Teen's jailing shows exactly how Facebook will help anti-abortion states

Expand Charles McQuillan/Stringer | Getty ImagesNews

For the first time since the cancellation of Roe v. Wade, there is a clear example of exactly how Facebook will respond to law enforcement requests for abortion data without user consent.

Forbes reports that a 17-year-old girl named Celeste Burgess in Nebraska was subpoenaed for her Facebook posts by Detective Ben McBride, who suspected the stillbirth Burgess reported was an abortion medicated. In the officer's affidavit, he explains that he instructed Meta not to tell the teen about the request about her Facebook data because she could tamper with or destroy evidence. Court records show that Meta followed logic.

Meta did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment on the matter, but previously Meta said that "we notify users (including advertisers) of information requests before disclosing them, except where we are prohibited by law from doing so or in exceptional circumstances, such as where a child is at risk of harm, in emergency situations or where advice would be counterproductive." (Update: A spokesperson for Meta says, "Nothing in the valid warrants we received from local law enforcement in early June, prior to the Supreme Court ruling, mentioned abortion. The warrants were for charges related to a criminal investigation and court documents indicate that police at the time were investigating the case of a stillborn baby who was burned and buried, not a decision to abort. confidentiality orders, which prevented us from sharing information about them. The orders have now been lifted.")

In this case, no child was at risk because the abortion took place in April, months before the data request in June. Apparently there was no urgency either. This leaves another type of "exceptional circumstances" to justify Meta sharing data without notice, otherwise this case is considered "counterproductive" for Meta to provide notice, as McBride suggests in his affidavit.

According to court documents, Burgess was 23 weeks pregnant when her mother, Jessica Burgess (who is also charged), helped her purchase abortion pills by mail order in April to terminate her pregnancy.

A 23-week abortion violates Nebraska law, which has not changed since the Dobbs decision, but prohibits abortion after 20 weeks.

McBride says his investigation began when he learned that the mother and daughter had buried a child after claiming the baby was stillborn. Immediately, McBride searched medical records to find out when Celeste miscarried, and when he asked the teenager about the day of her miscarriage, he noticed that she had checked his Facebook Messenger app to determine the exact date.

This led McBride to believe there was more evidence in the case stored on the servers of Facebook owner Meta. So even though the final autopsy report said the baby's cause of death was undetermined, McBride was still looking for evidence to confirm that Celeste had an abortion. He says in his affidavit that Celeste sharing his messages with him was a turning point that led him to believe "there will be more messages".

His request to Meta cited suspicions that the tech company was retaining evidence of a crime under prohibited acts with skeletal remains, not abortion. To back up his case, he searched for all photos of the mother and daughter, as well as any photos they had been tagged in, all of their private messages, and location data via their IP logs.

Following the data request, Celeste and Jessica Burgess were arrested, with bond set at $10,000. Both have since been released and their jury trials are now scheduled for October. Celeste will be tried as an adult for two misdemeanors and a felony for...