Texas’s Flocked-up abortion legal guidelines
Howdy and welcome to the newest version of “lo and behold, the dystopian factor that ladies and activists warned would occur finally ends up occurring”. This time the difficulty is automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which seize (no prizes for guessing!) license plate knowledge and permit regulation enforcement to construct an image of the place a specific automobile has been. There’s no opting out of being tracked: should you drive, it’s best to merely assume that these cameras, that are generally hidden in objects like visitors cones, are logging your actions. And it’s best to assume that this license plate knowledge may be mixed with different surveillance knowledge to color a really detailed image of your life. Privateness solely exists for our billionaire overlords today. The remainder of us are simply knowledge factors.
There are clearly loads of legit makes use of to ALPRs. Their proponents will wax lyrical about how they may also help clear up carjackings and kidnappings. However, like all expertise, they’re ripe for abuse. They’re notably ripe for abuse in an more and more authoritarian US, filled with lawmakers who wish to management ladies’s our bodies.
Again in 2022, a couple of months after Roe v Wade was overturned, the Guardian revealed a bit on ALPRs warning that “an increasing internet of license plate readers could possibly be ‘weaponized’ towards abortion”. It centered on an organization known as Flock, one of many massive gamers on this house, which guarantees a “holistic resolution to crime”.
Flock’s expertise could possibly be used to “criminalize folks in search of reproductive well being and additional erode folks’s potential to maneuver about their each day lives free from being tracked and traced”, one knowledgeable informed the Guardian on the time. One other civil rights knowledgeable warned that Flock, which has acknowledged that it’s blissful to offer expertise to assist enact no matter legal guidelines have been handed, “illustrates how surveillance isn’t really about benefiting society or defending folks – it’s about imposing the political targets of these in energy”.
Sadly, all these consultants have been proved proper. This week 404 Media reported {that a} Texas police officer used Flock to carry out a nationwide search of greater than 83,000 ALPR cameras whereas searching for a girl who had had an abortion. Abortion is sort of totally unlawful in Texas however regulation enforcement reportedly checked out cameras in states comparable to Washington and Illinois the place abortion is authorized.
Anti-abortion voices like to argue that they’re not making an attempt to regulate ladies, they’re making an attempt to shield ladies. Funnily sufficient this identical speaking level got here up on this case. Sheriff Adam King of Johnson county, Texas, informed 404 Media that the girl had self-administered the abortion “and her household was apprehensive that she was going to bleed to dying, and we had been looking for her to get her to a hospital.” He added: “We weren’t making an attempt to dam her from leaving the state or no matter to get an abortion. It was about her security.”
Maybe this was true on this case. Lots of the particulars are nonetheless unclear so it’s arduous to inform. However even when this was purely benevolent surveillance, you’ll be able to definitely see the place all that is headed. “This incident is undeniably a harbinger of extra AI-enabled reproductive surveillance and investigations to come back,” Ashley Emery, senior coverage analyst in reproductive well being and rights on the Nationwide Partnership for Girls & Households, informed 404 Media. “Particularly for ladies of shade who’re already over-surveilled and over-policed, the stakes couldn’t be larger.”
“Texas is the land of freedom,” Governor Greg Abbott not too long ago proclaimed. In the event you’re a girl in Texas, nonetheless, “freedom” appears to have fairly a wierd definition. Not solely are you not allowed freedom over your reproductive selections, a variety of Texas metropolis councils (a few of that are composed totally of male lawmakers) have been making an attempt to go journey bans that will cease Texans from driving to abortion appointments in different states. Abortion bans, tried journey bans, and a community of surveillance expertise that can be utilized to implement these bans: that is what “freedom” for ladies in Texas appears like.
Sexual exploitation and home violence soared after Hawaii wildfire
Within the weeks and months after the 2023 Lahaina fireplace, “one in six feminine fireplace survivors surveyed felt pressured to interact in sexual acts in change for fundamental requirements comparable to meals, clothes and housing”, studies Nina Lakhani.
Girls and women in Sudan’s Darfur area are at near-constant threat of sexual violence
“Sexual violence has change into so widespread in Darfur that many individuals chillingly talk about it as unavoidable,” Médecins Sans Frontières states in a horrifying replace on the disaster.
Saudi Arabia’s secretive rehabilitation ‘prisons’ for disobedient ladies
“Whereas Saudi Arabia celebrates being awarded the Fifa males’s World Cup and meticulously promotes itself on the worldwide stage as reformed, ladies who’ve dared to publicly name for extra rights and freedoms have confronted home arrest, jail and exile,” the Guardian studies. Saudi Arabia, it ought to be famous, has had lots of assist selling itself as “reformed” by the US media, which has run quite a few puff items on Mohammed bin Salman – also called the “bone noticed” prince.
She was watering flowers when she was killed in an airstrike.
Israeli airstrike kills 9 of Gaza physician’s 10 youngsters
The charred our bodies of seven of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar’s 10 youngsters arrived at her hospital. Two others, together with a seven-month-old, stay lacking, presumably beneath the rubble. Regardless of pretending to be outraged concerning the slaughter in Gaza, the UK has despatched its commerce envoy to Israel to enhance business hyperlinks. In the meantime US lawmakers are cheering the killing on.
There’s been a decline in psychological well being amongst US moms
The proportion of moms reporting “glorious” psychological well being dropped from 38% in 2016 to 26% in 2023. This decline was noticed throughout practically each socioeconomic subgroup examined.
after publication promotion
Criminology lecturer turned shoplifter calls herself the ‘UK’s poshest thief’
Fairly positive Pauline Al Stated, who has been fined for stealing greater than £1,000-worth of Le Creuset cookware, steaks, wine and gin, has taken a web page out of the high-society scammer Anna Delvey’s ebook. In the event you can grift your method to viral fame and a Netflix sequence then crime actually does pay! (This shouldn’t be learn as encouragement to do crime.)
Kate Nash releases a feminist pro-trans anthem that shouts out the Guardian
The lyrics embody the next: “Kathryn Bromwich from the Guardian states that Trans folks make up roughly 0.5% of the UK inhabitants and are twice as more likely to be victims of crime than cis folks.” Nash informed Angle that she got here out with the tune due to JK Rowling’s anti-trans activism. “I simply wished it to be on report, in music historical past and in feminist historical past, for there to be anyone else in tradition that’s saying that I simply don’t imagine that’s feminism,” Nash informed Angle.
Sydney Sweeney is promoting used bathwater
The Euphoria actor, who has spoken out about being objectified by followers, is now promoting cleaning soap made along with her used bathwater.
Lady says ‘I don’t like cheese’ after profitable cheese rolling race
Would you wish to see some beatboxing nuns?
Right here you go! You’re welcome.
The week in pawtriarchy
Doug the Pug, a canine influencer with tens of millions of followers, has obtained an honorary diploma from the College of New Haven in Connecticut in “Furensic Science”. He’s already bought an unofficial dogtorate in cuteness.
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