American View: New Texas Legislation Encourages Hacking, Extortion, and Intimidation
Texas recently did something catastrophically ill-advised on 1st September 2021. No, I’m not talking about making it illegal to discuss America’s history of racism and how it affected (and still affects) law, society, and justice. That was idiotic and makes us look like terrified bigots on the international stage. I’m also not talking about Texas making it legal for everyone to stroll around in public with loaded firearms even if they have no idea how to use them safely or properly whilst also being violent, unhinged, and/or committed to overthrowing the government. That, too, was staggeringly imprudent and will scare off tourists, transplants, and new corporate headquarters. Those self-owns were fully on-brand for Texas’s burn-in-all-down politicians but are dreary topics for another time.
No, today I want to talk about the inevitable ramifications of Texas making all abortion procedures illegal after six weeks from gestation – effectively ending legal abortion in Texas – while empowering private citizens to rat out their friends, family, co-workers, and neighbours that they believe had an abortion. But wait, there’s mote! Under the new law, private citizens are allowed to “turn in” literally anyone else they believe helped a pregnant woman get an abortion … even if it waws just to find a clinic’s phone number, get a ride, or buy painkillers … and get a $10,000 (about € 8,200) cash pay-out as a reward for being a volunteer state snitch.
That right there was some world class political hubris. The point of Texas’s blatantly unconstitutional legislation was to get the inevitable challenge to it taken up by the Supreme Court so that Roe vs. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion legal across the USA, could finally be overturned. It worked: on 1st September, the underqualified justices that the previous president packed into the court refused to hear the appeal, allowing Texas’s new law to stand.
To be clear, I’m not interested into getting into a faux debate with the attention addicted social media crowd on either side of the abortion issue. Chanting slogans and levying death threats isn’t my thing. As a security awareness person,…
