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privacy
Indiana Doctors Sue to Protect Reports That Could ID Abortion Patients
"We are once again in court defending our patients and their right to privacy," the two doctors said.
Feb 10, 2025
Two Indiana OB-GYN physicians, Caitlin Bernard and Caroline Rouse, filed a lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court last week in an effort to halt the Indiana Department of Health from publicly releasing "terminated pregnancy reports," documents that physicians are required to submit in connection with every abortion performed in the state.
Specifically, the plaintiffs want the court to rule that the terminated pregnancy reports submitted to IDOH are exempt from disclosure under Indiana's Access to Public Records Act.
"We are once again in court defending our patients and their right to privacy," Bernard and Rouse said in a joint statement, according to The Hill.
"Everyone receiving medical care deserves to have their personal health decisions and pregnancy outcomes protected. There is no reason to release this sensitive information to the public. We will keep fighting to protect patients' privacy and the trust between doctors and patients," they wrote.
Bernard made headlines in 2022 after she performed an abortion for a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had been raped and shared that information with a reporter.
The terminated pregnancy reports don't include a patient's name, but they do include other information such as the patient's age, race, and the county where they live, as well as the name of the physicians performing the abortion.
In January 2024, following the state's imposition of a near-total abortion ban, IDOH decided it would no longer release individual terminated pregnancy reports, opting instead to release quarterly aggregated reports.
The number of abortions in the state dropped off sharply after the ban went into effect in August 2023, and "due to the small number and increased reporting requirements, the agency had concerns about violating patient confidentiality by releasing full individual records," according to The Indiana Capitol Chronicle. In particular, there was concern that there was enough information about patients that it would be possible to figure out their identity.
An anti-abortion group, Voices for Life, then sued the state seeking access to the individual reports. That case was dismissed by a Marion County judge in September 2024, and Voices of Life said it would appeal. But then in January 2025, Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Braun issued an executive order declaring the reports to be public.
IDOH entered into a settlement with Voices of Life to release the reports on February 3. Under the terms of the settlement, IDOH agrees to make redactions to the reports that "adequately protect personal health identifiers and that do not inhibit examination of the terminated pregnancy reports to determine whether a physician performed an abortion in accordance with Indiana law," per the Capitol Chronicle.
The court has set a hearing to consider the latest suit brought by Bernard and Rouse on Tuesday, according to the Capital Chronicle.
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Musk Slammed for Claiming It's Unlawful to Publicly Identify DOGE Personnel
"It's illegal to publish the names of government workers? What???" remarked one Capitol Hill reporter.
Feb 04, 2025
Self-described " free speech absolutist" Elon Musk—the billionaire leading U.S. President Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency—claimed this week that revealing the names of people working for DOGE is somehow illegal, provoking swift backlash from journalists and experts.
Responding to Musk's Tuesday morning post on X, the social media platform the billionaire bought in 2022, Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein challenged the claim that identifying individuals working for the government is unlawful and highlighted his hypocrisy.
"It's illegal to publish the names of government workers?" Stein wrote in part. "What???"
Trump announced DOGE and its leadership shortly after he won the November election, boosted by over a quarter-billion dollars from Musk, the richest person on Earth. After the president returned to the White House for a second term last month, the Musk-led presidential advisory commission quickly got to work on its agenda of cutting spending and regulations, amid a flurry of lawsuits.
The legal battles continue. On Monday, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the Service Employees International Union sued to revoke Musk and DOGE's access to a key government payment system, provided by Trump's treasury secretary. Wiredreported Tuesday that two federal employees "are seeking a temporary restraining order as part of a class action lawsuit accusing a group of Elon Musk's associates of allegedly operating an illegally connected server from the fifth floor of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) headquarters."
Wired on Sunday also "identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles" in DOGE. The reporting named the following individuals: Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.
"The six men are one part of the broader project of Musk allies assuming key government positions," the outlet continued, explaining that "Musk's lackeys—including more senior staff from xAI, Tesla, and the Boring Company—have taken control of" the General Services Administration (GSA), OPM, and the Treasury payment system.
After a now-suspended X user shared those six names on the platform—describing them as "techies on the ground helping Musk gaining and using access to the U.S. Treasury payment system," and suggesting that fired FBI agents may want to "dox them and maybe pay them a visit"—Musk responded early Monday, saying, "You have committed a crime."
Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for the School of Information at the University of Michigan, toldForbes on Tuesday that "doxxing has a broad definition, but is typically described as releasing private details about an individual into the public, specifically with the purpose of harming that person, where harm can range from embarrassment to promoting violent action against the individual."
"Typically, government employees have less privacy protections than do private citizens. Listing individuals who are working on behalf of the government would not fall into previous definitions of doxxing, though of course definitions can always change over time," Lampe said. "Whether doxxing is a crime has traditionally been related to the type of information that has been released and how that information was acquired."
Late Monday morning, Ed Martin, U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, posted on X a letter to Musk that says in part: "I ask that you utilize me and my staff to assist in protecting the DOGE work and the DOGE workers. Any threats, confrontations, or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws."
Forbes noted that one legal expert said he couldn't understand "what on Earth Musk or the U.S. attorney" thinks was violated.
Less than 10 minutes after Martin's post, Musk said on X Monday morning: "Time to confess: Media reports saying that DOGE has some of world's best software engineers are in fact true."
However, as the Daily Beastdetailed Monday, "he was wrong—not all the group are even 'software engineers.' Three do not even have degrees. And one who does is trying to cash in on his new job by charging people to read his Substack entry which boasts, 'Why DOGE: Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America.'"
In a Monday evening statement on the official X account for Martin's office, the U.S. attorney signaled that legal action may be coming.
"Our initial review of the evidence presented to us indicates that certain individuals and/or groups have committed acts that appear to violate the law in targeting DOGE employees," Martin said. "We are in contact with the FBI and other law enforcement partners to proceed rapidly. We also have our prosecutors preparing."
Musk then returned to his claim of illegal behavior. After businessman and software engineer Marc Andreessen said on X late Monday, "I'm so old, I remember when doxxing and threatening federal employees was considered bad," the DOGE leader replied Tuesday, "It is against the law."
Stein wasn't alone in calling out Musk's Tuesday morning post. White House speechwriter-turned-podcaster Jon Favreau said: "Threatening anyone: very bad, possibly against the law depending on the threat. Knowing the names of the people who work for us, the American taxpayers, is an entirely legal and appropriate expectation. This isn't one of your companies. This is our government. Understand?"
Chris Anderson, chair of the Democratic Party in Ohio's Mahoning County,
responded: "Imagine being in charge of auditing the government and knowing so little about the government that you don't know that salaries of federal employees, what department they work for, and yes, their names, are all public record. And not only that, THERE'S AN ENTIRE WEBSITE FOR IT."
In fact, there are multiple: the Library of Congress has a
webpage that details sources for federal employee data and there are some nongovernment sites that compile it, such as FederalPay.org, GovSalaries.com, and OpenPayrolls.com.
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Boosting Reform Calls, Judge Finds FISA Section 702 Backdoor Searches Unconstitutional
"This is a major constitutional ruling on one of the most abused provisions of FISA," said one ACLU leader. "Section 702 is long overdue for reform by Congress, and this opinion shows why."
Jan 23, 2025
"Better late than never."
That's how Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) surveillance litigation director Andrew Crocker and senior policy analyst Matthew Guariglia responded to a federal court ruling unsealed late Tuesday that found warrantless searches conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Section 702 allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad to acquire foreign intelligence information—but that also leads to the collection of Americans' communications. Abuse of the related database, particularly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has led privacy advocates including EFF to demand that Congress pass significant reforms.
The December decision from U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall in the Eastern District of New York, unsealed earlier this week, stems from over a decade of litigation in United States v. Hasbajrami. Agron Hasbajrami was arrested at a New York City airport in 2011 and charged with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist group. The U.S. resident pleaded guilty, and after he was serving his sentence, the government revealed some evidence was obtained without a warrant thanks to Section 702.
In 2017, EFF and the ACLU filed an amicus brief arguing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that "Section 702 surveillance, including the surveillance of Mr. Hasbajrami here, lacks safeguards for Americans that the Constitution requires." In 2019, the appellate court "found that backdoor searches constitute 'separate Fourth Amendment events' and directed the district court to determine a warrant was required," Crocker and Guariglia explained Wednesday. "Now, that has been officially decreed."
Throughout the litigation, Congress has repeatedly reauthorized Section 702 on a bipartisan basis—most recently for two years last April, meaning it is unlikely to be debated on Capitol Hill again before next year. Still, pro-privacy campaigners and experts welcomed the district judge's recent ruling as a crucial victory and used it to renew calls for congressional action.
"This is a major constitutional ruling on one of the most abused provisions of FISA," Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU's National Security Project, said in a Wednesday statement. "As the court recognized, the FBI's rampant digital searches of Americans are an immense invasion of privacy, and trigger the bedrock protections of the Fourth Amendment. Section 702 is long overdue for reform by Congress, and this opinion shows why."
Crocker and Guariglia argued that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court—which has primary judicial oversight of Section 702—should immediately "amend its rules for backdoor searches and require the FBI to seek a warrant before conducting them."
In the longer term, the EFF experts wrote, "we ask Congress to uphold its responsibility to protect civil rights and civil liberties by refusing to renew Section 702 absent a number of necessary reforms, including an official warrant requirement for querying U.S. persons data and increased transparency."
"On April 15, 2026, Section 702 is set to expire," they added. "We expect any lawmaker worthy of that title to listen to what this federal court is saying and create a legislative warrant requirement so that the intelligence community does not continue to trample on the constitutionally protected rights to private communications."
Although Hall's ruling was issued against the Biden administration, it was unsealed a day after Republican U.S. President Donald Trump returned to power—backed by narrow GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress. Patrick G. Eddington, a senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, wondered Wednesday, "Will the new Trump administration appeal the decision?"
"Attorney general nominee Pam Bondi testified under oath at her confirmation hearing that she supported the FISA Section 702 program, though the issue of warrantless 'backdoor' searches did not come up as I recall," Eddington noted.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for director of national intelligence "has gone from FISA Section 702
opponent to supporter in record time," he added. "Assuming Gabbard gets a confirmation hearing, asking her about Hall's ruling should be the first question posed to her."
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