Turns Out Texas Cops Were Not Surveilling Suspected Abortion-Haver For Her Own Safety After All

[erronis]

https://www.wonkette.com/p/turns-out-texas-cops-were-not-surveilling
Robyn Pennacchia

In May of this year, a sergeant in the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in Texas utilized a massive network of 83,000 license plate reader (LPR) cameras in order to conduct a nationwide search for a woman who had recently skipped town. The reason given? Well, on the paperwork he filed at the time, it read “had an abortion, search for female.”

Soon enough, the incident was caught and reported by 404 Media and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and cited as an example of the dangers of these kinds of surveillance systems and how they can be weaponized against those who have had abortions or are seeking abortion care, allowing law enforcement to track people to states where abortion is legal — even when doing so violates state laws that explicitly outlaw the use of LPRs to track anyone who may be seeking reproductive care, as is the case in Washington and Illinois.

However, County Sheriff Adam King and Flock, the company that owns the AI-enabled camera network, have spent the last few months swearing up and down that they were merely concerned about the woman’s safety and were investigating her as a missing person and nothing more. Certainly not as a criminal!

At the time, Sheriff King told 404 Media:

“I wanted to make sure y’all understood what that was: It wasn’t us trying to block a woman from having an abortion. It was a self-administered abortion she gave herself and her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital. We weren’t trying to block her from leaving the state or whatever. That wasn’t the case. We just wanted to get her some medical help and that’s why we did the query on Flock.”

“The family was worried she was bleeding and needed immediate medical attention and we weren’t able to get her on the phone, they weren’t able to get her on the phone, that’s why we were checking Flock trying to find her, but it was for her safety,” he said. “That’s all it was about, her safety.”

Goodness, what an absolute mensch. What a doll! So caring and thoughtful. Surely, a friend to women, everywhere.

Or not.

. . .

So much of this Texas-sized bullshit is revealed in the great post on Wonkette.

[Qutzupalotl]

2. I have a bleeding ulcer.

Where's my rescue sheriff?