June, 02 2022, 08:00am EDT
Civil Rights Groups Reinforce Legislators' Demand for Google to Stop Endangering Abortion Seekers
Google’s collection and storage of location data will make the company complicit in the criminalization of people seeking abortions in a post-Roe world. The company must immediately stop unnecessary collection and retention of our location data.
WASHINGTON
More than 40 rights organizations are calling on Google to stop unnecessarily collecting and retaining customer location data, to prevent that information from being used to identify people seeking abortions. This open letter doubles down on a letter sent last week by more than 40 lawmakers making similar demands of Google.
The recent leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion signals that the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion will likely evaporate in the coming months. If the protections provided by Roe v. Wade fall, many states with so-called "trigger bans" will immediately criminalize abortion, and Congress may seek to criminalize abortion in all 50 states.
Without the constitutional protection of bodily autonomy, Google's data sharing will make the company complicit in the criminalization, prosecution, and jailing of people seeking and providing abortion care. Google collects and stores the precise location data of hundreds of millions of smartphone users, and shares this information with government agencies through geofence warrants. A geofence warrant issued by a state prosecutor, for example, could lead Google to unmask the identity of anyone who visited an abortion clinic over a period of time. This degree of government surveillance is only possible because of Google's business model, which prioritizes mass data collection over human rights.
In their letter, the groups note that Google is not required to collect and keep records of its customers' every movement, and add that Apple doesn't retain the same quantity of customers' location data.
The groups state that the only way to protect Americans' location data from such outrageous government surveillance is for Google not to keep it in the first place.
Statements from signing organizations:
"Google's location data collection has always been a problem. Pairing this excessive invasion of peoples' privacy with the likely future where the laws of our country give the government control over peoples' bodies will endanger millions. Google must act quickly to change its practices to stop this unnecessary data dragnet before it is complicit in the criminalization of abortions," said Caitlin Seeley George, Campaign Director at Fight for the Future.
"Google's surveillance capitalism business model - in which they are incentivized to collect as much personal data as possible, in order to sell targeted ads - has long undermined our right to privacy. It's terrifying to consider how the massive amounts of personal data gathered by Google and other companies can now be weaponized against people seeking to exercise their reproductive rights," said Michael Kleinman, Amnesty International USA's Director of Technology and Human Rights.
"Google needs to take data minimization seriously," said Willmary Escoto, U.S. Policy Analyst at Access Now. "To truly protect women while privacy rights are under assault in the United States, companies must stop collecting unnecessary data. Google can't share our location data with the police if they don't have it. Women who are Black or brown, disabled, indigenous, or of low income are disproportionately vulnerable. Information about people who obtained abortions, including where they went and their internet searches, is private and should be protected."
"Google must protect its users from being criminalized for using its services. Saving location data puts people seeking abortions at risk of arrest, incarceration and persecution for meeting their needs and making the hardest of choices. Right now, as our government and public officials fail us, Google can step into the gap and help protect us from this overarching interference with our human rights. We ask Google to protect our privacy. Our bodies are not your marketing tools," said Alex Andrews, SWOP Behind Bars, Inc.
Letter and full list of signers:
Sundar Pichai
Chief Executive Officer
Google LLC
Dear Mr. Pichai:
We write to urge you to stop unnecessarily collecting and retaining customer location data, to prevent that information from being used to identify people who have obtained abortions.
The recent Supreme Court draft opinion shows that the constitutional right to safe, legal abortion -- a fundamental right that Americans have known for half a century -- is likely to be overturned. If this decision becomes final, many states that have trigger laws will immediately criminalize abortion and Congress may pass a law criminalizing abortion in all 50 states.
In a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google's current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care. That's because Google stores historical location information about hundreds of millions of smartphone users, which it routinely shares with government agencies.
While Google collects and retains customer location data for various business purposes, including to target online ads, Google is not the only entity to make use of this data. Law enforcement officials routinely obtain court orders forcing Google to turn over its customers' location information. This includes dragnet "geofence" orders demanding data about everyone who was near a particular location at a given time. In fact, according to data published by Google, one quarter of the law enforcement orders that your company receives each year are for these dragnet geofence orders; Google received 11,554 geofence warrants in 2020.
Google is not required to collect and keep records of its customers' every movement. Apple has shown that it is not necessary for smartphone companies to retain invasive tracking databases of their customers' locations. Google's intentional choice to do so is creating a new digital divide, in which privacy and security are made a luxury.
If abortion is made illegal by the Supreme Court and Congress, it is inevitable that prosecutors will use legal means to hunt down, prosecute and jail people for obtaining critical reproductive health care. The only way to protect your customers' location data from such outrageous government surveillance is to not keep it in the first place.
To that end, we urge you to promptly reform your data collection and retention practices, so that Google no longer collects unnecessary customer location data nor retains any non-aggregate location data about individual customers, whether in identifiable or anonymized form. Google cannot allow its online advertising-focused digital infrastructure to be weaponized against people seeking abortions.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media
Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction
Access Now
Action Center on Race and the Economy
Advocacy for Principled Action in Government
Advocating Opportunity
AIDS Alabama
Amnesty International USA
CARES
Center for Digital Democracy
Consumer Action
Defending Rights & Dissent
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Elephant Circle
Fight for the Future
GLAAD
Global Voices
Hacking//Hustling
Individual Privacy, RJ Attorney
Indivisible Bainbridge Island
Jacobs Institute of Women's Health
Liberate! Don't Incarcerate
Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus
Media Alliance
MediaJustice
Movement for Family Power
NARAL Pro-Choice America
National Birth Equity Collaborative
New America's Open Technology Institute
North Kitsap Indivisible
Oakland Privacy
Pro-Choice Connecticut
Pro-Choice North Carolina
Pro-Choice Ohio
Pro-Choice Oregon
Pro-Choice Washington
Reframe Health and Justice
Reproductive Equity Now
Restore The Fourth
RootsAction Education Fund
S.T.O.P. - The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project
SumOfUs
SWOP Behind Bars, Inc
The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center
Transgender Law Center
WA People's Privacy Network
Whatcom Peace & Justice Center
Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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57 House Dems Call On Biden to Prevent Israeli Assault on Rafah
"An offensive invasion into Rafah by Israel in the upcoming days is wholly unacceptable."
May 01, 2024
Dozens of U.S. House Democrats on Wednesday joined Congresswomen Pramila Jayapal and Madeleine Dean in pressuring President Joe Biden to prevent a full-scale Israeli assault on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip that's now full of over a million displaced Palestinians.
"We write with urgency to say: an offensive invasion into Rafah by Israel in the upcoming days is wholly unacceptable," states the letter from Jayapal (D-Wash.), Dean (D-Pa.), and 55 other members of Congress. "We welcome your administration's efforts to dissuade the Israeli government from this military operation, which would deepen both the humanitarian catastrophe for people in Gaza and the strategic challenges that regional and global stakeholders face in this conflict."
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The Democrats highlighted how Israel's retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack has impacted the city:
Rafah has become one of the most overcrowded places in the world. With shelters too full and insufficient, many families now live on the streets. The collapsed health infrastructure, in addition to sewage overflow and the scarcity of food, water, and medicine, has accelerated the onset of severe malnutrition and the spread of communicable diseases. Acute food insecurity is endemic in Rafah, even as the international community circulates credible reports that famine is setting in elsewhere in Gaza—all as a result of six months of military operations that you have described as "indiscriminate." In addition, we know in fact that Israeli strikes on Rafah have already occurred, including one on April 20th that killed 18 people, including 14 children.
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The letter comes a week after Biden signed a foreign aid package that included $26 billion for Israel and passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. Jayapal and three dozen other Democrats opposed the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which ultimately passed.
In a joint statement last month, the Washington Democrat and 18 of her colleagues said that "our votes against H.R. 8034 are votes against supplying more offensive weapons that could result in more killings of civilians in Rafah and elsewhere."
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In sharp contrast with Columbia University in New York City, Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday announced the imminent suspension of diplomatic relations with Israel over that country's assault on Gaza.
"The government of change informs that as of tomorrow diplomatic relations with Israel will be broken... for having a government, for having a president who is genocidal," Petro told a crowd in the capital Bogotá during an International Workers' Day event, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The world could be summed up in a single word that vindicates the necessity of life, rebellion, the raised flag, and resistance," the leftist leader added. "That word is called Gaza. It is called Palestine. It is called the children and babies who have died dismembered by the bombs."
"The times of genocide and extermination of an entire people cannot return. If Palestine dies, humanity dies," he added as the crowd started chanting, "Petro! Petro! Petro!"
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In late October, Colombia became one of the first countries to recall its ambassador from Israel, a move that came amid a diplomatic fracas between Bogotá and Tel Aviv sparked by Petro's comparison of Israeli leaders' dehumanizing and genocidal statements about Palestinians with "what the Nazis said about the Jews."
Petro also called Gaza—often described as the "world's largest open-air prison"—a "concentration camp."
After Israel accused Petro of "hostile and antisemitic statements" and "support for the horrific acts of Hamas terrorists," the Colombian president hit back, saying Israel's war on Gaza is "genocide."
Last month, Colombia asked the International Court of Justice to join the South African-led genocide case against Israel, which is supported by over 30 nations. In January, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that found Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordered its government to prevent genocidal acts.
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"America's farmers and consumers need forward-looking policies that build a sustainable, resilient, and fair food system," said one campaigner.
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U.S. House Committee on Agriculture Chair Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-Pa.) put out a "title-by-title overview" of priorities and announced plans for a legislative markup on May 23 while Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) released the Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act, which includes over 100 bipartisan bills.
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Friends of the Earth senior program manager Chloe Waterman declared that "House Republicans have proposed a dead-on-arrival Farm Bill framework that puts Big Ag's profits over everyone else: communities, family farmers, consumers, states and local rule, farmed animals, and the planet."
"Senate Democrats are off to a much better start than the House, but they have also fallen short by failing to shift subsidies and other support away from factory farming and pesticide-intensive commodities toward diversified, regenerative, and climate-friendly farming systems," she added. "We are particularly concerned that millions of dollars intended for climate mitigation will continue to be funneled to factory farms, including to support greenwashed factory farm gas."
Both Waterman's organization and Food and Water Watch spotlighted the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, which aims to prevent state and local policies designed to protect animal welfare, farm workers, and food safety—like California's Proposition 12, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last year. The Republican bill is opposed by more than 200 members of Congress and over 150 advocacy groups.
"Despicable ploys to undermine critical consumer and animal welfare protections must be dead on arrival," Food & Water Watch senior food policy analyst Rebecca Wolf said in a Wednesday statement blasting the House GOP's priorities.
"America's farmers and consumers need forward-looking policies that build a sustainable, resilient, and fair food system," she stressed. "Instead, House leadership seems poised to take us backwards, trading state-level gains for a few more bucks in the pockets of corporate donors. Congress must move beyond partisan bickering, and get to work on a Farm Bill that cuts handouts to Big Ag and factory farms."
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Stabenow's bill "would protect and strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), our nation's most important and effective anti-hunger program," noted Ty Jones Cox, CBPP's vice president for food assistance.
Meanwhile, Thompson's plan "would put a healthy diet out of reach in the future for millions of families with low incomes by cutting future benefits for all SNAP participants and eroding the adequacy of SNAP benefits over time," she warned.
As Jones Cox detailed:
Thompson's proposal would prevent SNAP benefits from keeping pace with the cost of a healthy, realistic diet over time, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would result in a roughly $30 billion cut to SNAP over the next decade. The proposal would do this by freezing the cost of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Thrifty Food Plan (the basis for SNAP benefit levels) outside of inflation adjustments, even if nutrition guidelines or other factors change the cost of an adequate diet. The Thompson proposal's modest benefit improvements do not outweigh the harm to the tens of millions of SNAP participants—including children, older adults, and people with disabilities—who would receive less food assistance in the future because of this policy.
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