Are You Ready to Be Surveilled Like a Sex Worker?

Traditional methods for keeping anonymity on the internet are likely to end. The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires libraries and schools to block access to content that may be harmful to children, will have to decide if public access to abortion information is allowed.

The basic ways we function in the world help these technologies become more advanced. If you are seeking, providing, or facilitating an abortion, you can take practical measures to secure your digital footprint. Offline organizing is important.

Don't post anything that could be used to hurt you. I have taken precautions for my own safety as a sex worker, including withholding my birthday, ethnic background, hometown, current city, former cities, commute, alma maters, graduation years, time zone, weather, and my favorite color. I don't reveal my hair or my face when I post photos. If I post a picture, I crop it out.

This sounds paranoid to me. The precautions seem excessive The oppression these technologies reproduce is pervasive and has been refined for a long time. Sex workers are first preyed upon because those in power know nobody will listen to them.

When I start to wonder why people do what they do, I ask what is seven minus yellow. It's irrelevant and unanswerable. Their motives do not matter when it comes to the effects of their actions. Hemming and hawing over the justices' intentions is akin to bringing a feather to a knife fight and ruminating on this is a waste of time.

We can try to understand how this legislation will affect us. Abandoning any remaining trust in the state is the first step.

Sex work and abortions have existed for thousands of years and will continue to do so regardless of legality. These measures aren't about the law, they're about power. Laws that codify cultural biases exclude certain demographic groups from participation in society. The chilling of free speech and the deplatforming of abortion activists from social media and financial institutions are some of the consequences of this legislation.