"Last May, EFF reported that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion."
They literally think they are doing the work of some divine creator. They have plenty of time to ruin the lives of other people because they think it saves their own.
And many of these people really do need their Good Works on the force to do the saving, because God knows what they do to their wives and kids back home.
Making examples out of some number of unlucky peasants over otherwise trivial deviance that harms nearly nobody is one of the key jobs of men at arms.
Now, they may spend more time on "real crime" or collecting taxes by other names, but make no mistake this sort of stuff is stuff they (as an agency) must do if they are to properly serve the interests of their master.
> from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader
This feels purposefully misleading. Did they manually watch hours and hours of footage, or is this the equivalent of "I searched an online corpus of hundreds of millions of documents" (I Googled it)
Sure, call it that. They Googled it on their comperensive, nation-wide, unlimited access, fully indexed and integrated surveillance network (with 83,000 edge nodes)
You assume that a lady getting an abortion is not committing murder--these folks clearly think she is.
(We don't need to argue about whether it is in fact murder, or whether if it is that the murder is justified or not--just understand that there are people that believe differently, and apparently they're willing to expend police resources on it.)
> We don't need to argue about whether it is in fact murder
That's exactly the problem: we do. Not here, specifically, but if someone's false beliefs have grown to the point that they are hurting others over them, they need to be stopped.
Do you not realize that this argument applies equally well both against pro-choice and against pro-lifers? It does, therefore it is entirely invalid and irrelevant.
Yes, those people with "false beliefs". Ah, if only we could force everyone to have true beliefs. And it's not against freedom of thought and consciousness, oh no! We're only against actually false beliefs. That, you know, have been proven wrong. Or at least for which the proofs of incorrectness exist that we believe are correct. But since our beliefs true, this is fine.
> getting an abortion is a minute not spent tracking down a murderer
but see, there are people who believe abortion is murder, and perhaps one of the worst forms of murder because of its victim’s extreme innocence since it has not caused any harm in this world.
I would accept that such people are entitled to their beliefs only if they would equally believe in the extreme innocence of a chicken who has not caused any harm in this world and they would seek to punish the murderer of the chicken.
You either accept the world as it is and you accept that some killings are unavoidable and some lives are more important than others, or you are consistent and you kill yourself, because for now it is not yet possible for a human to live without causing the death of other living creatures. (Not even a pure vegan can live without using services provided by the society that indirectly cause the death of some animals.)
A human who cannot discriminate between just and unjust killings certainly does not belong in law enforcement or in the creation of laws.
Even if we restrict the discussion to humans, ignoring other animals, where is exactly the distinction between killing an embryo and killing a cancer tumor? Both are humans, closely related but genetically distinct from the body in which they grow.
Or if someone self-mutilates, e.g. by cutting a finger, should they be convicted for murdering the finger? A finger is not able to live independently, but the same is true for an embryo.
There are many other similar arguments, so in my opinion those who want for abortions to be punished by law are not people with different opinions, they are just illogical people with wrong opinions, whose wrong opinions cannot be ignored, because they cause them to become the aggressors of other people and it is this which cannot be accepted.
> I would accept that such people are entitled to their beliefs only if they would equally believe in the extreme innocence of a chicken who has not caused any harm in this world and they would seek to punish the murderer of the chicken.
Why is equating human and chicken life necessary for you to accept that people are entitled to their beliefs?
> A finger is not able to live independently, but the same is true for an embryo.
The finger is the person's DNA. The child is not their DNA.
In a 2025 University of Iowa single-center study (published in JAMA Network Open), out of 22 infants born alive at 21 weeks gestation, resuscitation was attempted in 17. 6 survived to NICU discharge (about 35%), and 1 remained hospitalized.
As I said, the law is the problem. Since the law demands to track and investigate ladies suspected of destruction of embryos inside their own bodies, the police's direct job is to do just that, even to the detriment of other activities.
The police themselves may consider it stupid and counterproductive, but their opinion does not count until the next elections.
The universality of "I want the rule of law!.. unless I dislike the laws, of course" stance is truly depressing. I swear, were it not for rather strict ground-level prohibitions in the constitutions, we'd all went back to allegedly enlightened monarchies ages ago. Perhaps we yet all will, things really are looking quite peculiar around the world right now.
Seems like sheriff was searching for missing person. Was concern about her welfare and mental health, thus the use of the cameras. You can buy Mifepristone at CVS, Target, Walgreen's and the like. I don't think they were trying to track which CVS she was going to.
The article is misleading, but that should never get in the way of righteous rage that helps a person form identity and purpose in an otherwise existential and empty vacuum of meaning.
They lie to you constantly and they know it. You are being rage-baited to farm you votes, clicks, views, and likes:
According to internal Johnson County Sheriff's Office files released under the Texas Public Information Act, the entire "self-administered abortion" narrative was fabricated by a violent felon:
The Ex-Girlfriend's Account: The woman later informed investigators that she had actually suffered a natural miscarriage after her ex-boyfriend physically assaulted her.
The False Fetus Evidence: The ex-boyfriend—seeking to deflect blame for the assault—collected a blood clot from the miscarriage, presented it to the police, and lied by claiming his ex-girlfriend had intentionally taken illegal abortion pills to end a pregnancy.
The Intent of the Search: The police reports later clarified that while the deputy typed "had an abortion" into the Flock Safety tracking system, they were actually attempting to locate the woman and her children because she was fleeing from this domestic violence situation.
Because the initial report was based on a malicious and fabricated claim by an abuser, an official clinical timeline of the pregnancy was never established or verified in the official "death investigation" file.
We had a lady down here in Estonia working for police. She used their extensive databases for non-work related reasons and got, very publicly, fired. She decided to appeal and lost. Through all levels of court up to the EU one. So for years, there would be a newspaper headline “remember that person who invaded your privacy? Still guilty”. Could not wish for a more impactful public execution.
One reason the government surveillance is important is I've read there is a growing movement among the right-to-lifers to hold women who abort criminally liable.
It's no longer safe to even use a period tracking app in many US states now. The women I know are all cautioning each other to go back to pen and paper, and ditch anything app based.
Most of us here knows ways around this, but many people are not educated.
One method is get off your smart phone and boot tails and do the searches there. Maybe that is something EFF can make known. Like list trusted onion sites that have information where women can go and get help.
If rights can be capriciously and arbitrarily curtailed by armed agents of the state while effete judges yeet sternly-worded letters into the void, then those "rights" are worth about as much as the USA's signature on an international treaty. Which is to say, nothing.
I don't know if you've ever read any Bill/Declaration of Rights, but they all have "this right shall not be violated unless the law allows it" provisions. Many of them even have "oh, and requiring state licensing to exercise such right is not violating it" provisions (see e.g. "This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises" in Article 10 of ECHR).
wild that it took abortion for people to notice. the same cameras have been feeding ICE lookups across 5,000+ towns, quietly, for the last couple years
Education is often best achieved through spaced repetition and cross-discipline integration, especially with the intent of connecting something with someone’s personal life to sink it deeper.
A single news article ever, or 1000 news articles that don’t impact “you specifically” are less effective than measured repetition across multiple fronts.
"Last May, EFF reported that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion."
These people really have nothing better to do?
I've got distant family members in law enforcement. They brag about the reach of their equipment to surveil. Yes, they enjoy being overly suspicious.
Suspicious? The word is abusive. Of the law, of their uniform, of their fellow citizens.
They literally think they are doing the work of some divine creator. They have plenty of time to ruin the lives of other people because they think it saves their own.
Really insightful comment. Couldn't agree more.
And many of these people really do need their Good Works on the force to do the saving, because God knows what they do to their wives and kids back home.
>These people really have nothing better to do?
Making examples out of some number of unlucky peasants over otherwise trivial deviance that harms nearly nobody is one of the key jobs of men at arms.
Now, they may spend more time on "real crime" or collecting taxes by other names, but make no mistake this sort of stuff is stuff they (as an agency) must do if they are to properly serve the interests of their master.
> from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader
This feels purposefully misleading. Did they manually watch hours and hours of footage, or is this the equivalent of "I searched an online corpus of hundreds of millions of documents" (I Googled it)
Doesn't feel misleading at all, "searched data from" is pretty much your "I Googled it" without branding.
The inclusion of 83,000 seems more intended to quantify the scope of the surveillance accessible to these sheriffs.
Sure, call it that. They Googled it on their comperensive, nation-wide, unlimited access, fully indexed and integrated surveillance network (with 83,000 edge nodes)
There is no rest for the wicked.
They have a law to enforce. The law enforcement activity is as good as the law :(
Every minute spent tracking down a lady getting an abortion is a minute not spent tracking down a murderer or a rapist or similar.
(amazing username.)
You assume that a lady getting an abortion is not committing murder--these folks clearly think she is.
(We don't need to argue about whether it is in fact murder, or whether if it is that the murder is justified or not--just understand that there are people that believe differently, and apparently they're willing to expend police resources on it.)
> We don't need to argue about whether it is in fact murder
That's exactly the problem: we do. Not here, specifically, but if someone's false beliefs have grown to the point that they are hurting others over them, they need to be stopped.
Do you not realize that this argument applies equally well both against pro-choice and against pro-lifers? It does, therefore it is entirely invalid and irrelevant.
Yes, those people with "false beliefs". Ah, if only we could force everyone to have true beliefs. And it's not against freedom of thought and consciousness, oh no! We're only against actually false beliefs. That, you know, have been proven wrong. Or at least for which the proofs of incorrectness exist that we believe are correct. But since our beliefs true, this is fine.
He said nothing about forcing. Suppose the false belief he was talking about was Creationism. Does his comment read as authoritarian?
Yes, it does.
> getting an abortion is a minute not spent tracking down a murderer
but see, there are people who believe abortion is murder, and perhaps one of the worst forms of murder because of its victim’s extreme innocence since it has not caused any harm in this world.
I would accept that such people are entitled to their beliefs only if they would equally believe in the extreme innocence of a chicken who has not caused any harm in this world and they would seek to punish the murderer of the chicken.
You either accept the world as it is and you accept that some killings are unavoidable and some lives are more important than others, or you are consistent and you kill yourself, because for now it is not yet possible for a human to live without causing the death of other living creatures. (Not even a pure vegan can live without using services provided by the society that indirectly cause the death of some animals.)
A human who cannot discriminate between just and unjust killings certainly does not belong in law enforcement or in the creation of laws.
Even if we restrict the discussion to humans, ignoring other animals, where is exactly the distinction between killing an embryo and killing a cancer tumor? Both are humans, closely related but genetically distinct from the body in which they grow.
Or if someone self-mutilates, e.g. by cutting a finger, should they be convicted for murdering the finger? A finger is not able to live independently, but the same is true for an embryo.
There are many other similar arguments, so in my opinion those who want for abortions to be punished by law are not people with different opinions, they are just illogical people with wrong opinions, whose wrong opinions cannot be ignored, because they cause them to become the aggressors of other people and it is this which cannot be accepted.
> I would accept that such people are entitled to their beliefs only if they would equally believe in the extreme innocence of a chicken who has not caused any harm in this world and they would seek to punish the murderer of the chicken.
Why is equating human and chicken life necessary for you to accept that people are entitled to their beliefs?
> A finger is not able to live independently, but the same is true for an embryo.
The finger is the person's DNA. The child is not their DNA.
In a 2025 University of Iowa single-center study (published in JAMA Network Open), out of 22 infants born alive at 21 weeks gestation, resuscitation was attempted in 17. 6 survived to NICU discharge (about 35%), and 1 remained hospitalized.
As I said, the law is the problem. Since the law demands to track and investigate ladies suspected of destruction of embryos inside their own bodies, the police's direct job is to do just that, even to the detriment of other activities.
The police themselves may consider it stupid and counterproductive, but their opinion does not count until the next elections.
The universality of "I want the rule of law!.. unless I dislike the laws, of course" stance is truly depressing. I swear, were it not for rather strict ground-level prohibitions in the constitutions, we'd all went back to allegedly enlightened monarchies ages ago. Perhaps we yet all will, things really are looking quite peculiar around the world right now.
within the US context, the government isnt allowed to just have any law it wants, and it isnt allowed yo enforce laws that breach individual rights
"I was just enforcing the law" is no better than "I was just following orders".
Seems like sheriff was searching for missing person. Was concern about her welfare and mental health, thus the use of the cameras. You can buy Mifepristone at CVS, Target, Walgreen's and the like. I don't think they were trying to track which CVS she was going to.
The article is misleading, but that should never get in the way of righteous rage that helps a person form identity and purpose in an otherwise existential and empty vacuum of meaning.
The above article is https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/we-want-texans-know-th... .
That article links to https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/she-got-abortion-so-te... which links to https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas...
The second article states what you are saying, but the third article says that the information given in the second article was a lie.
They lie to you constantly and they know it. You are being rage-baited to farm you votes, clicks, views, and likes:
According to internal Johnson County Sheriff's Office files released under the Texas Public Information Act, the entire "self-administered abortion" narrative was fabricated by a violent felon:
https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/crime/article31451... https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/feb/04/eastern-wa-flo...
The Ex-Girlfriend's Account: The woman later informed investigators that she had actually suffered a natural miscarriage after her ex-boyfriend physically assaulted her.
The False Fetus Evidence: The ex-boyfriend—seeking to deflect blame for the assault—collected a blood clot from the miscarriage, presented it to the police, and lied by claiming his ex-girlfriend had intentionally taken illegal abortion pills to end a pregnancy.
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-police-cameras-us...
The Intent of the Search: The police reports later clarified that while the deputy typed "had an abortion" into the Flock Safety tracking system, they were actually attempting to locate the woman and her children because she was fleeing from this domestic violence situation.
Because the initial report was based on a malicious and fabricated claim by an abuser, an official clinical timeline of the pregnancy was never established or verified in the official "death investigation" file.
We had a lady down here in Estonia working for police. She used their extensive databases for non-work related reasons and got, very publicly, fired. She decided to appeal and lost. Through all levels of court up to the EU one. So for years, there would be a newspaper headline “remember that person who invaded your privacy? Still guilty”. Could not wish for a more impactful public execution.
One reason the government surveillance is important is I've read there is a growing movement among the right-to-lifers to hold women who abort criminally liable.
It's no longer safe to even use a period tracking app in many US states now. The women I know are all cautioning each other to go back to pen and paper, and ditch anything app based.
Correct and you shouldn't use any health apps that don't take your privacy seriously.
Here are privacy respecting ones: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/health-and-wellness/#menstr...
Apple offers this in Health and it stays on device or encrypted in backups. I’m not sure why anyone would want this in the cloud.
Most of us here knows ways around this, but many people are not educated.
One method is get off your smart phone and boot tails and do the searches there. Maybe that is something EFF can make known. Like list trusted onion sites that have information where women can go and get help.
You boot tails to track your period?
If rights can be capriciously and arbitrarily curtailed by armed agents of the state while effete judges yeet sternly-worded letters into the void, then those "rights" are worth about as much as the USA's signature on an international treaty. Which is to say, nothing.
I don't know if you've ever read any Bill/Declaration of Rights, but they all have "this right shall not be violated unless the law allows it" provisions. Many of them even have "oh, and requiring state licensing to exercise such right is not violating it" provisions (see e.g. "This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises" in Article 10 of ECHR).
> …while effete judges yeet sternly-worded letters into the void…
You, sir, have a way with words.
In going to choose to take this as a compliment :)
wild that it took abortion for people to notice. the same cameras have been feeding ICE lookups across 5,000+ towns, quietly, for the last couple years
Education is often best achieved through spaced repetition and cross-discipline integration, especially with the intent of connecting something with someone’s personal life to sink it deeper.
A single news article ever, or 1000 news articles that don’t impact “you specifically” are less effective than measured repetition across multiple fronts.