[00:01.410 --> 00:08.190]  As said, I'm going to be covering what I've called systems of dehumanization, the digital frontlines of the war against bodily autonomy.
[00:09.730 --> 00:13.550]  I am a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
[00:14.010 --> 00:21.610]  If you're not familiar with our work, I suggest you go over to the cafeteria area and visit our booth.
[00:21.830 --> 00:23.830]  You can find more out about the work that we do.
[00:24.570 --> 00:26.890]  And this is just one small section of it.
[00:28.110 --> 00:32.010]  So, as mentioned, I am a senior staff technologist at the EFF.
[00:32.430 --> 00:34.710]  I work on the Public Interest Technology Team.
[00:35.270 --> 00:43.870]  At EFF, I co-lead the Reproductive Justice Working Group, which formed pretty quickly after the Dov's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 
[00:44.610 --> 00:49.690]  And within that work, I provide digital privacy trainings for at-risk communities.
[00:50.030 --> 01:00.010]  And I research the various privacy and security risks that are facing liberation movement workers, but specifically those who are fighting for bodily autonomy and self-determination.
[01:00.690 --> 01:15.550]  And I come to that through... before arriving at EFF, I was leading countless digital privacy workshops here in New York through a sex worker advocacy collective called Hacking Hustling that formed in response to FOSTA-SESTA.
[01:15.730 --> 01:17.210]  I'll cover that in a bit.
[01:17.670 --> 01:31.210]  And before that, I was the founder of a trans-forward tech justice collective here in New York, where I led digital privacy and security workshops called Privacy for Online Delinquents and Perverts.
[01:32.390 --> 01:36.390]  And for years, before the decision to overturn Roe v.
[01:36.470 --> 01:44.890]  Wade, I have collaborated with Digital Defense Fund, who is the premier digital security organization that provides resources to the abortion access movement.
[01:45.410 --> 01:52.310]  So, I care very deeply about these three issue spaces, and it's what I'll be covering primarily in this talk.
[01:52.310 --> 02:05.390]  And actually, this talk came from when a colleague of mine tapped my shoulder and asked me to write our regular column for 2600 Affecting Digital Freedom.
[02:05.670 --> 02:11.730]  And I wrote a piece called Systems of Dehumanization for the 2024-2025 edition of 2600.
[02:11.730 --> 02:18.550]  And you can find the shorter and now older, less updated version of what this is about.
[02:21.150 --> 02:24.210]  So, a few notes before we do get into the thick of it.
[02:25.150 --> 02:40.410]  As I said, the issue spaces that I will be discussing are abortion and reproductive rights, systemic transphobia, and the struggle for trans and gender non-conforming liberation, sex worker rights, and then the sort of umbrella of digital rights surveillance and tech-enabled oppression and survival strategies that are, you know, covering all of those things.
[02:44.450 --> 02:54.270]  However, some issue spaces that I'm not discussing, despite their deep connection to this, you know, idea of self-determination and bodily autonomy, just a few to name.
[02:54.550 --> 03:01.070]  Immigrant justice, carceral technologies, disability justice, and harm reduction for drug users.
[03:05.440 --> 03:19.900]  And I also want to say that, like, as I'm doing all of this research, everything that I'm presenting here is from those digital privacy and security trainings that I'm offering to these movement workers, to these grassroots community organizers, to these activists,
[03:20.140 --> 03:22.380]  to these abortion funds, medical providers.
[03:22.700 --> 03:26.540]  It runs a whole gamut of people that, like, are at risk and are threatened by this.
[03:26.540 --> 03:37.320]  And so the types of threats that come up for them sometimes aren't always digital in nature, but they, like, lead to the type of increase to digital surveillance they might be under.
[03:37.600 --> 03:49.960]  So some things I might name might not be, like, technical in nature immediately, but I feel like I need to say that so you understand, like, the impetus or the drive to oppress these people with more increased surveillance.
[03:52.760 --> 03:59.400]  So here is a rough and dirty timeline of some things that will come up all throughout the talk.
[04:00.100 --> 04:05.240]  And I sort of just threw this together haphazardly to illustrate how far back this goes.
[04:05.720 --> 04:08.920]  This is not just, like, the history of the Internet surveillance.
[04:09.080 --> 04:28.000]  It goes all the way back to Comstock, this, well, I'll cover him in a moment, this, like, Victorian era obscenity law that really set the groundwork for surveillance as we know it today, especially surveillance facing women, gender expansive people, sexually expressive people,
[04:28.340 --> 04:28.720]  etc.
[04:29.080 --> 04:39.500]  And then all the way up to today, where every single year since 2022, we have a record number breaking anti-trans laws each year, exponentially rising.
[04:42.180 --> 04:45.720]  All right, so let's jump into the first one, abortion access.
[04:46.640 --> 04:54.740]  At the moment, unless I'm wrong, which someone please correct me, there are 41 states on the books that have some kind of abortion ban in effect.
[04:55.320 --> 05:02.160]  Digital evidence is often being used in criminal cases to go after people who are seeking an abortion and being charged by the state because of it.
[05:02.720 --> 05:11.820]  The censorship is broad and extra-legal beyond that, and the chilling effect felt by this is immeasurable, to say the least.
[05:13.620 --> 05:23.080]  So, some of the digital surveillance and tech risks endangering the movement, these are the ones that I most commonly come across in the sort of security and privacy advising I do for these organizations.
[05:23.960 --> 05:28.900]  The passive surveillance mechanisms built into social media and pervasive ad technology.
[05:28.900 --> 05:42.000]  I really think of this as like, I mean, obviously data brokers are in that, but this is like an existential threat that harms everyone, but particularly those who are just trying to seek healthcare, which is now criminalized.
[05:43.280 --> 05:47.660]  The abuse of public records being weaponized in doxing campaigns and coordinated harassment.
[05:47.660 --> 05:50.780]  I named that specifically because it's a little more...
[05:50.780 --> 05:56.220]  It's more specific than just typical OSINT campaigns run to like dox activists.
[05:56.220 --> 06:01.180]  I'm talking like medical licensing information, business registration records, and so on.
[06:02.080 --> 06:04.060]  Data brokers, which I just named.
[06:04.960 --> 06:10.020]  Street level surveillance technologies, but specifically automatic license plate readers.
[06:10.020 --> 06:16.400]  It is a very significant threat facing people who are accessing abortions in those restrictive states.
[06:18.200 --> 06:23.680]  And then the interoperability of medical health records and third-party apps within the health tech industry ecosystem.
[06:24.660 --> 06:30.980]  I feel like I always need to say that the P in HIPAA stands for portability, not privacy.
[06:31.300 --> 06:32.320]  People forget that.
[06:32.640 --> 06:44.880]  And those third-party apps, which are often designated as necessary by doctors to interface with them or to seek care, are only covered loosely by these business associate agreements.
[06:44.880 --> 06:47.200]  And I mean, I'm not a lawyer.
[06:47.380 --> 06:48.100]  I'm a technologist.
[06:48.540 --> 06:49.940]  I don't understand HIPAA.
[06:50.180 --> 06:52.660]  They probably should, but I know that they don't.
[06:52.780 --> 06:55.160]  I know enough to be like, well, that's bullshit.
[06:55.840 --> 07:02.320]  Your data privacy standards are trash and you are abusing people's data, people's well-being.
[07:03.900 --> 07:08.680]  There's also a lot of financial censorship of movement workers, but especially abortion funds.
[07:09.600 --> 07:13.860]  And there's abuse of private health data by CPCs, crisis pregnancy centers.
[07:14.720 --> 07:23.440]  And then, as I mentioned earlier, censorship of abortion information extra legally by these spineless tech companies who are just kowtowing to the current administration.
[07:25.680 --> 07:28.240]  Okay, so I mentioned Anthony Comstock earlier.
[07:28.500 --> 07:39.660]  He was this total asshole of a guy in, like, Victorian-era New York who was just typical sort of conservative mindset, terrified of anything that, like, opposed to sort of Christian values.
[07:39.660 --> 07:52.040]  So he was horrified by anything lewd, lascivious, immoral, including contraceptives, abortion-related material, sex-related material, anything that had to do with, like, women's agency in the world.
[07:52.700 --> 08:06.520]  And because of his work as a postal inspector and a secretary for the New York Society of Suppression of Vice, he sort of constructed this way of surveilling the mail system to pick out those articles of obscene interest.
[08:07.180 --> 08:13.720]  And that has been extended today to, like, that is the backbone for mail surveillance as we know it.
[08:13.860 --> 08:24.100]  And has been often cited by legal experts as, like, the Victorian-era law that we need to be scared of now regarding restriction of abortion in America.
[08:24.600 --> 08:26.220]  Because it's still... this is still a law.
[08:26.380 --> 08:27.060]  It hasn't been revealed.
[08:30.380 --> 08:43.220]  Okay, jumping to the 90s, here's an example of this... this website that was called the Nuremberg Files, run by this guy in the corner, smug-looking guy, who died just a few years ago.
[08:43.540 --> 08:44.060]  Rest in piss.
[08:44.640 --> 08:49.260]  And it was this early example of a doxing website that was, like, weaponizing those public records I mentioned.
[08:49.340 --> 08:55.140]  So, like, getting doctors' licensing information and publicizing it online, which is totally legal to do.
[08:55.140 --> 08:59.780]  But it, like, increases the violence pitched against these doctors, which actually led to people dying.
[09:00.040 --> 09:02.820]  Led to doctors being shot and killed because they're providing abortions.
[09:04.160 --> 09:08.460]  And, like, obviously, this was a... it's called Nuremberg Files.
[09:08.640 --> 09:10.060]  So it's, like, a pretty gnarly sort of website.
[09:10.220 --> 09:12.680]  It didn't have, like, a ton of respectability in the space.
[09:12.680 --> 09:14.600]  It was very clearly to incite violence.
[09:15.260 --> 09:26.160]  However, today, we have sort of these newer versions of it, like this, called abortiondocs.org, which has this veneer of plausible deniability and respectability on it, but it's the exact same thing.
[09:26.300 --> 09:26.900]  Don't get it twisted.
[09:30.500 --> 09:33.000]  I mentioned censorship earlier.
[09:33.640 --> 09:52.360]  Here's an example of Bing search engine, which our friends who were over at Repro Uncensored uncovered that when you typed in abortion, you'd get sort of, like, vague, loose results from Bing, but if you misspelled the word, you'd get, like, more accurate results.
[09:52.680 --> 09:54.920]  And we thought, oh, well, that's... that is censorship.
[09:56.180 --> 10:12.500]  And, you know, through realizing this and through the tireless work of people at Repro Uncensored at the time, we partnered with them to run this campaign called Stop Censoring Abortion, where we collect testimonials and examples of censorship, not just across search engines,
[10:12.640 --> 10:14.220]  but across social media and elsewhere.
[10:14.940 --> 10:21.620]  And we are collecting those and using them to hold these tech companies accountable and say, like, you said you care about free speech.
[10:21.720 --> 10:22.920]  This is extra legal censorship.
[10:22.920 --> 10:24.060]  Why are you doing this?
[10:24.240 --> 10:27.820]  This is public health information that's actually in the public interest to be available.
[10:31.960 --> 10:33.820]  But, of course, it doesn't just stop there.
[10:34.220 --> 10:45.300]  We have, you know, early examples, even before the Dobbs decision, of Google search history being used to prosecute a woman... I forget where she was... Michigan.
[10:46.000 --> 10:46.440]  Sure.
[10:47.320 --> 10:54.760]  Anyway, her Google search history was used as criminal evidence in the case used against her, and she went to jail for trying to do self-managed abortion at home.
[10:56.580 --> 10:57.380]  Another example.
[10:57.660 --> 10:58.720]  This one's pretty prominent.
[10:58.840 --> 10:59.500]  You may have heard of it.
[10:59.500 --> 11:07.520]  This woman, Jessica Burgess, in Nebraska, was helping her daughter navigate self-managed abortion, and she went to jail for two years.
[11:08.460 --> 11:11.900]  And it was Facebook Messenger logs that were used as key evidence in the case.
[11:12.280 --> 11:15.360]  Facebook responded, obviously, like, to some press that happened after.
[11:15.680 --> 11:21.640]  Because I think this was, like, it was happening just before Dobbs and then resulted afterwards, like, the sentencing.
[11:22.920 --> 11:28.640]  And Facebook said, like, oh, this actually has nothing to do with the law enforcement subpoena.
[11:28.780 --> 11:31.980]  Our response to them was not motivated by the anti-abortion sentiment.
[11:32.360 --> 11:37.280]  But, I mean, it just goes to show what happens when you have shitty retention policies.
[11:37.500 --> 11:38.560]  It hurts people.
[11:41.240 --> 11:49.940]  Another example, this is cell phone data, like, location data being used to go after a mother and son who are helping a young woman navigate getting an abortion.
[11:53.130 --> 12:01.650]  And, you know, there are some positive examples, like these supposedly well-meaning tech companies that, in response to the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v.
[12:01.710 --> 12:08.670]  Wade, said that they were going to, you know, change their policies and make things less immediately harmful to people who are just trying to access healthcare.
[12:09.330 --> 12:18.650]  So, Google Maps, they said that they would start to delete sensitive location data from the records that they collected.
[12:18.690 --> 12:28.930]  So, anyone who was traveling in and around clinics that offered abortion services or gender-affirming care in places where that's criminalized, that they would get rid of that.
[12:29.170 --> 12:30.550]  And we, you know, applaud that.
[12:30.670 --> 12:30.810]  Great.
[12:30.970 --> 12:31.650]  Good job.
[12:32.750 --> 12:38.470]  However, an independent researcher, 18 months after the fact, found out that they were lying about it.
[12:39.490 --> 12:41.750]  And, you know, boo, obviously.
[12:43.210 --> 12:53.510]  And, surprisingly, like, three or four months after this report came out, where the independent researcher found out that Google was lying, found that, oops, yet again, they were still lying about it.
[12:53.590 --> 12:55.130]  And Google was like, oh, no, no, no, sorry.
[12:55.270 --> 12:55.990]  We're getting on it.
[12:56.030 --> 12:56.390]  We swear.
[12:57.610 --> 12:59.810]  I think they have actually corrected this since.
[12:59.810 --> 13:03.310]  But, like, it just goes to show that you can't trust them even when they say this.
[13:03.450 --> 13:06.550]  You have to have third-party independent audits of their actual practices.
[13:10.720 --> 13:13.420]  And, of course, it's not just online threats, right?
[13:13.440 --> 13:19.640]  I mentioned earlier the street-level surveillance facing abortion access, specifically automatic license plate readers.
[13:19.780 --> 13:27.780]  And this was something that we thought about pretty early on as, like, a significant vector of concern when Roe v.
[13:27.880 --> 13:28.760]  Wade was overturned.
[13:29.300 --> 13:40.260]  And about, looks like about a year after we were writing about this and talking about this, we found a bunch of law enforcement agencies who were illegally sharing ALPR data across state lines.
[13:40.640 --> 13:44.500]  And, obviously, this is a big threat because a lot of people are traveling for abortion.
[13:44.760 --> 13:50.080]  They're going to places where they can access an abortion legally and then traveling back to their home states where that is illegal.
[13:50.300 --> 13:54.120]  And that would be illegal for them to have done that across state lines, right?
[13:54.220 --> 13:56.180]  They could still... well, I'm not a lawyer.
[13:56.560 --> 13:58.860]  My understanding is that they could still be charged.
[13:59.980 --> 14:09.000]  And so we began writing to a bunch of those law enforcement agencies and writing to the AGs who are supposed to be responsible for making sure that cops don't break the law.
[14:09.780 --> 14:11.360]  And some have responded.
[14:11.580 --> 14:12.160]  Some have stopped.
[14:12.340 --> 14:13.240]  Some haven't.
[14:14.200 --> 14:16.780]  We're... we're seeking action against them.
[14:19.020 --> 14:23.620]  And a more recent example of just this year, this was a story that was broke by 404 Media.
[14:23.880 --> 14:37.320]  And then my brilliant colleague, Rindala, actually wrote about this, about a woman who went to get an abortion and a Texas cop actually accessed 83,000 different ALPR cameras to track her down for doing so.
[14:41.920 --> 14:46.820]  And I mentioned, you know, data brokers being this sort of, like, existential threat that is, like...
[14:46.820 --> 14:51.820]  I mean, it is this vampiric nightmare of an industry that needs to be murdered, like, yesterday.
[14:52.120 --> 14:54.520]  But specifically in this... yes.
[14:55.000 --> 14:56.980]  Yeah, let's figure out a way to do that.
[14:57.100 --> 14:57.400]  I don't know.
[15:00.580 --> 15:07.280]  But specifically, like, in the abortion access space, I think it provides this example of how, like, pernicious and dangerous it can really be.
[15:07.280 --> 15:16.260]  So they're... you know, data brokers are often found to be providing warrantless, real-time location data information to cops, or to anyone who wants to buy it.
[15:16.640 --> 15:17.480]  Let me say that again.
[15:17.940 --> 15:21.740]  Warrantless, real-time location data of anyone at any point.
[15:22.200 --> 15:23.420]  That's fucking terrifying.
[15:23.420 --> 15:35.460]  So this far-right think tank got, like, brokered with one of these data brokers and set up some geofences around clinics that offered abortion services.
[15:35.760 --> 15:46.640]  And they collected the device IDs of every phone that traveled within those geofences and then delivered forced-birth propaganda to those devices via advertisements.
[15:47.860 --> 15:49.860]  And we don't know what else they did with that data.
[15:50.100 --> 15:52.140]  Just that... that was, like, the most visible thing they did with it.
[15:53.500 --> 15:57.260]  And so Senator Ron Wyden actually, like, he went after this.
[15:57.380 --> 16:00.980]  He's a long-time champion of privacy rights, one of the few we have.
[16:03.260 --> 16:10.220]  And, yeah, he wrote about this, but this was a while ago, and I'm sure it's still happening because, you know, data brokers are an unregulated industry.
[16:13.700 --> 16:14.220]  Okay.
[16:14.540 --> 16:16.540]  So, now on to sex work.
[16:17.500 --> 16:27.440]  Obviously, sex work is criminalized across, essentially, the entire U.S., making it a significant frontline for the types of surveillance technologies that are used...
[16:28.060 --> 16:37.960]  Well, and bad Internet bills, which I'll cover in a moment, that we can come to expect elsewhere as, you know, criminalization creeps, like the penumbra of criminalization expands to involve more and more and more people.
[16:38.900 --> 16:44.780]  Which is why you'll often hear this refrain in the digital rights space that sex workers are the canaries in the coal mine.
[16:46.960 --> 16:56.620]  So, the common, like, surveillance and tech risks endangering the movement that I run across in the years of experience I have in this space.
[16:57.520 --> 17:02.060]  Again, passive surveillance mechanisms built into social media and pervasive ad technology.
[17:02.060 --> 17:05.620]  Also, abuse of public records weaponized in doxing campaigns.
[17:06.620 --> 17:13.720]  Not necessarily public records like medical licensing information, but a lot of, like, business registration is used for these... for those campaigns.
[17:14.780 --> 17:16.120]  Data brokers, of course.
[17:16.560 --> 17:18.140]  Street-level surveillance technologies.
[17:18.480 --> 17:28.840]  Less so automatic license plate readers, but what's really common, especially in areas where there's a lot of street-based sex work, so, like, people on the stroll, are these... these surveillance towers.
[17:29.160 --> 17:34.260]  Sometimes they're, you know, occupied with, like, people workers, but that's expensive.
[17:34.260 --> 17:39.580]  So, usually there are cameras that are plugged into whatever sort of smart city systems the police have.
[17:40.680 --> 17:44.080]  There's a ton of financial censorship in the sex work space.
[17:44.480 --> 17:48.780]  And a ton of removal of public health information due to terrible Internet law.
[17:49.260 --> 17:54.820]  And, specifically, facial recognition is used quite often against sex workers.
[17:55.340 --> 17:56.840]  I'll cover that in a little bit.
[17:59.660 --> 18:02.660]  Okay, now I'm gonna rant about Section 230 for a moment.
[18:03.660 --> 18:05.520]  I'm, again, like, not a lawyer.
[18:05.520 --> 18:14.440]  I sort of accidentally became very interested in Section 230 when I was much more involved in sex worker advocacy in 2018.
[18:15.940 --> 18:19.720]  This shitty Internet bill, which I'll talk about in a second, FOSTA-SESTA happened.
[18:19.940 --> 18:25.400]  But my miniature rant and history lesson here, and I don't know if you're actually wrong about this, I just... I'm angry.
[18:27.000 --> 18:31.860]  Section 230, it, like, don't buy the bullshit that people try and sell you about trying to...
[18:31.860 --> 18:34.760]  to repeal it or amend it.
[18:35.180 --> 18:37.760]  It is actually a backbone of free speech online.
[18:37.780 --> 18:40.140]  It is a backbone of platform accountability.
[18:40.460 --> 18:42.780]  And it is a backbone of, like, what we value.
[18:43.000 --> 18:45.280]  Like, some of the core values we have at EFF.
[18:45.600 --> 18:48.020]  So if you trust us, trust us on this.
[18:48.420 --> 18:52.320]  People and companies are responsible for their own speech online, not the platforms.
[18:52.560 --> 18:54.460]  That's essentially what 230 says, right?
[18:54.680 --> 19:10.720]  If an intermediary company of any kind, not just the platforms, but anywhere along the, you know, the chain of steps in what makes the Internet happen, if any of those are held responsible for the individual behavior of users, it's a death knell for free expression and privacy online.
[19:10.720 --> 19:23.640]  Because it incentivizes those platforms, those intermediaries, to do extra-legal choking of available speech online, which is particularly dangerous for people like me and a lot of people like you out there, people who are marginalized, people who are,
[19:23.840 --> 19:28.300]  you know, need to access criminalized industries or healthcare to survive.
[19:29.100 --> 19:32.460]  Content moderation is not threatened by Section 230.
[19:32.860 --> 19:42.180]  This is a refrain you will hear from, you know, bipartisan legislators or lobbyists or activists saying that we need to repeal this because it will make the Internet a kinder, safer place.
[19:42.440 --> 19:43.540]  That's not true.
[19:44.480 --> 19:54.160]  Those activities, like trafficking or sale of drugs, regardless of your feeling about sale of drugs, it is illegal.
[19:54.820 --> 19:56.160]  Section 230 won't change that.
[19:56.420 --> 19:57.540]  It's not going to stop it.
[19:57.640 --> 19:59.440]  And actually, in some cases, it increases it.
[20:01.420 --> 20:01.980]  Okay.
[20:02.840 --> 20:09.480]  So, I mentioned earlier that in 2018, there was this terrible bill, FOSTA-SESTA, well, it's a package of bills that were happening.
[20:09.740 --> 20:16.300]  And there was this broad bipartisan support that was brought for it because it was saying, like, oh, we're going to stop human trafficking online.
[20:16.760 --> 20:28.580]  And so we had this, like, all these propaganda campaigns, these, like, well-known celebrities who were, at least at the time, you know, fairly liberal, advocating for this because they were like, you don't want children to be bought online.
[20:28.760 --> 20:29.840]  And it's like, well, duh.
[20:30.120 --> 20:31.540]  We don't want children to be bought online.
[20:31.720 --> 20:33.040]  But listen to sex workers.
[20:33.420 --> 20:41.380]  Listen to, like, what will actually happen to us when you take away the availability of navigating business online as a sex worker?
[20:41.620 --> 20:43.400]  It pushes us back onto the streets.
[20:43.400 --> 20:44.780]  It makes things more dangerous.
[20:46.160 --> 21:04.420]  So, this advocacy collective that I got involved in, and I was the, like, first digital security person to run their programmatic work, Hacking Hustling, they did a bunch of public health research and advocacy talking about the impact of this, not just to sex workers,
[21:04.580 --> 21:15.380]  but to everyone, the impact of FOSTA-SESTA and how it's, like, a... it is significantly impacting the free speech of everyone, or everyone who values sexual expression online.
[21:16.920 --> 21:29.080]  Removing public health information and, like, things like bad date lists, things that sex workers that we use to, like, identify rapists and abusers and et cetera in communities were taken offline because of this.
[21:29.180 --> 21:30.400]  That makes things more dangerous.
[21:30.520 --> 21:35.180]  It forces workers back onto the streets, where, again, we don't have the availability of those lists anymore.
[21:35.180 --> 21:39.820]  It removes information like STI screening information, et cetera.
[21:42.700 --> 21:49.600]  So, an example of, like, how this actually made things worse, it, like, it didn't... it did the opposite of what it said it would do.
[21:50.180 --> 21:54.900]  It was, you know, it's the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act.
[21:54.900 --> 22:02.120]  It was supposed to, you know, stop trafficking from happening, but actually, in San Francisco, it increased it by...
[22:02.120 --> 22:18.740]  This is 170%, but I actually remember, like, a bit later, it went up to 300%, but I don't know who's running the stats on that, of trafficking-related charges in SF, reported by the SFPD, which, you know, they're also incentivized to lie about this, so it might have been higher.
[22:19.820 --> 22:27.360]  And so, back in 2023, I wrote an op-ed in the SF Chronicle about this, and I was like, hey...
[22:27.360 --> 22:28.720]  Because a lot of people were angry.
[22:28.820 --> 22:44.320]  There were a lot of, like, letters to the editor at the SF Chronicle saying, like, hey, our neighborhood in the Mission, on Shotwell and Cap Street specifically, have a ton more, like, street-based workers right now, and we feel very unsafe, and we're very unhappy,
[22:44.380 --> 22:47.900]  because horror-phobia is rampant everywhere.
[22:48.260 --> 22:52.260]  And I was like, okay, sure, maybe, but you know why?
[22:52.440 --> 22:53.520]  This is... you know why?
[22:53.620 --> 22:54.340]  It's because of this.
[22:54.460 --> 22:57.020]  And if you advocated for this bill, you're responsible for it.
[22:57.100 --> 23:02.380]  So, like, if you care, maybe we should repeal this shitty law, FOSTA-SESTA.
[23:04.820 --> 23:16.120]  One of my proudest moments... this is, like, one of my prized possessions, this, um, this retired judge and kind of failed SF politician, Quentin Kopp, nominate of determinism.
[23:16.480 --> 23:28.340]  Um, he, uh, wrote me this very, like, angry letter, this, like, handwritten hate mail, to say, like, oh, you, um, you know, on my day, we thought that whores were bad, prostitutes are bad people.
[23:28.340 --> 23:34.640]  And so on the back of the letter, he also sent me, like, a clipping of my, of the article I wrote, which I didn't get.
[23:34.740 --> 23:35.880]  So I was like, oh my god, thanks, Quentin.
[23:36.360 --> 23:41.920]  Um, and he's like, why don't you appeal to our city's better instincts instead of glorifying whores and pimps?
[23:42.200 --> 23:44.360]  Yours disgustedly, Quentin Kopp.
[23:46.900 --> 23:52.300]  Today, this, like, you know, feeds me, it gives me inspiration to keep, um, glorifying whores.
[23:54.660 --> 24:07.560]  So, um, as I mentioned, like, this FOSTA-SESTA, so, it shifted the responsibility from, um, from, like, the individual people online, the already, already criminal act of, um, solicitation or prostitution.
[24:08.080 --> 24:10.780]  Um, it shifted the responsibility onto the platforms.
[24:10.780 --> 24:17.380]  So there was this massive increase, like, this broad, sweeping, um, censorship that occurred across the Internet.
[24:17.960 --> 24:24.860]  Um, my favorite one, the worst one, was Tumblr's response, who, um, as you may or may not know, like, host a lot of porn.
[24:24.860 --> 24:44.700]  Um, they did this really broad and clumsy moderation of all sexually explicit content, um, on their platform, including, like, removing a lot of, like, classical art imagery, um, uh, pictures of uncooked chicken breasts for, like, um, like, recipe, you know,
[24:45.000 --> 24:45.620]  uh, guides.
[24:45.620 --> 24:52.960]  And also, they moderated out their own moderation policies, because it mentioned, like, uh, trafficking and prostitution.
[24:56.160 --> 25:09.140]  And then you have these tech companies who sort of, like, swoop in with this sort of, like, solutionist ideas about, like, okay, well, now that you are, um, uh, required to be compliant to this new law, um, we can sell you the services that make you compliant.
[25:09.140 --> 25:17.280]  Like, this company, Thorn, that was weirdly started by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, um, they, you know, make these anti-trafficking technologies.
[25:17.300 --> 25:20.660]  There's, like, a, a whole sort of suite they offer of different products.
[25:20.840 --> 25:22.260]  They sell to law enforcement.
[25:22.260 --> 25:24.700]  They sell to, um, you know, tech companies.
[25:24.960 --> 25:30.680]  And they were fighting really hard for FOSTA-SESTA because, you know, it's good, good business for them.
[25:32.320 --> 25:38.760]  Unfortunately, um, it was found by a journalist in 2019 that, um, I mean, I highly recommend you read this article.
[25:38.760 --> 25:40.320]  It's crazy.
[25:41.120 --> 25:45.800]  Um, Thorn, like, lies about all of their products and the efficacy of them.
[25:46.000 --> 25:55.740]  I mean, not just about, like, how, like, how they work, but, like, the numbers themselves are, like, just wildly, uh, miss, like, uh, misreported.
[25:55.880 --> 25:58.700]  And it's, it's fabulous and horrible.
[26:01.740 --> 26:07.900]  So, um, the problem is, Thorn's products, they do sometimes work.
[26:07.900 --> 26:09.760]  They're used to lead to arrests.
[26:10.060 --> 26:28.000]  Here's an example that a co-worker passed along to me who, um, uh, this police record or this arrest record was, uh, describing using, uh, facial recognition, specifically Thorn's products for facial recognition, to make sure that the, um, the woman that they were arresting was actually a sex
[26:28.000 --> 26:28.280]  worker.
[26:32.060 --> 26:34.340]  But they're not the only ones who are doing facial recognition.
[26:34.800 --> 26:42.840]  Um, facial ID has been used for, now, a number of years at the border to, um, identify workers who are trying to come into the U.S.
[26:42.840 --> 26:44.180]  deaths or to just cross the borders.
[26:44.480 --> 26:52.260]  Um, and those models are trained on, uh, sex workers' public listings online, before and after FOSTA.
[26:52.500 --> 26:53.860]  Because, you know, life finds a way.
[26:54.000 --> 26:56.420]  We're still gonna find a way to operate business online because it's safer.
[26:56.960 --> 27:01.760]  Um, but, you know, they're training their shitty products to, to find us.
[27:05.100 --> 27:12.820]  Here's an article that came out, um, uh, just last month from an old comrade and friend of mine, Kate Zen, um, and, uh, Chanel.
[27:13.480 --> 27:17.060]  Uh, I highly recommend you read this.
[27:17.280 --> 27:27.260]  Because it is a chilling and significant, um, uh, indictment of the types of surveillance technologies that are being used against sex workers right now.
[27:27.260 --> 27:32.060]  And why it is so easy to pitch them against sex workers.
[27:32.240 --> 27:38.760]  And why this, like, happens without any kind of challenge from, uh, you know, sort of like respectable people or respectable politicians.
[27:39.380 --> 27:43.200]  Um, it is, it is just horrible.
[27:43.500 --> 27:46.060]  And, um, I absolutely recommend you read this article about it.
[27:48.900 --> 27:49.420]  Okay.
[27:50.020 --> 27:53.720]  So now let's talk about, uh, trans and gender non-conforming rights.
[27:54.280 --> 28:00.460]  Um, uh, right now, um, at least 27 states have bans on gender-affirming care.
[28:00.640 --> 28:03.020]  These are mostly aimed at minors and young adults.
[28:03.300 --> 28:14.900]  And nearly all have exceptions explicitly written, written into those, um, into those bands to allow, uh, uh, surgery, corrective surgery on intersex babies and infants.
[28:15.220 --> 28:29.000]  Meaning, doctors are allowed to perform surgeries on the genitals or sexual organs of children, so as to better represent the limited binary mode of thought rather than the biological reality, which is a spectrum of sexual development outcomes.
[28:30.880 --> 28:35.960]  So, because of that, here are the digital surveillance and tech risks that are endangering this movement right now.
[28:36.420 --> 28:39.200]  Um, obviously these are very familiar.
[28:39.500 --> 28:42.900]  There'll be some, like, you know, differences from the last two sets that I covered.
[28:42.900 --> 28:48.160]  Um, but, um, passive surveillance mechanisms built into social media and pervasive ad technology.
[28:48.560 --> 28:49.240]  Still a threat here.
[28:49.480 --> 28:51.360]  Same thing with the abuse of public records.
[28:51.640 --> 28:52.760]  Weaponized and doxing campaigns.
[28:53.020 --> 29:01.720]  I find, actually, in this space more often, um, it is individual activists who's, like, whose work online is being used against them.
[29:01.720 --> 29:06.440]  And data broker records, which are being used to, to, uh, dox them.
[29:06.720 --> 29:13.620]  Rather than, like, the, uh, public records I described with the last two sets, the, um, business registration or medical licensing information.
[29:15.440 --> 29:19.980]  Also in this space, the interoperability of medical health records is clearly still a threat.
[29:19.980 --> 29:34.780]  Um, what sets this one apart differently, or, for, um, trans people who are, like, medicalizing their transition, um, the diagnostic codes that are generated for, uh, those types of people are much more strict, rigid, and impossible to go around.
[29:34.780 --> 29:44.180]  As opposed to, um, the diagnostic codes which result in prescriptions for, like, uh, uh, MIFI and MISO, um, abortion medications.
[29:44.540 --> 29:46.780]  So, um, yeah.
[29:47.140 --> 29:47.920]  That sucks.
[29:47.920 --> 29:47.940]  Thanks.
[29:48.560 --> 29:53.900]  Uh, there's a ton of censorship of public health materials and government websites, especially the last year.
[29:54.040 --> 30:11.560]  I'll cover that in a moment, but the, um, the current presidential administration is really all about, like, removing all visibility of, um, decades of public health information and research that has been around people, uh, with divergent sexual orientation and gender identity.
[30:15.210 --> 30:19.770]  So, speaking of which, um, pretty much immediately after Trump took office, um, U.S.
[30:19.850 --> 30:23.990]  health agencies began scrubbing websites to, you know, clean them of gender ideology.
[30:23.990 --> 30:27.210]  Uh, this was removing, as I said, decades of research.
[30:27.450 --> 30:33.530]  Um, but not just about, like, uh, uh, you know, trans people from, like, anywhere.
[30:33.690 --> 30:39.870]  Not just studies of trans people, but anywhere that trans people existed as a distinct population within a study removed.
[30:39.870 --> 30:47.210]  But this also included public health documents, like HIV and AIDS-related research, safety guidelines for STIs, otherwise, and more.
[30:48.150 --> 30:52.930]  The Wayback Machine, at the time, was, like, cited as our, sort of, solution for this space.
[30:53.070 --> 30:55.270]  Everyone was like, oh, thank God we have the Wayback Machine.
[30:55.690 --> 30:59.270]  Um, which, true, yes, I love the Wayback Machine, I love the Internet Archive.
[30:59.630 --> 31:07.390]  However, um, there were, like, a, uh, the small cadre of people I was working with to try and save all the websites before they were taken down on that day.
[31:07.610 --> 31:11.050]  We discovered that the Wayback Machine captured almost none of them.
[31:11.050 --> 31:11.050]  Um,
[31:14.700 --> 31:18.960]  here are just some examples of where, um, trans people are being erased on government websites.
[31:22.060 --> 31:24.180]  Ironically, Stonewall, which is crazy.
[31:29.140 --> 31:35.280]  Oh, okay, so, um, uh, obviously, you know, I mentioned, like, doxing campaigns are used against trans people.
[31:35.600 --> 31:39.760]  Um, uh, and now doctors who are, like, providing gender-affirming care for trans people.
[31:40.080 --> 31:53.500]  Um, similar to the Nuremberg Files website, or the abortiondocs.org, here's one called the Stop the Harm Database by a group called Do No Harm, which is weaponizing those public records, um, you know, with a sort of plausible deniability, being like, no,
[31:53.600 --> 31:56.380]  this is just, like, we're just surfacing what's public information.
[31:56.680 --> 31:58.780]  People want to know if their doctors are transing the kids.
[31:59.200 --> 32:03.520]  Um, and this is also resulting in people having violence pitched against them.
[32:03.660 --> 32:12.040]  I have taken very distressing phone calls from doctors who are now terrified of the fact that they're doing, like, criminal behavior.
[32:12.040 --> 32:13.840]  They've had their clinics burned down.
[32:14.040 --> 32:15.480]  They've had guns fired at them.
[32:15.640 --> 32:17.760]  And they're like, I'm not trained for this.
[32:17.840 --> 32:18.480]  I'm a doctor.
[32:18.880 --> 32:20.680]  I didn't think that this would be my life.
[32:22.500 --> 32:29.520]  Um, the group that, um, runs this Stop the Harm database, uh, well, it's actually like a coalition of groups.
[32:29.680 --> 32:35.600]  But, um, Alliance Defending Freedom is one of the groups who are working with them, and they frequently collaborate with Heritage Foundation.
[32:35.920 --> 32:41.620]  If you're familiar with those groups, you'll know that they, um, are, uh, heavy-handed in the writing of Project 2025.
[32:45.010 --> 32:55.030]  And, actually, in a kind of brilliant lesson in terrible OPSEC, which I use as an example to, like, give hope to the people I'm, you know, offering privacy and security advice to.
[32:55.310 --> 33:04.850]  Um, the, the groups who were working, at least in one of the spaces they were working, to sort of figure out how to better propagandize the anti-abortion and anti-trans movements.
[33:05.250 --> 33:08.970]  Um, they left their Google Drive folder totally open for anyone to access.
[33:09.630 --> 33:17.390]  And so we found, like, all of their sort of strategies for, uh, like, it was a lot of, like, like, uh, language strategies, like, specific terms to use.
[33:17.690 --> 33:20.450]  Also, like, identifying people to pretend to be experts.
[33:20.810 --> 33:22.590]  Um, there's a lot of, like, fake doctors.
[33:22.590 --> 33:24.510]  Like, the American College of Pediatricians.
[33:24.890 --> 33:26.110]  They're not pediatricians.
[33:26.270 --> 33:27.090]  They're not a college.
[33:27.270 --> 33:28.610]  But they call themselves this.
[33:28.610 --> 33:33.890]  And they advocate for, like, you know, uh, stopping the transing of kids because they have that fancy title.
[33:37.530 --> 33:45.070]  Um, there are these, you know, I mentioned, like, 27 states right now have various, um, bans on gender-affirming care.
[33:45.210 --> 33:51.430]  But there are these, like, other, uh, bans or, like, these other sort of, like, creeps of criminalization that are particularly threatening.
[33:51.810 --> 33:55.250]  Um, like, this one struck me as one that was very scary.
[33:55.250 --> 34:01.850]  Because it was just saying that, like, anyone who is trans and identifies themselves as such is committing fraud against the state.
[34:04.790 --> 34:05.250]  Exactly.
[34:05.250 --> 34:05.710]  Yeah.
[34:05.890 --> 34:07.650]  Or here's one, um, also in Texas.
[34:08.290 --> 34:09.890]  Uh, not shockingly.
[34:10.550 --> 34:12.570]  Um, yeah.
[34:12.770 --> 34:21.750]  So, uh, in Odessa County in Texas, they, um, pretty commonly, they, they, they put up a bathroom ban, which is, like, you know, run of the mill these days.
[34:21.750 --> 34:29.510]  But this one, um, they actually, like, were rewarding people who would, um, who would narc on, like, a trans person who was using a bathroom.
[34:29.550 --> 34:37.670]  So it, like, incentivizes businesses or just random people to, like, basically be, uh, deputies for the state to enact this sort of transphobic law.
[34:38.110 --> 34:42.870]  Um, and so the fines are, like, up to $500 in trespassing charges.
[34:43.110 --> 34:46.950]  Of course, there would be, um, you know, jail time, uh, attached to that.
[34:47.150 --> 34:49.250]  But the businesses could get $10,000.
[34:53.150 --> 34:59.230]  So, the reason I bring those things up are, um, because it incentivizes, like, the sort of shitty surveillance we're worried about.
[34:59.830 --> 35:00.950]  Um, five minutes?
[35:01.170 --> 35:01.870]  Oh, okay.
[35:02.030 --> 35:02.950]  I'm gonna be really quick.
[35:03.150 --> 35:03.430]  Okay.
[35:03.550 --> 35:06.150]  So, it incentivizes the shitty surveillance we're thinking about.
[35:06.150 --> 35:15.230]  And, um, uh, the DHS just earlier this year, like, lifted this ban on, um, surveillance protections for, uh, sexual orientation and gender identity.
[35:15.230 --> 35:22.190]  It actually didn't even say gender identity in it, um, like, in the title of it, but it, like, that's what it said in the policy before.
[35:22.470 --> 35:31.170]  So, um, now they don't need to have, like, warrants or anything to impose sort of, like, heightened surveillance against, um, uh, people who fall under, sort of, SOGI identities.
[35:38.640 --> 35:39.120]  Okay.
[35:39.540 --> 35:42.080]  So, um, uh, type of censorship that's in the space right now.
[35:42.340 --> 35:49.000]  Um, these, like, spineless tech companies are kowtowing to the current administration well before any sort of speech regulations are imposed on them.
[35:49.200 --> 35:54.100]  Um, because either they're spineless cowards or they're transphobic bigots.
[35:54.240 --> 35:54.800]  Doesn't matter.
[35:55.000 --> 35:55.860]  It's happening anyways.
[35:56.120 --> 36:00.440]  So, Facebook was lifting restrictions on calling women property and transgender people freaks.
[36:00.760 --> 36:04.300]  Um, that's not, like, you know, exclusive to the type of insults you can say.
[36:04.300 --> 36:06.100]  Those are just examples of ones that were left up.
[36:07.180 --> 36:08.340]  YouTube did the same.
[36:09.320 --> 36:10.260]  LinkedIn did the same.
[36:11.960 --> 36:19.380]  Obviously, um, uh, Twitter X, um, uh, has been doing this for a while because they're like a bastion of free speech.
[36:20.380 --> 36:21.000]  Oh, wait.
[36:21.120 --> 36:21.620]  They're not.
[36:22.140 --> 36:28.080]  Like, if you type SIS on the platform, uh, your post gets, uh, removed or, like, suppressed.
[36:29.640 --> 36:42.840]  So, um, at the time, like, way back in the day, just a few years ago, when that don't say gay bill was being, um, thrown around in Florida and it got passed, um, which is where you couldn't, like, talk about anything that had to do with, uh, LGBT life or expression,
[36:43.240 --> 36:47.060]  um, I thought, well, damn, that sounds like it would be particularly...
[36:47.060 --> 36:47.860]  Oh, it's in schools.
[36:48.340 --> 36:56.200]  Um, that would be really scary for, um, students who are given, like, school-issued devices that are sort of basically root-kitted with spyware.
[36:56.400 --> 36:59.760]  Um, because they don't have any control over, like, removing that.
[37:00.020 --> 37:06.660]  Um, I would hope that there are some, you know, savvy hacker children out there who are now, like, learning their skills through getting around this.
[37:06.840 --> 37:11.360]  However, I was like, damn, this creates a really terrible, perfect storm of human rights abuses.
[37:11.360 --> 37:27.840]  So I wrote about this, and then a few years later, or just a year later, year and a half, we did this, uh, report called the Red Flag Machine, where we basically just scoured through thousands of, uh, uh, results from our FOIA requests on school districts,
[37:27.840 --> 37:35.600]  like, saying, like, show us what these machines, or what these, uh, monitoring software things are flagging as inappropriate.
[37:35.600 --> 37:39.000]  And no surprise, it was very often LGBT content.
[37:39.260 --> 37:45.100]  It was often outing students, not to, like, public, or, like, mental health practitioners or professionals in their lives.
[37:45.240 --> 37:47.380]  It's putting them in direct contact with law enforcement.
[37:49.100 --> 37:51.440]  And that's for things like LGBT history.
[37:51.700 --> 37:55.920]  They're not looking at porn, or they're looking up, like, whyamigaytest.com.
[37:56.300 --> 37:57.020]  Two minutes, okay.
[37:57.260 --> 37:57.340]  Hmm.
[37:58.360 --> 38:00.240]  Um, okay.
[38:01.020 --> 38:01.880]  The best part.
[38:02.040 --> 38:03.260]  Sorry, I only have two minutes to cover this.
[38:03.440 --> 38:17.520]  The, the survival strategies that I often recommend in these spaces to these various movements, um, are, running through them very quickly, um, for grassroots movement workers, activists, organizers, people who are out there, like, running funds or otherwise,
[38:18.100 --> 38:22.340]  um, expanding the practices for what we typically recommend for protest safety.
[38:22.600 --> 38:28.800]  So it's, like, expanding not just, like, really heightened, um, digital privacy practices, but also, like, the street-based practices we recommend.
[38:29.180 --> 38:42.140]  Um, I am often, like, saying, you need to expand that to many aspects of your life, not just protesting, uh, increasing the, or expecting the increase of, um, law enforcement federal surveillance on them.
[38:42.440 --> 38:51.420]  Um, people involved in the abortion access movement faced a three times, uh, designation as federal domestic, or federally designated as domestic terrorists.
[38:51.700 --> 38:53.980]  I think we need to expect that more in these movements.
[38:54.480 --> 38:55.880]  Obviously, doxing prevention.
[38:56.440 --> 38:59.520]  Obviously, anticipating coordinated harassment and platform censorship.
[39:00.520 --> 39:06.760]  For tech workers, just screenshot this, um, um, basically, don't be shitty.
[39:07.020 --> 39:08.680]  Like, don't have privacy-invasive technologies.
[39:09.080 --> 39:13.100]  Um, expect that your platforms will be used against the users.
[39:13.360 --> 39:22.360]  Like, you will get law enforcement requests, the, uh, data that's being collected by them, and what you think is harmless, uh, like, third-party advertisers or, like, tracker mechanisms.
[39:22.560 --> 39:23.720]  That is dangerous.
[39:23.720 --> 39:24.760]  That does hurt people.
[39:24.960 --> 39:26.080]  That affects their lives.
[39:26.220 --> 39:27.480]  It sometimes ends lives.
[39:28.920 --> 39:39.760]  And then for everyone else, advocate for privacy laws that include all, like, not just piecemeal attempts at, like, better privacy rules around the country, but federal comprehensive privacy legislation.
[39:40.040 --> 39:41.820]  We need that federally.
[39:42.160 --> 39:48.300]  And, um, just don't fall for the age-verification schemes that are happening everywhere or any other kind of protect-the-kids Internet measures.
[39:48.500 --> 39:49.340]  They're fucking bullshit.
[39:50.880 --> 39:55.680]  Here's a good example of a state law that passed recently, though, that we had a really heavy hand in writing.
[39:57.120 --> 40:00.140]  This one, too, which didn't pass, but sort of created a blueprint for us.
[40:02.840 --> 40:03.480]  TLDR here.
[40:04.080 --> 40:10.580]  Even if you don't access abortion services or you are not trans or you are not a sex worker, this should matter to you.
[40:11.020 --> 40:15.160]  Self-determination and bodily autonomy is something that everyone should care about.
[40:15.160 --> 40:23.740]  So, expecting this increase of criminalization is the only logical conclusion we can come to given the last, I don't know, 150 years.
[40:25.060 --> 40:28.480]  And if you don't know what else to do, go to act.eff.org.
[40:28.480 --> 40:37.400]  There's an action center where we have a bunch of tools for you to, like, basically tell your lawmakers, uh, pass privacy laws, stop being an asshole.
[40:37.400 --> 40:44.740]  And, um, if you don't know what else to do otherwise, go to eff.org forward slash no, where you're just like, no, I'm fed up with the bullshit.
[40:44.940 --> 40:49.420]  And you can, um, donate to EFF and, um, keep me employed.
[40:50.980 --> 40:51.600]  And that's it.
[41:01.160 --> 41:02.240]  Thank you so much, Daley.
[41:02.700 --> 41:04.360]  Uh, we're gonna open it up to questions.
[41:04.620 --> 41:12.580]  If you are on Matrix, please, uh, try to remember to tag manchicken, or just put it in there and be clear that it's a question, and I will try and work those.
[41:12.580 --> 41:14.820]  Uh, and we're, we have two mics.
[41:14.860 --> 41:19.640]  So if we can get some lines, I'm going to alternate questions from Matrix as they arrive.
[41:19.840 --> 41:21.300]  Uh, yeah, come on up, friend.
[41:22.740 --> 41:25.400]  Thank you for giving me the notice.
[41:26.680 --> 41:27.120]  Hi.
[41:27.540 --> 41:30.040]  Uh, thank you so much for this talk and for your work.
[41:30.160 --> 41:33.760]  Um, I am really interested in this kind of work.
[41:33.760 --> 41:50.240]  And I'm also wondering if you could talk a bit about, uh, for testosterone users, uh, or other drug users, uh, PDMPs, Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, where, like, the gist is that if you want to access these drugs using a prescription by conventional means,
[41:50.260 --> 41:57.380]  you are forced to agree to, like, police surveillance of the times and locations that you pick up your drugs.
[41:57.380 --> 42:04.340]  Yeah, um, so the prescription, prescription drug monitoring program, uh, is essentially what it sounds like.
[42:04.500 --> 42:10.320]  It is sort of like a framework of surveillance put over, uh, like, medicine that is prescribed to people across the U.S.
[42:10.580 --> 42:18.360]  Um, this is particularly heinous for people who are prescribed, uh, testosterone, uh, for gender dysphoria reasons.
[42:18.360 --> 42:24.100]  Um, because testosterone is way more tightly controlled than, um, estrogen is.
[42:24.720 --> 42:29.860]  Um, so, uh, I mean, what else is there to say about that?
[42:30.400 --> 42:31.980]  Uh, how do they work?
[42:36.410 --> 42:40.550]  Oh, um, well, if it is the, like, prescribing doctor...
[42:41.210 --> 42:41.650]  Uh?
[42:42.630 --> 42:45.230]  Oh, yeah, uh, what do my doctors know about me?
[42:46.050 --> 42:49.670]  And maybe, like, what do they know about the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program?
[42:49.670 --> 42:54.710]  It, it really depends on, like, the type of, uh, of doctors you're accessing, to be honest.
[42:54.890 --> 43:01.790]  So, like, I have worked with, like, very small clinic type doctors who have, like, a very heavy hand in knowledge of what's happening.
[43:01.990 --> 43:03.070]  Because they have to be.
[43:03.190 --> 43:06.870]  They're wearing, like, a zillion different hats and, like, making everything run smoothly.
[43:07.230 --> 43:10.770]  Versus, like, big hospitals where they have no idea what's happening.
[43:10.950 --> 43:12.970]  They have no idea what patients' rights are.
[43:13.130 --> 43:22.550]  Which is why we often run into doctors who are, like, basically narking on their patients and telling, um, police officers that they, like, had an abortion or something.
[43:22.930 --> 43:40.990]  And let me also say, uh, doctors or clinicians, for the most part, have very little control over how records are generated, um, in, like, uh, health information exchanges or, um, or elsewise, like, the, the, the software that they're using.
[43:41.150 --> 43:41.830]  Epic and stuff.
[43:42.010 --> 43:44.110]  The EHRs, the electronic health record systems.
[43:44.790 --> 43:47.110]  Um, they can sometimes get around it.
[43:47.230 --> 43:56.070]  And I've learned that recently, they're kind of, often, doctors are adopting, um, this strategy that is used by mental health care practitioners and clinicians.
[43:56.410 --> 43:58.210]  Where they're doing, like, parallel documentation.
[43:58.910 --> 44:02.750]  Um, often, like, analog documentation of their patients' journeys.
[44:02.750 --> 44:10.270]  Because that keeps patients protected somewhat from, um, from those records being used against them in, like, criminal cases.
[44:11.530 --> 44:12.230]  You're welcome.
[44:14.190 --> 44:14.950]  Hey there.
[44:15.150 --> 44:17.050]  Thank you so much for the brilliant presentation.
[44:17.350 --> 44:18.910]  Yeah, the brilliant presentation.
[44:19.330 --> 44:22.350]  Um, but just, uh, give a little context.
[44:22.550 --> 44:27.030]  So, I'm the digital rights program manager at an organization that provides abortion pills globally.
[44:27.590 --> 44:31.650]  Um, we are, uh, currently censored in eight countries.
[44:31.650 --> 44:33.890]  We're pursuing strategic litigation in three.
[44:34.330 --> 44:38.250]  And we recently provided our, started providing our services in the United States.
[44:38.450 --> 44:44.050]  So, we've been working with more, um, technologists and partner organizations on censorship circumvention.
[44:44.330 --> 44:48.570]  I'd be really interested to know if there have been conversations about this at EFF.
[44:48.770 --> 44:50.290]  If this is research that y'all are doing.
[44:50.570 --> 44:52.570]  If you're in conversation either with U.S.
[44:52.730 --> 44:57.350]  partners, international partners, on some of the methods that people might need to use in the U.S.
[44:57.410 --> 44:58.770]  or what their, sort of, plans are.
[44:58.770 --> 45:03.930]  Given that we've seen states like Texas try to introduce bills or provisions that are terrible.
[45:04.310 --> 45:06.970]  And would try to block access to critical healthcare information.
[45:07.470 --> 45:09.790]  So, I'd be interested to hear more about what y'all are doing with that.
[45:09.930 --> 45:10.070]  Sure.
[45:10.650 --> 45:13.210]  Um, so, uh, oh.
[45:13.510 --> 45:15.510]  Do I need to repeat the question or it's already caught by that mic?
[45:15.710 --> 45:16.270]  Caught by the mic.
[45:16.390 --> 45:16.730]  Okay, great.
[45:17.330 --> 45:19.350]  Um, yes.
[45:19.670 --> 45:26.210]  EFF is, like, long in the habit of recommending, um, censorship circumvention technologies or practices.
[45:26.210 --> 45:29.350]  And advocating for them, like, across other tech companies.
[45:29.550 --> 45:34.610]  Or making tech companies aware that they are, like, censorship resistance tools.
[45:34.950 --> 45:36.270]  Cause sometimes they don't always know that.
[45:36.810 --> 45:47.530]  Um, and then of course, like, advocating for, uh, neutrality across, like, uh, the, uh, infrastructural systems.
[45:47.730 --> 45:48.150]  We call them.
[45:48.910 --> 45:51.810]  That, like, you know, are, like, sort of lights on lights off situation for the Internet.
[45:51.810 --> 45:54.850]  Um, so we are doing that.
[45:55.010 --> 46:02.310]  However, EFF, you know, really only got involved really actively in, like, the abortion space post-Dobbs.
[46:02.590 --> 46:05.730]  So, um, I think we're still sort of coordinating our arguments for each.
[46:06.030 --> 46:16.350]  Um, I am long in the habit of, uh, recommending censorship resistance technologies to the, um, especially, like, the grassroots workers or, like, the organizations.
[46:16.350 --> 46:19.670]  Just to, like, say, like, expect your stuff to be shut down.
[46:19.950 --> 46:24.510]  So, like, um, here's how you can educate your users on how to use VPNs.
[46:24.610 --> 46:26.890]  Here's how you use, uh, the Tor network.
[46:27.090 --> 46:29.650]  Here's how you use OnionShare for distributing materials.
[46:30.050 --> 46:31.430]  Um, et cetera.
[46:32.270 --> 46:32.550]  Yeah.
[46:32.750 --> 46:35.810]  So I think, like, we need to keep sort of pushing for that.
[46:35.910 --> 46:43.230]  And it's a, that's actually a really great example of how, like, the typical technologies that we recommend as, um, you know, digital rights.
[46:44.050 --> 46:44.570]  People.
[46:45.590 --> 46:48.370]  Uh, like, expand to anyone who's being threatened.
[46:48.690 --> 46:58.570]  And so it's, like, it's our job to find the issue spaces we care about and to advocate for those things for those people before criminalization covers them and makes their lives so much worse.
[46:59.570 --> 47:00.010]  Mm-hmm.
[47:00.290 --> 47:00.450]  Yeah.
[47:00.450 --> 47:00.650]  Thank you.
[47:01.490 --> 47:01.890]  Hi.
[47:02.250 --> 47:11.630]  Um, it seems that the opposition, the people that we hate, um, are constantly better at us at doing the things that make them so effective.
[47:11.630 --> 47:23.970]  I mean, where is our campaign to geo-fence some areas where we know prostitutes that hang out and catch the politicians that go there, um, or catch police that are doing things that they shouldn't be doing, and things like that.
[47:23.970 --> 47:27.210]  They're so good at manipulating public, uh, opinion.
[47:27.510 --> 47:31.050]  And we constantly find ourselves on the defense instead of the offense.
[47:31.250 --> 47:35.630]  Are there programs to try and reverse that so that we're not always defending?
[47:37.750 --> 47:38.430]  Um, well...
[47:39.930 --> 47:41.770]  I don't think they're that much better than us.
[47:41.950 --> 47:44.750]  I think, like, um...
[47:46.030 --> 47:49.070]  All I have to do is say it's for the kids, or for, you know...
[47:49.070 --> 47:49.750]  Exactly, okay.
[47:49.870 --> 47:50.090]  Right?
[47:50.230 --> 47:52.210]  And then everybody's like, yes, you have to do it for the kids.
[47:52.230 --> 47:58.740]  Yeah, they have good propaganda, they have a lot of money, they have every law enforcement agency, they have basically bipartisan support.
[47:59.280 --> 48:02.300]  Um, that's powerful and scary and dangerous.
[48:02.680 --> 48:02.780]  It is, yes.
[48:02.880 --> 48:09.200]  But as far as, like, OPSEC goes, or just, like, basic human dignity and justice, we have that on our side.
[48:09.340 --> 48:09.540]  Okay.
[48:09.960 --> 48:13.040]  So, uh, um...
[48:14.880 --> 48:18.840]  It's so hard to sway public opinion, and they seem to be able to do it so readily.
[48:19.040 --> 48:20.880]  All they have to do is do a couple of keywords.
[48:21.020 --> 48:25.500]  You even showed an example of, everybody use this same language to get that going.
[48:25.500 --> 48:30.120]  Whereas, we tend to use logic and, um, and reason to try and sway public opinion.
[48:30.120 --> 48:32.360]  Yeah, that's why I rely on, like, my activist colleagues.
[48:32.580 --> 48:32.740]  Yeah.
[48:32.860 --> 48:36.940]  Like, I have a long, you know, history of activism in me, but I'm a technologist.
[48:37.240 --> 48:37.420]  Sure.
[48:37.620 --> 48:43.740]  Um, and so, like, the activists are really good at, you know, demystifying the bullshit that's being sold to people.
[48:44.000 --> 48:44.020]  Fantastic.
[48:44.020 --> 48:45.380]  And saying, like, don't trust that.
[48:45.560 --> 48:46.200]  That's bullshit.
[48:46.340 --> 48:46.960]  You know it is.
[48:47.060 --> 48:47.080]  Yeah.
[48:58.810 --> 48:59.650]  Thanks for the talk.
[48:59.970 --> 49:07.030]  Um, I was curious, like, what are the characteristics of these websites that, say, sex workers are retreating to when, like, the public sites are gone?
[49:07.270 --> 49:07.430]  Right?
[49:07.650 --> 49:12.690]  So, like, are these, like, onion websites, or are they, or they look like, are they just gonna get shut down randomly all the time?
[49:13.970 --> 49:14.690]  Mm-hmm.
[49:17.490 --> 49:20.830]  I would say that, um, it's very heavily classed.
[49:20.830 --> 49:29.590]  It's, um, it, uh, the types of sex workers that are allowed to operate online nowadays are classed.
[49:29.690 --> 49:33.330]  So, they're gonna be, uh, the people who are hired by politicians.
[49:33.610 --> 49:34.230]  Should I say that?
[49:34.790 --> 49:41.630]  Um, uh, and so, that falls along other intersections of oppression that we can expect elsewhere.
[49:42.090 --> 49:45.030]  So, like, um, yeah.
[49:45.030 --> 49:45.110]  Yeah.
[49:45.850 --> 49:55.210]  So, uh, you know, people who are disabled, people who are black and brown, people who are immigrants, um, they're not gonna have access to those resources.
[49:56.350 --> 49:56.770]  Often.
[49:57.010 --> 49:59.010]  People who are trans, not gonna have access.
[50:00.010 --> 50:00.430]  So.
[50:01.070 --> 50:01.490]  Yeah.
[50:04.930 --> 50:06.470]  All right, everybody, thank you so much.
[50:06.670 --> 50:09.370]  Let's, uh, get another, uh, round of applause for Dale here.
[50:11.550 --> 50:12.450]  Thank you.
[50:12.450 --> 50:13.530]  Thank you very much.
[50:13.610 --> 50:13.990]  Thank you.