[scarmig]

The battle to get large tech companies to respect user privacy has been fought and lost (at least in the US). Systems are explicitly built that provide portals for the government to look into people's "private" data, often without any active oversight by employees of the company itself.

I'd be the first to line up to support some kind of action to change that, but at this point every large company is so closely intertwined with the State that it's a lost cause. Building out new systems that respect privacy and users is the action item here, not raging at Facebook for Facebooking.

[cdumler]

It's also to recognize that what the Supreme Court did wasn't strike down Roe v Wade. Specifically, they struck down the idea that people do not have a right to privacy from the Constitution; thus, everything flowing from that decision is no longer supported (abortion, interracial marriage, LGBQ, etc). While some judges may attempt to argue that warrant is needed, SCOTUS has all but formally stated that "secure in your possessions" applies solely to warrants for physical items on your property. SCOTUS will likely overrule lower courts on cases. Thus, anything a company can know will be handed over.

While abortion is the hot topic, other religious purity tests will be coming, like if you have ever visited LGBQ topics. Get yourself out of the cloud. If you are minority likely to be targeted by American Christian Nationalists, do it sooner than later. Many states still have sodomy laws that haven't been just enforced.

[credit_guy]

> While some judges may attempt to argue that warrant is needed

Not sure I follow. In the case we are discussing here, Police had a warrant. Are there known cases of firms handing over personal communications without a warrant?

[pas]

how can the data portals built by these billion dollar advertising corps verify the warrants?

are they reviewed by humans? is it enough to upload a blank PDF? or there is simply a checkbox with the label "i have a warrant, sure, sure"?

because in practice it could be any of these. then if there is something in the data, then law enforcement gets a warrant after the fact. how would we know?

[tantalor]

Except in urgent cases with risk of physical harm, the default should be to challenge these requests in court, even if a warrant is offered.

[primax]

They verify them with their lawyers. You know the legal team they have on staff?

[raxxorraxor]

Problem is that laws against surveillance aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Most constitutions prohibit surveillance, but a case of abortion is quickly elevated to a matter of national security.

In my opinion we need to scrap any exemptions to state surveillance attempts. Authorities don't act responsibly here and it is very likely that former and current governments also leverage these mechanisms for political prosecution. To provide security classical investigations remain as a tool. Access to data is convenient, but protecting this data serves a higher purpose and provides security itself. The privacy <-> security dichotomy is bad propaganda and FUD.