Dissent

Sep 252023
 
 September 25, 2023  Posted by  Court, Healthcare, U.S.

In July, PogoWasRight noted that a Nebraska teen had been sentenced to 90 days in jail  in a case that involved obtaining abortion pills in violation of state law. The teen had enlisted her mother’s help to get the pills and she was more than 20 weeks pregnant at the time she reportedly took them. According to news reports, she wasn’t sentenced for getting the pills, but for improper disposal of human skeletal remains.  Other charges stemming from the incident were dropped as part of a plea deal.

Now her mother, who also pleaded guilty in July, has been sentenced.  HuffPost recently reported:

A Nebraska mother who pleaded guilty to giving her teenage daughter pills for an abortion and helping to burn and conceal the fetus was sentenced Friday to two years in prison.

The mother pleaded guilty in July to tampering with human remains, false reporting and providing an abortion after at least 20 weeks of gestation, which is illegal in Nebraska. Madison County District Judge Mark Johnson sentenced her Friday to one year in prison for each count, with the first two to run concurrently.

Read more at HuffPost. PogoWasRight does not know whether the teen had attempted to get an abortion earlier in the pregnancy, but criminalizing healthcare decisions and sending two people to jail for trying to cope with a bad situation doesn’t help anyone.

h/t, Joe Cadillic

Sep 222023
 
 September 22, 2023  Posted by  Artificial Intelligence, Breaches, Non-U.S.

Ioanna Lykiardopoulou reports:

Poland’s data protection watchdog is investigating OpenAI’s ChatGPT after an unnamed complainant accused the company of GDPR breaches.

“The case concerns the violation of many provisions on the protection of personal data, which is why we will ask OpenAI to answer a number of questions in order to thoroughly conduct the administrative proceedings,” said Jan Nowak, president of the country’s Personal Data Protection Office (UODO).

He added that “these aren’t the first doubts” about the AI tool’s compliance with European principles of data privacy and security.

Read more at TNW.

Sep 212023
 
 September 21, 2023  Posted by  Featured News, Laws, Non-U.S.

Joe Mullin of EFF writes:

The U.K. Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which says it will make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online. In reality, the OSB will lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users. The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the privacy and security of U.K. residents, but internet users worldwide.

A Backdoor That Undermines Encryption

A clause of the bill allows Ofcom, the British telecom regulator, to serve a notice requiring tech companies to scan their users–all of them–for child abuse content.This would affect even messages and files that are end-to-end encrypted to protect user privacy. As enacted, the OSB allows the government to force companies to build technology that can scan regardless of encryption–in other words, build a backdoor.

These types of client-side scanning systems amount to “Bugs in Our Pockets,” and a group of leading computer security experts has reached the same conclusion as EFF–they undermine privacy and security for everyone. That’s why EFF has strongly opposed the OSB for years.

It’s a basic human right to have a private conversation. This right is even more important for the most vulnerable people. If the U.K. uses its new powers to scan people’s data, lawmakers will damage the security people need to protect themselves from harassers, data thieves, authoritarian governments, and others. Paradoxically, U.K. lawmakers have created these new risks in the name of online safety.

The U.K. government has made some recent statements indicating that it actually realizes that getting around end-to-end encryption isn’t compatible with protecting user privacy. But given the text of the law, neither the government’s private statements to tech companies, nor its weak public assurances, are enough to protect the human rights of British people or internet users around the world.

Censorship and Age-Gating

Online platforms will be expected to remove content that the U.K. government views as inappropriate for children. If they don’t, they’ll face heavy penalties. The problem is, in the U.K. as in the U.S., people do not agree about what type of content is harmful for kids. Putting that decision in the hands of government regulators will lead to politicized censorship decisions.

The OSB will also lead to harmful age-verification systems. This violates fundamental principles about anonymous and simple access that has existed since the beginning of the Internet. You shouldn’t have to show your ID to get online. Age-gating systems meant to keep out kids invariably lead to adults losing their rights to private speech, and anonymous speech, which is sometimes necessary.

In the coming months, we’ll be watching what type of regulations the U.K. government publishes describing how it will use these new powers to regulate the internet. If the regulators claim their right to require the creation of dangerous backdoors in encrypted services, we expect encrypted messaging services to keep their promises and  withdraw from the U.K. if that nation’s government compromises their ability to protect other users.

This article originally appeared on EFF.

Sep 202023
 
 September 20, 2023  Posted by  Breaches, Business, Court

Abigail Adcox reports:

A Covington & Burling client whose information may have been exposed in a 2020 cyberattack is insisting that its identity should not be disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had sought out client names in a subpoena to the law firm.

The client, following a subpoena battle between Covington and SEC, has filed a motion to intervene in the case under a pseudonym. The client’s motion was signed by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of the District of Columbia on Wednesday.

Read more at Law.com.