Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

Which law in this case?

Be specific, what law requires them to not treat particular healthcare facilities differently with regards to data collection?

View on HN

And if abortion is going to be decided by the states, what state law is Google violating? CA isn't going to make not sharing this data illegal.

The states in which the abortion clinics are already starting to close due to the ruling. [1]

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61933814

Yes, this measure would be to protect people that travel out of state to seek healthcare from later persecution and prosecution in their home states.

This debate seems headed towards the question of whether or not one state can control what people do in another state, or restrict the free travel of people who intend to do things which are legal in other states? Utah doesn't allow gambling, can Utah build a wall to keep Utah residents inside so that they can't gamble in other states?

The interstate commerce clause is heavily abused, but not allowing states to control behavior in other states seems a pretty straightforward interpretation. The states were always intended to have different laws, from the beginning of the country.

Not tampering with evidence? [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampering_with_evidence

A blanket rule on data collection isn't tampering with evidence. They are not examining the particular information they are deleting in order to determine whether it is potentially evidence.

> They are not examining the particular information they are deleting in order to determine whether it is potentially evidence.

Of course they are, unless I am misunderstanding what they are doing. It seems that they are specifically deleting location data with regards to visits to abortion clinics. [1]

[1]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/google-data-abortion-clinics-1...

There is no such thing as an abortion clinic, there are facilities that provide a range of healthcare services, potentially including abortions.

> a range of healthcare services

Come on man, that's just muddying the water. The courts do care about intent, and Google's intent is clear in this case.

Also, that's like saying there is no such thing as a gun shop, just a retail business providing access to various kinds of gear.

Their intent is pretty clearly to protect the privacy of women seeking healthcare at facilities that do provide abortions. But they are not peeking at what sort of healthcare the women are seeking. There's a clear distinction.

"Without regard to the purpose of their visit" is going to pass muster pretty much anywhere.

> Their intent is pretty clearly to protect the privacy of women seeking healthcare at facilities that do provide abortions

And they just happen to think of that after the recent supreme court ruling?

That doesn't matter!

IANAL, so I don't know about that, but one would hope that the judiciary isn't too dumb.

The fact that people are willing to conflate visits to those facilities with seeking abortion is itself a clear justification to discard all data about visits to those facilities!

There is no conflation on my part, it's just clearly evidence in that direction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com