Tunisian Gov't Spies On Facebook; Does the US?

jfruhlinger writes "Tunisians logging into Facebook encountered extra JavaScript, probably a sign of their repressive government's attempt to spy on them. The question is: does the US government do the same thing, just more subtly? We're not talking about agents friending you on Facebook to get more information about you; we're talking monitoring your supposedly private information behind the scenes."

Re:Maybe

[AHuxley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird [wikipedia.org] version 2.0 would be their game.
To shape, fake, twist, bait and id any and all that have exposed their operations in the past or might sway larger groups of people.
The real skill is to twist or change any statement of past fact or a projected path.
Also a good place just to watch what gets traction and what was never picked up by the herd.
In other parts of the world, getting a friend with the security emblem can send a clear and final message. The FBI would be looking for a way in to 'groom' a group for domestic press exposure.
Anyone into peace/anti war protests would be very fair game.
As twitter showed, they now seek the ip's, in US courts. The subtly aspect of past direct 'news' forming is now more a chilling 'we can find you' anytime.

Re:supposedly private information ?

[Urza9814]

Why is that at all relevant?

What I say when I'm on the phone with my friends isn't private, but I still don't want the government snooping on all those calls. What I do while I'm out in public isn't private, but I don't want a cop following me every time I step out the door. The fact that it isn't private (and there are plenty of ways to communicate privately in facebook BTW,) doesn't mean it's OK for the government to secretly monitor everything you do there.

Yakima data center

[Anonymous Coward]

The Yakima NSA listening post has been under expansion for years. Google hid work on the center by removing the huge dirt piles from their history in ~2005 A fire inspector leaked that the center was over 40 stories underground, this is before the expansion. The complaint from the Yakima tribe about dirt dumped on their land has also been deleted,

Does it matter?

[bm_luethke]

You are posting to a public gateway and then are afraid that someone is treating that data as public - how dare they!

Really, it isn't private communications and, as such, there is no need for a warrant or anything for anyone to get at it. This is data mining, not spying, and is done all the time. I bet there is a web crawler somewhere on this planet that is "spying" on this post on slashdot too - there is no fourth amendment rights to information you broadcast to everyone on the planet, indeed I do not even see how there could be.