© Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
Ongoing European Union quest to break end-to-end encryption (E2EE) mysteriously disappears.
The post EU Aims to Ban Math — ‘Chat Control 2.0’ Law is Paused but not Stopped appeared first on Security Boulevard.
This month, the Supreme Court refused to consider a request by anti-abortion groups to impose nationwide restrictions on mifepristone, a safe medication used in most U.S. abortions and for miscarriage care. Without addressing whether mifepristone should be further restricted, the court found that these anti-abortion plaintiffs lack “legal standing” – meaning they do not have a sufficient connection to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) regulation of mifepristone to be able to challenge the agency’s decisions in court.
The court’s decision is a relief, but we should not be dazzled by the fact that the justices did the right thing based purely on a legal technicality. While the Supreme Court refused to allow these particular anti-abortion groups to bring this case, extremist politicians have vowed to continue to use the courts and the law to strip away access to medication abortion nationwide. Below, we break down why this case matters, and what happens next.
The plaintiffs in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA are organizations and doctors who want to see all abortion banned nationwide. To further their agenda, they used junk science to target access to mifepristone, a medication used in most U.S. abortions. They filed this lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas, where they could guarantee it would be heard by a Trump-appointed district court judge with a record of hostility to abortion. That district judge rubber-stamped all of their requests, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals largely did the same – overriding the consensus of the FDA and every leading national medical authority in order to impose medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone.
In its decision, the Supreme Court did not address the plaintiffs’ arguments that mifepristone should be severely restricted. The court found that the lawsuit suffered from a critical defect: the anti-abortion groups and doctors who brought the case lack legal standing. As the court explained, these anti-abortion plaintiffs don’t prescribe mifepristone and have no actual connection to the FDA’s regulation of the drug. Instead, “the plaintiffs want [the] FDA to make mifepristone more difficult for other doctors to prescribe and for pregnant women to obtain.” But under the Constitution, “a plaintiff ’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue.”
For now, the court’s decision preserves the state-level patchwork access to medication abortion that has existed since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022. That means that, for the time being, people across the United States can continue to fill their mifepristone prescriptions through mail-order and retail pharmacies, just as they would for any other similarly safe medication – without having to travel, sometimes hundreds of miles, just to pick up a pill. Health care professionals with specialized training, like nurse-practitioners, will also maintain the ability to prescribe mifepristone where state law allows. Furthermore, in the U.S. nearly 1 in 5 abortions relies on telemedicine. For many people – including low-income patients, people of color, folks in rural areas, and women in abusive households – retaining accessibility options, such as telemedicine, is essential – especially when it may be impossible to arrange and afford lengthy transportation and childcare, to secure time off work, or to escape the surveillance of an abuser in order to access time-sensitive care.
The court’s order also forestalls the dire consequences the American Cancer Society and many other patient advocacy groups warned of should the court override the FDA’s actions and undermine drug development and impede access to critical medications well beyond reproductive health care.
There is no credible dispute about mifepristone’s safety. The nation’s leading medical associations describe the science confirming its safety as “overwhelming.” While all drugs carry risks, medical experts have explained that mifepristone is among the safest medications used in medical practice today – safer than Viagra or penicillin – with serious complications experienced by fewer than 1 percent of patients.
By contrast, the plaintiffs’ evidence rested on testimony and research from a few anti-abortion doctors who travel the country peddling junk science about abortion safety. As the ACLU explained in a friend-of-the-court brief, when other courts have heard these folks testify, time and again, they have discredited them. For instance, Dr. Ingrid Skop – cited 17 times in the appellate court’s ruling– had her testimony on abortion thrown out by a Florida court two years ago for being “inaccurate.” Dr. Skop admitted under oath in 2020 that she is “not a really good researcher,” so it’s no surprise that her research on mifepristone was published by a fringe advocacy group known for promoting blatantly false conspiracy theories, such as that President Barack Obama hypnotized listeners with his speeches. Several of the studies relied on by these plaintiffs have been retracted because they are so profoundly flawed. Another study is based on 98 anonymous blogs.
Maintaining access to mifepristone has never been more crucial. Since it was approved in 2000, nearly 6 million people in the United States, and millions more globally, have used this medication. Today, medication abortion comprises almost two-thirds of all abortions in this country.
The Supreme Court refused to allow these particular anti-abortion groups to bring this case, but extremist politicians are waiting in the wings to continue this campaign to strip away access to medication abortion nationwide. Indeed, the same Trump-appointed district judge in Texas has already permitted Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri to intervene in the district court proceedings on the same side as the anti-abortion groups. And these extremist politicians have said that they will try to continue this case in Texas – even though the Supreme Court just found that the original plaintiffs lack standing – or else bring copycat lawsuits in other jurisdictions.
Moreover, in the coming weeks, the Supreme Court will decide another abortion case that will determine whether politicians can force doctors to withhold emergency room care from their patients suffering severe pregnancy complications. These cases show how far politicians will go to prevent people from getting the reproductive health care they need.
Since Roe was overturned, every time an abortion issue has been put to the ballot, the people have voted in favor of access. Politicians are relentless in their attacks, but a majority of this country believes that people must have the power to make personal decisions during pregnancy. We’ll continue using every tool at our disposal to fight back against these cruel and deeply unpopular attacks on our health, our futures, and our bodily autonomy.
Join us in this fight to expand and restore our rights by urging legislators to pass federal legislation that safeguards our reproductive freedom – including abortion, birth control, AND IVF care.
“Either end-to-end encryption protects everyone, and enshrines security and privacy, or it’s broken for everyone.” – Meredith Whittaker
“Some are claiming that ‘upload moderation’ does not undermine encryption because it happens before your message or video is encrypted. This is untrue. We can call it a backdoor, a front door, or “upload moderation.” But whatever we call it, each one of these approaches creates a vulnerability that can be exploited by hackers and hostile nation states, removing the protection of unbreakable math and putting in its place a high-value vulnerability."Whittaker reiterated that mandating mass scanning of private communications fundamentally undermines encryption, “Full stop.”
Source: Patrick Dreyer[/caption]
Dreyer urged Europeans to take immediate action against the Chat Control proposal and said the EU countries pushing the proposal are exploiting the short period after the European Elections during which there is less public attention and the new European Parliament is not yet formed. “If Chat Control is endorsed by Council now, experience shows there is a great risk it will be adopted at the end of the political process,” he said.
Dreyer said the silver lining in the current situation is the fact that many EU governments have not yet decided whether to go along with this final Belgian push for Chat Control mass surveillance. The countries still considering the proposal are Italy, Finland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovenia, Estonia, Greece and Portugal.
Only Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland are relatively clear that they will not support the proposal, but this is not sufficient for a “blocking minority,” Dreyer said.
The proposal for chat control searches of private communications could be greenlighted by EU governments as early as Wednesday, June 19. Dreyer urged Europeans to press their governments to vote against this. “Demand a firm ‘No.’ Time is pressing. This may be our last chance to stop Chat Control!” Dreyer said. 
© Arin Yoon for The New York Times
Cisco plans to embed AI capabilities into its Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) software and Cisco Security Cloud.
The post Cisco Extends Cybersecurity Portfolio with Help from AI appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Attention Apache Flink users! The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently added an Apache Flink vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, highlighting evidence of its active exploitation. Apache Flink is a popular open-source framework for processing large streams of data. It’s widely used in big data analytics and real-time applications. However, like […]
The post CISA Alert: Urgent Update Needed for Apache Flink Vulnerability appeared first on TuxCare.
The post CISA Alert: Urgent Update Needed for Apache Flink Vulnerability appeared first on Security Boulevard.
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