It’s often said that privacy is dead. Indeed, most of us don’t think much about privacy anymore as we opt for convenience. But recent events suggest that the loss of privacy can have dire implications for all of us. Particularly since the government and others have the ability to know everything, and I mean everything about us.
I have written before about the potential ability of law enforcement, prosecutors, and others to obtain highly personal information about you. And about what you are doing. Indeed a recent unconfirmed report out of Nebraska suggests that that is precisely what is starting to happen.
According to a recent Lincoln, Nebraska news report and Forbes article, a teenager and her mother were recently arrested and charged with allegedly removing, concealing, and abandoning a dead human body and concealing the death of another person. The arrest occurred after the Norfolk Police Department received a tip claiming the teenager had miscarried in April at 23 weeks of pregnancy and secretly buried the fetus with her mother’s help. The 17 year old is being charged as an adult.
A week after the two were charged, the detective in charge of the case had the bright idea to get and serve a search warrant on Facebook. The warrant sought access to the mother’s and daughter’s accounts. While Facebook could have perhaps challenged the warrant, it instead turned over the direct messages (and presumably public posts) between the mother and the teenager.
The detective discovered messages that suggested the mother had obtained abortion pills for her daughter and gave her instructions on how to take them.
A month later, the prosecuting attorney added two more felonies to the charges against the mother based on the Facebook evidence for performing or attempting an abortion