):
Sending in my ID, giving you my real name? Ordering
medication online? Can the United States get my records if
I order from this provider overseas? Such as women on
web and just yeah, people asking like can I be arrested?
You know, can I do this? Will I be in trouble?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And it is something that is going We're going to.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
See an increase in criminalization and increase in abortion bans.
It is a complicated answer, you know. The strait of
it is that yet you can access abortion medication online
even if you're in a band state, even if you're
in a state with a total abortion ban, you can
order the medication from reliable resources online and have it
mail to you.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
And people do this every day.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people do this every day
without any issue. But there is also risk, and it's
kind of like what Kate was saying, where people tend
to it seems like people don't know what the risk
has been or what it looks like, because, like Kate
was saying, there's like I been all these years of
pregnancy criminalization, and we know what it looks like, and
(07:08):
it tends to not be what people are worrying about
right now, where people seem to be thinking like that
the police are going to come and arrest them for
putting in this order along with hundreds of other people
in a given day, or that the police are somehow
going to get their period tracker information on their on
their phone, and you know, like of course, you know,
practice dicial security in a way that makes you feel comfortable,
(07:31):
Like if you don't want to use a period tracking app,
you know there are safer ones to.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Use, or you don't have to use it.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
But the fact of the matter is is that even
if you are using pen and paper to record your period.
If you have an abusive partner, they're going to be
able to take pictures and collaborate with police. So the
biggest threats are always, you know, as the data shown,
like Kate was saying, going to be healthcare workers and
the people that you know such as partners, family members, neighbors, friends,
(08:00):
et cetera, who are going to get access.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
To pictures, screenshots, and of course the police and warrants.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
It's not going to look like the Handmad's scale, where
somebody's like coming in and going and forcing you to
do something and dress a certain way or etc. It's
not going to be like anything new and fancy. It's
going to be the same old police surveillance and criminalization.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
That we've been seeing.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
But there are ways in which we can protect ourselves
when we're doing that. When somebody calls and they ask me,
can I get in trouble for ordering this medication online?
And people can get really in trouble for anything in
the United States. You know, if the police want to
go after you for something, they're going to find something,
So you just have to not leave evidence. Like so, yeah,
you can order the medication online, but You can also
(08:46):
use signal and we can know that Kate's probably going
to go more into this, but you can make sure
you have disappearing messages. You can use encrypted emails and
search engines. You have to make sure you're thinking about
who can see your data and you know where your
data is being recorded. And that's really like, if you
want to protect yourself in terms of avoiding criminalization for
(09:07):
abortion and pregnancy outcomes, and you know, having a secure
and safe abortion in the United States, then you have
to look at the basics like this. And I'm going
to let Kate talk about that a little bit more
because I know that you have all the good information
that the Digital Defense one has looked into about the
apps and then how to delete data and what data
to delete and how to think about this.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Yeah, I think one of the really tough things, right
is that like so like neither I or Crystal or attorneys,
but often people are just getting a lot of advice
from attorneys, and some of our work here is to
make sure that like when you get sort of this
idea of when something might be criminalized, or often like
in this circumstance where we just like don't know actually
how it's going to show up a lot. Yet we're
(09:51):
trying to think about sort of what are the ways
we can have our digital devices and our technology sort
of support us with these by default type of settings.
One of the things that's really tough to I think
understand until you've been through it is sort of like
what it looks like when you go through any kind
of investigation. I think the other hard kind of like
(10:12):
context to get from the way we talk about it
now is that a lot of how pregnancy is criminalized,
that sort of scaffolding, that infrastructure was built during the
drug war. So one of the most common kinds of
pregnancy criminalization in America is drug testing people who are
pregnant or come to give birth without their consent. And
you know, so we basically consider like being an alleged
(10:33):
drug user to be the sort of like primary way
that our decision of like how much the digital evidence
matters has like kind of come to take shape. So
often when an investigation is happening, the police will look
for where are all the sources of information I can
find about this, because like the human body is like
not super compliant with like.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Digital forensic evidence.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
Everydediary processes I think it's like one of the most
magical things about humans is that, you know, our bodies
defy the letter of law in so many wonderful ways.
But that means that they sort of have to then
go to this like digital body of evidence to kind
of tell the story or as like all the wonderful
lawyers that advise us like to say, to sort of
like be able to draw the dots or the bndes
(11:14):
between the dots and form this kind of like coherent
set of facts of what happened between one moment to
the next. So often when we're like imagining all of
the data that lives in our phone, because unfortunately, in
many cases, when you are perhaps coerced into consenting to
the search of a device, they will often take your
phone and then have you unlock it. It gets plugged
(11:35):
into a device that makes clone of the entire drive,
and then they can sort of with many different techniques
kind of leisurely look through it for keywords to kind
of tell where there might be evidence somewhere on your
phone that you, for example, when on the internet search
for and purchased abortion medication. So yes, like period track
and data might be one portion of that but unfortunately,
(11:57):
in all the cases that we've seen, or at least
in and most of the ones that we're most familiar with,
all of that quote unquote plain text data. So where
you've just written out in your own unencrypted words into
a search bar in the search engine on your phone,
or you've sent a text message to a very close
contact with somebody telling them how you feel about your
(12:18):
pregnancy that you desire to end it, perhaps your plan
to buipills, even the receipt that comes into your inbox.
It's not necessary then to go to all these companies
and go file a for a warrant and get all
that information, because now it's in just plain text, quote
unquote on your phone, and that is far more information
than the abstract information that might come out of a
(12:40):
period tracker. So unfortunately cops don't tend to use these
in cases that we've seen because it's quite simply not necessary.
That kind of like plain text admission of your state
of mind or the statement of your intent has unfortunately
been the sort of core evidence that comes up. And
I think this has like a lot of like really
quite sad implications. I know, in prior to prepare for
this episode, we were discussing a couple of cases that
(13:03):
I know folks might be more familiar with. A big
one that came up is, you know, the case of
a mother and daughter out of Nebraska who were having
a discussion around allegedly helping the daughter to find an
end for her pregnancy over Meta's Facebook messenger. And I
think what I find really quite devastating about it, for
many reasons, is that these messages were actually ones that
(13:24):
like I think any of us could hope to have
with a very supportive parent or other person in our life.
Is like, why we have, you know, these conversations so
that we can feel connected and support it through such
a complex and affecting process. It then becomes very sad
to me that it becomes a criminal matter just because
it was in a place that that conversation, you know,
(13:44):
Meta did not have this family's back in terms of
encrypting those messages or ensuring that they were free to
speak of what they wish when they wish by default.
So I think, like when we start to give out advice,
it's been important for us at Digital Defense Fund to
kind of work backwards. I know it's been an exist crisis.
I think for everybody in the digital security space to
know that like the list of advice I could give
(14:06):
you on how to protect yourself when going through these transactions,
or when seeking support, or like just having a normal
you know, questions and going on the internet being able
to google them and get them answered. That we have
to kind of like start from the basics, because like
you have the right to find information from reliable resources,
You have the right to buy pills from a reliable source.
You have the right to like seek that kind of
(14:29):
connection and support from people in your life. And so
we're trying to cut down on like all the infinite
amount of advice that we could give and try to
like narrow it to like what is actionable, what has
the greatest impact potentially in the cases we've seen. And
I know we're going to dig into it, but I
would love to leave room to tack a little bit
more about that whenever, it's a good time in this
(14:49):
conversation to go through our top three action items.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So before we get to that, unfortunately we are under capitalism,
which means we have to do these ads. Moving back shortly.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And we are back another lawsuit. This is a little
different becase it's not a criminal charge. It was a
lawsuit in Texas.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
And I want to bring up just as an example
of like how you know our data can betray us
in these moments, is there was and this was a
really silly lawsuit has been dismissed, But there was a
Texas man who filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing three
women of helping his exife obtained abortion pills. I believe
I think it was dismissed last year, or maybe it
(15:38):
was earlier this year. It wasn't even under the aid
and event in law in Texas. It was actually, you know,
they they sought a different avenue. There actually hasn't been
a successful lawsuit against an abortion seeker under Aida bet
law or any other law in Texas in the last
two years, which I think is just something worth bringing up,
is that, you know, we actually haven't seen that happen
(15:59):
yet other than this case. But what happened in this
case is this person was planning on terminating their pregnancy.
They were talking to some friends who were helping them out,
and their iPhone was synced up to their iPad. So
if anyone's familiar with that, you can have your your
I messages app here on both devices. The I messages
that are coming to your phone are also going to
(16:20):
be going to your iPad, And her ex husband took
pictures of the I messages coming through on her iPad,
and that was what was used. Even though the lawsuit
was dismissed because it was a very silly lawsuit, total
waste of time. But that is the kind of thing
that we really you really need to be asking yourself,
(16:41):
is you know, where are my messages going?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Who is seeing my messages, who is seeing my emails?
What is it connected to?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Because yeah, because it can just look like that too.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I would say that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Is I think I had a good friend who works
in another area of security who and this is like
how we learn these things, right, is that folks who
work in the parts of security that deal with, for example,
intimate partner violence or the sort of quote unquote in
household surveillance threat model I think is vastly underestimated. I
can't recall the figures at the moment, but one of
those more recent reports from if one how actually had
(17:14):
detailed just how frequently actually that sort of like how
it is also this like intimate partner violence situation that
comes up also in a regnancy or abortion criminalization case,
and so you know, this person challenged me to think
about the exact threat model of the unlocked iPad on
the on the family coffee table, and thinking about like
when we share information and we share devices kind of
(17:37):
like where does it go? So Like, Actually, our first
piece of recommendation that we often give is is it
can sound deceptively simple and it doesn't sound technical at all,
but it is to think about like who you are
telling about your experience and about like you know, your
abortion or wanting to have an abortion, and then understanding
whether you've been clear about your boundaries, like do you
(17:58):
expect them to not share or tell with others? Like
can you delete any messages with them? Would they ask
if you ask them after the fact to delete things
for you, would they absolutely do that. I think you've
can be really challenging to kind of like zoom out
and realize, like you know, it's often not as easy
as it sounds to like kind of do this mental
inventory and think about all the different ways that like
me and my best friend talk or you know, when
(18:21):
I mentioned things to people offhand, we don't have a
really good I think like social practice of you know,
understanding the implication of like sharing other people's information without
their permission, and so like, you know, it's very impactful,
but also very difficult, and it can't be very individual
for all of us to kind of think more carefully
about with whom we share things, and how we ask
(18:41):
people to keep our confidence, and how we can even
offer each other the ability to like delete things that
we don't want to exist indefinitely. I think one of
the biggest sort of existential struggles that crosses over to
where people get support for abortions from like organizations also
includes the fact that I know has been discussed many
times on this podcast, that there is a difference in
(19:02):
how much information is kept depending on where you were
having a conversation on your phone. So an SMS text message,
those little green bubbles that go back and forth between
you and possibly other people who are on iOS like
or iOS and Android combination conversation you're friends with and
an Android might have a green bubble come back to you.
That basically means that that is going as an SMS
(19:24):
text message to your phone carrier, and that means that
it's going quote unquote in plain text, totally unencrypted to
the cell tower, and it's being held by that phone
carrier unencrypted, readable as it is as you typed it
in as far as.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
We know forever.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
It can vary depending on whether or not you move
to a different carrier, But unfortunately, phone carriers have a
very long history also of disclosing that information readily on request,
either from law enforcement or from other agencies. And I
think that is troubling. I think, like no person would
really like to know that, regardless of what that you
intend to do with your text message. But it's why
we often then encourage people as like sort of a
(20:02):
second step to try and use encrypted chat with Signal
or another trusted and encrypted chat. Again sounds overly simplistic,
but I think having those disappearing messages on, especially between
people who are seeking support from one another, whether it's
somebody in your life or another organization that's helping you
to get your abortion, there really is something to that
(20:23):
ability to again speak freely, to be best friends, helping
your friends you know, allegedly get abortion medication, or to
being a mom you know there to support your child,
no matter what. I think, it's just something really wonderful
about how using disappearing messages with signal like reflects the
values that we actually have already with each other. And
just like make sure that technology companies or corporations or
(20:45):
law enforcement don't get to get in the way of
how we want to live our lives.
Speaker 7 (20:49):
So yeah, yeah, so really supporting somebody through an abortion
includes digital security.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Yes, same with providers to people who are answering the phones.
Digital security is one of the number one priorities.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
And yeah, if you're supporting somebody with an abortion, that
should be your number one priority as well.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Well.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
And like I bet people like you know, when you
talk to people like you're often I imagine one of
the first people that they're expressing themselves to it all
about what they're going through.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And you know, I know that that the point is to.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Help people get to their procedure, but often they're bringing
a lot of other things with them and they're not
sure if they're important. I remember, like you mentioning this,
but just the amount of weight that is for for
y'all as a support too.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, And like people are scared for for good reason.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
You know, we do live in a fascist country and
a police surveillance state, so you know, their fears are founded,
but there are a lot of excellent resources. They're not alone,
like you know, you and I know this cap but
there are so many people who's got the back.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Of everyone who needs an abortion, and you know, you
may not know the safe way of going about it.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
But there are people who who are committed to digital
security and safety and you're in, you're and you avoiding criminalization.
So you know, part of the service is also reassuring
people of that too, that it is possible to have
a safe abortions.
Speaker 7 (22:06):
Even still, the next thing that I know that we
were talking about Kate in terms of like really practical,
like what you can do now to protect yourself is
having a plan for when you need to go get
(22:28):
health care and you have to interface with like a
medical team, a medical site such as an er a clinic.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
I'm an obgyn, a doctor of any kind.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
Because I think I believe the number one source of criminalization,
like who's reporting who who is criminal, Like who's calling
the police, who's reporting these and giving over the information
is as often healthcare worker.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
I believe that is the number one source.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
So you know, you do that is something to keep
you to I am a healthcare worker, but it's it's
just a fact that that's something that we all need
to be mindful of. And as a patient somebody is
seeking healthcare, it's completely appropriate to be thinking of your
own security and your safety when you're.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
If you need to access healthcare.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
So you know, one thing is that luckily abortion is
very safe and very effective. And if you don't feel
comfortable going to an er for very good reasons, there
are many good reasons to not want to go to
r including cost, including your safety and security, the chance
of criminalization. There is a free medical resource and a
(23:36):
free legal resource that you can call. I'm going to
talk about the medical resource first. There is the Miscarriage
an Abortion Hotline or m A hotline dot org. But
you can call and get some you know, feedback from
a doctor about Hey, do I even need to go
to the er?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Is this normal? Is something wrong? You actually can run
that by a safe person before just going to the er.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
And that's like one example of like having a plan,
you know, like Okay, I think I might need to
go to the er, you know, let me.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Check with a trusted resource.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Let me check with the miscarriage and Abortion Hotline if
I can get some feedback on what's going on with
some of my symptoms. And you know, it's like this
extra kind of added support that you can access as
a pregnant person or you know, if you're having a miscarriage,
if you're having an abortion, to assess your risk and
to see if you can avoid even going to a
(24:30):
medical plight given that you know, going to an emergency
room in a banned state is something that does increase
the risk of criminalization.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Yes, and I think it was from our peers M
and A hotline, And then I know the other hotline
that if you have questions also, the repro Legal Hotline
is a wonderful resource that I know in all the
show notes will include these. We try to include along
with the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, so you have folks
you can call who are professionals to ask about medical questions,
(25:00):
if folks you can call answer questions about legal questions
about your abortion of pregnancy experience. I know that it's
really hard because often when folks are in a hospital setting,
we're sort of socialized to disclose everything. You know, we
want to tell our doctor what's wrong and tell them
everything we took, and you know, you worry it might
(25:22):
be relevant, but I was reassured, I think by many
other professionals in the space, that doctors treat based on
the symptoms that you present with, regardless of how they
got there. You might be a physician where you don't know.
So you know, if you just tell folks what's going
on with your body, what you are seeing, what you
were feeling and experiencing, it is their job to treat
you regardless of what you choose to share. And I
(25:43):
would say that that's actually a true regardless of what
healthcare condition you come into the ear with, it is
your right to only disclose as much as you feel
safe doing so. So I think like that was something
that I know, again we're not used to thinking about
that as like a digital security measure, but it is
an information security measure, and I think an operational security
measure that you know, we've had to like then realize
(26:06):
that that's actually probably almost more important to tell people
before we start getting into this nitty gritty of like
things to do with your phone, is to understand that
those principles that we believe that you know, the human again,
the human body is very varied and how it experiences
something like pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion, and that you know,
folks have a responsibility to treat you regardless of you know,
(26:27):
what's in your phone or what happened before that or
this like statement of facts that are relevant to a
courtroom and not to your care.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
So, yeah, do.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You too have anything else you want to make sure
the audience knows before we head out?
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Yeah, just kind of like one more piece is kind
of our last piece of the puzzle, so you know,
just to rearterrate because I know it's good to hear
things repeated again, you know, with the actual kind of pregnancy, criminalization,
digital security advice, we talk about understanding who you're disclosing
stuff too, making sure they are clear on your expectations.
Try to if you can have conversations with them in
a secure place or private place like signal with disappearing
(27:01):
messages on. For our second item, we're going to make
a plan for if we need to get care after
the fact and ensure that we're trying to again have
our support people. Also understand that you know, doctors treat
you based on the symptoms you present with. That is,
you don't have to tell them anything else that you
do not wish to disclose. And the third thing is
that something that I think as digital security practitioners we
kind of forget is super important, which is that, like
(27:24):
you know, I think I run into this conflict whereas
like experts or smart people, we try to like imagine
in our mind, like how we would have this perfectly
like footprint free abortion, you know, like this like you
signal use Tori's bitcoin, kind of like strange way of architecting,
you know, privacy in our mind. And I call it
the ghost abortion, like that it's it's a myth. You
(27:46):
can't have one. There's no such thing as an abortion
that leads no footprint. But I think we forget then
that it actually is super meaningful to delete what's within
our power to delete. So our third recommendation for folks
is to like be aware of what's collected and and
then ensure that you know that you can delete your
browser history, you can delete your Google Maps history from
like driving to the clinic. You can delete your emails,
(28:08):
you can delete messages on certain platforms. And I think
just like understanding that deleting what you can is actually
super meaningful. I actually didn't know untill I got this
job that certain platforms, like even Google products, like if
you delete something from it, it is purge from the
servers like something like two and a half months later.
So when you delete stuff, it's very meaningful. I think
there you get more options than ever to decide like
(28:29):
how long you want to keep something. And it does
make it so that that primary thing we talked about,
like if somebody were to take my phone from me
and to like you know, make a clone of it
and try to look through it, at least it's deleted.
That copy is no longer on my device. Even if
they would have to go to like you know, get
a warrant later, that.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Is still great.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
It still gives me and my council time to respond
and also allows me to access my right to do process.
And I think so like these are like these three
simple things I know that will give to link that
our guide that kind of puts this all in a
row and very plain language. You also have a Spanish
language guide for it as well. But just to know that,
like you know, these things are within our power. I
think it's really easy to get tangled up in the
(29:08):
idea of like abstract data and things that are really
tough for us to always know when they're generated, like
ad tracker data or you know who is reselling or
doing something with my period tracking apps? There are great
options that are local only to your phone, like Yuki app.
If you are concerned about that other apps, seeing whether
or not they use best practice of security, if they've
responded and said like how they would respond to a
(29:28):
llegal request, that's awesome. I think that just sort of
taking that uncertainty away is great because tracking your period
is really important. As Crystal would tell you, it is
an essential way that you're going to know how pregnant
you are and find the option that's safest for your circumstances.
So yeah, and that that I'll pass to Crystal for
anything else you think our folks should know before we depart.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
Yeah, tracking your period is important because if you don't
know what's going on with your period and you get pregnant,
it can delay your care.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
And you know, optimally you're.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Getting the safe, quickest, most comfortable care for you, right, So.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
It's really good to track that. I use Yuki. What
I love about Yuki is that it.
Speaker 6 (30:08):
Has a pass code and it stores everything locally and
you can set to auto delete your data. And I
love all of those things, so you know, and you know,
I don't like using my paper calendar. If you love
using your paper calendar, go use your paper camp. You know,
whatever you want to do. But it is very important
to know when your last period was because it can
(30:30):
just make your care more timely. And that's really important.
Given the abortion restrictions and the abortion vans now we
are only you know, admittedly they're going to get worse.
This is going to get less safe. There is going
to be greater risk of criminalization. So when people call,
when people call and they ask like can I access pills.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Yes you can.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
You know, no matter what Trump does, you're going to
be able to get abortion pills. There are countries all
over the world that have total abortion vans and they
have the use abortion pills all the time. You know,
it's not new in America. But you know, you do
have to have a digital security plan while you're doing that.
Like so yes, you can order pills online, but yes,
(31:11):
also have a digital security plan and keep this stuff
in mind. It's really it's part of your healthcare plan.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
Now.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Yeah, because you have the right to use safe, accessible,
common sense like amazing technology products to actually obtain the
abortion that you want. We really really do believe that
like that part of autonomy, it includes digital autonomy as
well as bodely autonomy. They're all part and parsonally can't
have one without the other. So thanks for having us on.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Yeah, thanks Fiah.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, and I want to close with one more thing
that is is related to this, but it's also what
general advice. Don't talk to cops. Oh god, you know,
I think that the common thing people say it is
it is legal for them to lie to you, and
that is true, but it's not just as legal for
them to lie to you. It is their job to
lie to you. You cannot trust a single word that
comes out of their mouths because it is their job
to get you to confess to a crime or to
(32:04):
get information out of you. They'll let you confess your crime,
So invoke your right to remain silent, get a fucking lawyer,
don't talk to them. And you know, listen, this is
advice that's not just coming from me, right like this,
this is the advice you will get from every single
person who does who does any kind of from offense.
This is what you'll get from a public defender. This
is what you'll get from anyone who has even sort
(32:24):
of interacted with the legal system. And this is also
true even if they tell you that, oh, you're not
a suspect, you're just a blah blah blah. We're trying
to get information. It is their job to lie to you.
Think about it roughly the same way of like if
you're dealing with like a country secret police, how much
information would you give them? The answer is do not.
Simply do not do this.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
Exactly and you know, no, no matter what that there
are people again like.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Crystal Sap who will support you.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Yeah, there are amazing teams across the United States, from
medical support to legal support, were there for you, and
they would all, I think wholeheartedly endorse as do we.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yes, please do not talk to cops. That's a great
note to end on.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, yeah, well, thank you to you both for coming on.
And maybe we live to see a world better than
this one where you could just do this stuff and
not have to have any concerns.
Speaker 6 (33:10):
Yeah, one day, but until then, we can do this
very securely.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
Yes, we got our own backs. We can do this together.
Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
It Could Happened Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com or check us out from the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We can
now find sources for it could Happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.