Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 215 posts

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#131

Post by falcolas »

tablespoon wrote: post #126
mvdwoord wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was overturned no? So is this now also more ironclad? And the whole point of elections and politics and lawmaking is to keep up with changing culture and norms? I see your point in practicality, but are they mutually exclusive?

>> In the US, a ruling like this(ironic to say right now) is so much more ironclad than a law is in general, if people are going to come after it. > This was overturned no? So is this now also more ironclad? Roe v. Wade was basically a backdoor constitutional amendment where seven judges bypassed the actual process for amending the constitution (and also ran ahead of the legislatures in all but a handful of states).…

> they should be able to use the courts to get the amendments they want

The court makes tens to hundreds of interpretations of case law and its interaction with the constitution every year. They've generated thousands, if not tens of thousands, of pages of interpretations and case law over the years.

And it's worth noting that rights not explicitly enumerated in the constitution are still rights protected by the constitution. The current SC just disagrees with the previous SC's decision on what those un-enumerated rights are.

EDIT: Side note - the court wasn't even being asked to overturn Roe v Wade - they took that upon themselves. All that was being contested was a state's ability to limit abortions beyond the first trimester (something commonly allowed as part of the "balance" between states rights and women's rights built upon RvW). Highly sus that they decided to take this on with such an unrelated court case.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#132

Post by martinflack »

klyrs wrote: post #113
cato_the_elder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why was it never codified in law Because a large part of the country is against late-stage abortions, and there is a need to keep a semblance of democracy?

It's a federation, not a democracy. States themselves are federations of legislative districts, the borders of which are drawn by the same legislature (without, thanks to today's supreme court, the checks and balances of judicial oversight). In a democracy, sensible legislation that appeases a large majority is possible.

> States themselves are federations of legislative districts

The variety of ways that US States internally allow municipalities to have their own rules is actually quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#133

Post by tablespoon »

cogman10 wrote: post #124
heartbeats wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next problem is that in order to pass new laws, you need to have a super-majority in the senate, a majority in the house, and the presidency to go along with the law. Pretty difficult when the republican party has decided they want absolutely no new laws and certainly no expansion of rights. (See: how hard they are fighting against the HR-1 the voter rights act [2]) Why isn't this abolished, then? Does a majori…

> What am I missing, here? Genuinely curious. Population distribution. There are 50 states in the US. Each state gets 2 senators. States with low populations (think, Wyoming) tend to lean republican while the few states with high populations tend to lean democrat. The end result is these rural states end up with a disproportionate level of voting power in the senate where the fillibuster exists. Were the US populatio…

> There's also been a massive shift in political attitude with the republicans. Back in the Clinton presidency, democrats and republicans often worked together on bills and compromises to keep the government functioning. This changed with the tea party and Newt Gingrich at the end of Clinton's presidency.

It's changed with the Democrats, too. It wasn't too long go that the Democrats had a significant contingent of pro-life officials and were competitive in conservative farm states.

The nationalization of politics has created an unhealthy situation where candidates have to pass national litmus tests to win a nomination that will doom them in their actual election.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#134

Post by falcolas »

SllX wrote: post #94
matthewdgreen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US's constitutional system doesn't work well in a polarized environment. There are too many veto points, two conflicting branches that can each claim to be "legitimately elected", and even the elected branches don't represent the popular will due to compromises made in the pre-modern era. We've papered over the effects of this paralysis by delegating power to the executive agencies and the Courts, but this era is…

The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law. I wouldn’t expect any kind of legislation coming out of Congress on this (but many attempts both ways regardless), and I think if there were any that passed that would not actually help our politics. Not everything need be an Act of Congress. Every State has an elected legislature.

> The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law.

So, I'd actually disagree. This argument isn't well thought out yet, but... until you're actually breaking local laws, most of the laws you interact with are actually interstate and international laws. Most of the businesses you interact with are either engaging in interstate or international commerce.

For example, all of your interactions with Amazon are governed by Federal laws first and foremost. With state taxes being the notable exception.

Even your rent, mortgage, power, water, internet... they're all private companies that are quite often multi-state or multi-national.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#135

Post by dragonwriter »

fallingknife wrote: post #129
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ This. Roe vs. Wade wasn't about abortion, it was about privacy. That's why they're already talking about voiding gay and interracial marriage bans, they were based on that precedent. Here's a consequence that should speak to tech-types: there are two arguments against mandatory NSA backdoors into encryption used by tech companies, 1) a fundamental right to privacy, and 2) these backdoors are intrinsically hackable.…

The problem I have with this is that the court clearly never intended there to be an actual right to privacy, or else things like recreational drugs and prostitution would be legal, and mass data collection and tracking by the government would not. So really it seems like the right to "privacy" was contrived as a way to conjure a constitutional right to abortion, but never actually applied in all the ways we actually…

> Interracial marriage bans are clearly ruled out by equal protection, so that really isn't a concern.

It actually is, though indirectly; a key point of the logic underlying those bans is finding an unenumerated right to marriage as a fundamental right which cannot be unequally treated under the EPC, just as Roe relies on the unenumerated fundamental right to privacy which cannot be deprived without due process under the Due Process Clause.

(And it is even moreso when you stop pretending that a particular Supreme Court actually strictly applies the rules it articulates rather than acting politically, in the face of ample evidence to the contrary.)

> So really it seems like the right to "privacy" was contrived as a way to conjure a constitutional right to abortion,

This works, if you have no knowledge of the Supreme Court’s privacy cases going back ~80 years before any application to abortion. One might argue that the Roe was politically motivated, of course, but you can't credibly argue that the authors of all the cases pre-Roe on privacy were doing it just as part of a conspiracy focussed on abortion.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#136

Post by falcolas »

smitty1e wrote: post #123
StewardMcOy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American here. I think it's important to not characterize judicial review in the Row case as lawmaking. Although lots of anti-abortion advocates criticized Roe as legislating from the bench, the court was actually doing was checking the power of various state governments to take away individual rights. Judicial review has certainly been misused by the court in other cases to legislate, and the concept is anti-democra…

> In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. That's a good distinction, but that distinction was not well-founded as a matter of jurisprudence, if my understanding of Alito's opinion in Dobbs is correct. Roe had SCOTUS getting far over its interpretive skis, into societal matters that had a corrosive effect on the co…

> Roe had SCOTUS getting far over its interpretive skis

Roe had SCOTUS identifying privacy and therefore bodily autonomy as one of the un-enumerated rights which is still protected by the constitution.

Dobbs was the current SCOTUS saying "no, it's not an un-enumerated right" because it wasn't "commonly practiced in the founder's time".

Which isn't entirely true, there were some existing state laws on the books from the late 1700's which made abortion perfectly legal. But even if the majority had recognized that, they could have simply changed their examples to justify the change.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#137

Post by micromacrofoot »

fny wrote: post #11
micromacrofoot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go a little further and say that tech has exacerbated the failings of the USA.

I'd be a little more accurate and say extreme neoliberalism has exacerbated the failings of the USA.

I'm not so sure. There are other neoliberal countries that aren't experiencing some of the same issues.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#138

Post by haswell »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #120
haswell wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> addiction to her favorite games clearly outweighed espoused concern of Roe vs Wade impact I’m curious, how are the two related?

Ahh, sorry, I assumed the connection is clear. Addiction to a set of casual games is preventing her from even considering dropping Facebook or, should we went that route, downgrading to a feature phone. Separately, she is unwilling to log into FB from PC, where there would be more control over what is done that machine. In this case, games are holding her hostage from adopting healthier privacy habits. Now, privacy h…

Thanks for the clarification, this does make things a lot more clear.

This makes me wonder if there's a good way to help others wake up to the risk.

When I chat with friends about Facebook, they acknowledge that they have too much data, and do seem concerned / occasionally disturbed by how much these platforms know about them, but it seems difficult for them to synthesize an understanding of actual risk / potential negative outcome.

For awhile, I thought that someone should create a tool/portal/app that would use data from social networks / data brokers / etc. to scare the shit out of people and help them realize how vulnerable they are. But the existence of such a tool would also seem to make the problem worse, especially if it did not have the intended effect (to get people off of these networks).

I'm now starting to think that someone needs to create a "Dieting App" for social media users. Something that would help explain and demonstrate the scary state of privacy when using these apps. Not unlike the "Noom" (have not used this before, not an endorsement) approach to dieting.

I don't see a way to break these addictions without somehow terrifying the user. That can either happen voluntarily, by willingly exploring the downsides (and this is where some kind of curriculum would be beneficial), or unwillingly, after real people are impacted by real overreach after it's too late.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#139

Post by tablespoon »

falcolas wrote: post #131
tablespoon wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In the US, a ruling like this(ironic to say right now) is so much more ironclad than a law is in general, if people are going to come after it. > This was overturned no? So is this now also more ironclad? Roe v. Wade was basically a backdoor constitutional amendment where seven judges bypassed the actual process for amending the constitution (and also ran ahead of the legislatures in all but a handful of states).…

> they should be able to use the courts to get the amendments they want The court makes tens to hundreds of interpretations of case law and its interaction with the constitution every year. They've generated thousands, if not tens of thousands, of pages of interpretations and case law over the years. And it's worth noting that rights not explicitly enumerated in the constitution are still rights protected by the cons…

> And it's worth noting that rights not explicitly enumerated in the constitution are still rights protected by the constitution. The current SC just disagrees with the previous SC's decision on what those un-enumerated rights are.

I think your phrasing there is awkward. Which rights? All imaginable ones? (you probably should have said "some rights" to block this inprepretation) Rights with specific kinds of historical precedence? Novel rights "our" faction wishes were there and that "our" judges can read into it through deliberate effort? Reading novel rights into the constitution is the kind of backdoor amendment I was referring to.

> All that was being contested was a state's ability to limit abortions beyond the first trimester (something commonly allowed as part of the "balance" between states rights and women's rights built upon RvW).

No, I don't think that's actually what happened. IIRC, it could have chosen to resolve it that way, but the parties turned the case into a challenge about Roe v. Wade itself in their arguments, which gave an opening for a broader ruling.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#140

Post by falcolas »

heartbeats wrote: post #116
StewardMcOy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American here. I think it's important to not characterize judicial review in the Row case as lawmaking. Although lots of anti-abortion advocates criticized Roe as legislating from the bench, the court was actually doing was checking the power of various state governments to take away individual rights. Judicial review has certainly been misused by the court in other cases to legislate, and the concept is anti-democra…

> In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. I don't get it - this seems like sophistry. Isn't the end result the same, i.e. nationally permitting abortion? > It's also worth remembering that there was never a realistic chance of a nationwide right to abortion being passed through congress. There are a few reasons fo…

FWIW, most rights you and I have are not codified in the constitution. That doesn't mean those rights don't exist. This whole debacle is two SCOTUS arguing over whether privacy, and thus bodily autonomy, is one of those rights.

Ultimately the constitution is a, relative to the case law and interpretations the SCOTUS has generated from it, miniscule document.

Post reply on HN