Bill Banning Employer Facebook Snooping Introduced In Congress 199
suraj.sun writes "According to The Hill, 'The Social Networking Online Protection Act, introduced by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel (N.Y.) and Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), would prohibit current or potential employers from demanding a username or password to a social networking account. "We must draw the line somewhere and define what is private," Engel said in a statement. "No one would feel comfortable going to a public place and giving out their username and passwords to total strangers. They should not be required to do so at work, at school, or while trying to obtain work or an education. This is a matter of personal privacy and makes sense in our digital world."' Ars adds, 'The bill would apply the same prohibitions to colleges, universities, and K-12 schools. ... Facebook has already threatened legal action against organizations who require employees to reveal their Facebook passwords as policy.'"
Maryland beat them to the punch, and other states are working on similar laws too. We'll have to hope the U.S. House doesn't kill this one like they did the last attempt. The difference this time is that the concept has its own bill, while its previous incarnation was an amendment to an existing bill about reforming FCC procedures.
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Why not simply an affirmation that private companies, corporations both foreign and domestic, as well as individuals, are fully bound by the constitution and all of it's amendments and no contract clause or condition can abridge the constitution and it's amendments in any way shape or form. Then legislate major penalties for any attempt to do so, both a major fine and prison term.
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Re:What about friending HR? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the USA. We haven't had a Constitution since 2001. 9/11 to be exact.
Re:What about friending HR? (Score:4, Insightful)
The selection of candidates by the two parties effectively limits the choice of voters. Yes, they can vote third party or write somebody in, but if no one of half decent mentality, morality and freedom from control ever competes for the nomination of either party, or if those who do are quickly weeded out by the respective bought and paid for establishments, the general election is just a fraud.
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Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Or, in case someone doesn't get the reference, you really think that voting for anyone else would have made any kind of difference?
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Wow, someone else who sees it for what it is?? Am I hallucinating??
I for one, welcome our six-digit apex libertarian overlords...
183 to 1 isn't a difference? (Score:5, Informative)
Only one Republican voted for it. 183 Democrats (and Independents?) did. So there's a real difference.
http://www.dailytech.com/Proposed+Amendment+to+Prevent+Employers+from+Asking+for+Facebook+UsernamesPasswords+Fails/article24337.htm [dailytech.com]
If you don't look too close, you can call it bipartisan and be pissed at both parties. If you look closer, however, you see the blame falls primarily on one side of the aisle, as with this amendment. Same thing with CISPA, SOPA and PIPA.
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The two-party system has the entire country locked into the Prisoner's Dilemma. [wikipedia.org] We don't vote for the candidate we want, we vote for the opposite of the candidate we don't want, just as those two prisoners will fuck each other even though cooperation would result in freedom for them both.
For the record, some don't even believe Bush won the election in 2000 at all [wikipedia.org]. Regardless of what you believe there, I'm betting most people in this country would agree we need some serious election reform in this country
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I'm not going to give Lincoln too much shit over his increase in federal powers. The "States Rights" argument was just a bullshit way of saying "We want to continue enslaving people, and you have no right to tell us no".
Whatever Lincoln's true motivations were for freeing the slaves, if ever there was a justifiable reason for an increase in federal power, that would be one. If he hadn't been assassinated, Reconstruction likely wouldn't have been the huge bag of shit it turned into, and the following hundr
Re:What about friending HR? (Score:4, Informative)
Lincoln invaded the South to preserve the union, not to "free the slaves". The war began in April 1861. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issues until January 1863. Furthermore, the proclamation applied only to the states that were part of the Confederacy, There were still border states where slavery was legal and they were unaffected. In addition, any confederate state willing to re-join the union was also promised an exemption.
Other nations managed to eradicate slavery without a bloody civil war. It was clearly the bitterness engendered by armed conflict and the North's attempts to basically rub the South's face in their defeat that perpetuated racial hatred in the country.
State powers are enshrined in The Constitution. The Southern states had a very valid legal argument.
The unfortunate fact is that when people bring up the issue of state powers and the 10th Amendment these days, the absurd counter-argument is that rolling back federal power-grabbing means that South Carolina could and would re-institute slavery.
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Yeah that's kinda funny. Well no, might want to look at Obama in the last year, since he's gutted the constitution more than Bush did in 8 years.
And your evidence would be...? I guess that's why you posted as an anonymous COWARD.
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It would be useless, because "it is amendments" doesn't make any sense at all.
Constitution? (Score:5, Informative)
That question is easy to answer. Because the constitution bounds the powers of the FEDERAL government. Period. It says very little about what state and local governments can't do, and it certainly doesn't say what employers (and private citizens) can't do. The word "murder" doesn't appear in the constitution either. The constitution isn't concerned in the slightest whether Joe Blow goes on a killing spree. In fact the laws against murder are all state laws. A state could decide not to have any law against murder as far as the constitution is concerned.
Dig it. It took an act of congress to implement a ban on discrimination and desegregate the public schools. There was an amendment passed at the same time as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifically to ban poll taxes, but that was the extent of it. Similarly, there is nothing in the constitution that says an employer can't ask employees for various concessions. That is for states to limit.
The Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That's the ENTIRE text. So the First Amendment says CONGRESS shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It doesn't stop a state from limiting free speech.
Article Six of the Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the constitution bounds the powers of the FEDERAL government.
And the state governments as well via Article Six. Government at all levels is bound by the Constitution.
In fact the laws against murder are all state laws
Demonstrably not true [wikipedia.org]. Perhaps you should actually read about federal law or at least spend 20 seconds on Wikipedia before posting something so easily refuted. There are federal laws concerning murder for cases where state law would not apply such as for overseas military, on federal property, situations crossing state lines, involving federal officials, ambassadors, foreign officials, and numerous other circumstances.
A state could decide not to have any law against murder as far as the constitution is concerned.
Kind of a stupid argument since they all do have laws against murder.
So the First Amendment says CONGRESS shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It doesn't stop a state from limiting free speech.
Actually it specifically does stop states from limiting free speech via Article Six [wikipedia.org], specifically "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Basically the First Amendment overrides any state law that contradicts it. If the Constitution was not applicable to states then it would be a useless document.
Re:Article Six of the Constitution (Score:5, Informative)
So say a state makes a law abridging the freedom of speech. That does not violate the constitution in any way.
Evidently you failed high school civics class. Article Six doesn't say anything about Congress; it specifically binds *judges* to rule according to the *Federal* Constitution in the event of a conflict between it and the laws or constitution of any state. Note also that it doesn't say anything about State or Federal judges--it says *judges*, period.
US states that do not exist only in your imagination may not enact laws that contravene the US Constitution. States may not restrict or take away rights that are guaranteed by the US Constituion. Period.
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Logic. Use it. That article you are so fond of has no bearing on this matter. The constitution says CONGRESS shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. Fine. So say a state makes a law abridging the freedom of speech. That does not violate the constitution in any way. Because of that pesky tenth amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That is ALL powers not SPECIFICALLY prohibited.
You may want to brush up on a few things. First amendment SPECIFICALLY applies to states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitlow_v._New_York [wikipedia.org] via the 14th. Further because of the 14th most of the rest of the Bill of Rights now applies to the States as well.
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> When the insurance mandate in Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional, that section of Obamacare (at least) will be invalidated.
Until Congress passes a law making receipt of federal highway funds contingent upon the state's legislature passing a law that requires substantially the same thing. Or until ONLY the "must purchase" provision gets struck down, and premiums get increased for everyone because there are so many people waiting until they come down with an expensive medical problem before purchasing i
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If the Employer can't demand a username or password, they can't verify you even have a Facebook account. Or, even if they knew of the existence of an account for you, you would have plausible deniability as to if the account was yours. After all, there's nothing to stop someone who knows you from setting up an account and posting information to it that might reflect badly on you in a job interview -- which is exactly why HR shouldn't be "Googling" applicants or looking for them on social networking sites. T
Re:What about friending HR? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, right- they had to actually talk to them, and had to evaluate them after they hired them, and had to consider firing them if their professional lives had problems...
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Is that what they used to do before the makeover - back when it was called "personnel"?
Sounds like a fuckton of work to me. I mean, that's what computers were invented to avoid, isn't it?
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/jmo0663l.jpg [cartoonstock.com]
Re:What about friending HR? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it was called work for a reason. Yes, people actually spent time talking to people looking for someone who could truly contribute.
Today, HR hides behind algorithms and software that supposedly screen a candidate before a human ever speaks with them. So much for the "Human Relations" side of things. They utilize recruiters who pre-screen. Those same recruiters are in it to make a profit based on either their contracting rates (less they can pay you the better) or percentage of the salary of the person hired (higher the better). Just the other day, I received three emails for the same position. Each one specified a different duration and offered rates that varied from $60/hr up to $80/hr - W2. WTF? All were from offshore firms, BTW.
It doesn't matter if the individual has the knowledge, experience, motivation and personality to improve your company and make it a better place any longer. If your resume isn't in the right format or you don't use the latest and most correct keywords or you put dates that can help narrow down your age as being older than dirt, your application goes into the bit bucket. It's a numbers game, pure and simple. And, may the Lord help you if you are unemployed - those systems identify you as such and that you are no longer on top of your game. You are so screwed once you get that label on you profile.
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We all know they shouldn't be, but they're going to anyway, whether it's legal or illegal. The days of having a separate private life are over in this increasingly 24/7 work environment.
Discrimination is one of those things that pretty much impossible to prove unless it's egregious. Even if a lawsuit is justified, many lawyers won't touch a discrimination case with a 10-foot pole. Plus, discrimination in itself requires the victim to be in a "protected class", which is why all the assholes posting job op
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They don't need to pay any more, not with CISPA.
This does seem awfully two-faced - ban us from snooping, give themselves unlimited access, constitution be damned.
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Which I'm sure is the point. People forget everything they post is viewable by the government and even local law enforcement, but when employers start demanding passwords and going through the 'frontdoor' it reminds everyone how public their data is. That may reduce the usefulness of FB to the government, hence the ban.
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er (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's similar in most European countries.
Asking for a criminal record is limited to jobs that can show "an objective reason" to demand it. So if you're in charge of money or security, criminal checks are ok, if no crime could possibly be associated with your job they cannot even ask you for a record. Them asking for one is reason enough for you to sue (and usually win, if there's at least some kind of a remote chance that you could prove it. Gathering some other applicants and getting them to testify accor
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In theory they could not even ask for your gender, though it is usually quite obvious.
I hate when it's not.
Re:er (Score:4, Informative)
That part is the same in Europe. The common courtesy is to give the same period of notice as your pay period. People paid each month give a month's notice, people paid weekly give a week, people paid daily give one day. And if you don't give that, then you won't get a good reference. But nothing stops you from walking out at any time.
Indeed slavery has been illegal for a long time, so it can't be any other way.
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With "stupid people" do you mean the people asking the credentials or those who give them? Because both can be classified as "stupid" but as the other one has the power to decide who will get the job the power is on the side who is asking - on current job market. And while I do believe that in the end those that do ask for credentials to Facebook and other social networking sites will fail (because if your hr is clueless as that how can you run a long-term successful business?) these practices have been pop
And all engineers cause spam (Score:3)
I just love MBAs.
So to you holding the college degree of a MBA is shorthand for evil corporate behavior even if in reality is has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the topic at hand. You think that someone who tries to learn skills to manage a business more effectively must be simultaneously an evil and incompetent person. It must be convenient to see the world in such a way that you can easily scapegoat a group of people who aren't the cause of the problem. What you have said makes even less sense than blaming all engineers
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Seems to work for politicians.
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Here in Australia I have had a number of jobs and the only thing I have had that is in any way prying into my background was for my most recent job where I was working for a government department in a software engineering job (where I would have access to all sorts of personal details via the databases I was interacting with) and needed a standard police clearance (probably just to make sure I wasn't a pedophile or something where I would abuse the data I had access to). But I have never had to take a drug
Who is Bill Banning? (Score:4, Funny)
Never heard of him.
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He's a close friend of Bill Stickers. Those two are my homies.
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More importantly, Who is Facebook Snooping?
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Re:Why is this needed? (Score:4, Interesting)
I had an argument with somebody with a very pro-liberty (even if at the indirect cost of others) stance.
When asked if he believed that companies should be allowed to ban African-Americans from doing business with them, his reply was along the lines that indeed they should be allowed to, and in a free market there would simply be some other store that welcomes them, that's how the free marker is supposed to work, and the government should butt out of businesses' decisions.
When asked what happens when there is no viable competition - say for a drug that can save lives but which is administered in private clinics so as to keep competing pharmaceuticals from gaining direct access to the drug - his reply was that he would then just grab a gun, go to that clinic, and get some of that drug himself and woe the person who would get in his way.
Rather than accept that governments may have to regulate some aspects of life and business for a healthy society, which in the latter case would mean no company could limit a drug via discrimination*, he would resort to violence.
In your scenario, he would choose homelessness...at least from the comfort of his recliner. Some people are just wired that way, I guess.
( * I know some drugs are so ridiculously expensive that one may as well recognize their availability as being subject to class discrimination. )
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say for a drug that can save lives but which is administered in private clinics so as to keep competing pharmaceuticals from gaining direct access to the drug
There would be nothing keeping competitors from acquiring and selling the drug, as in a true free market, patents and copyright wouldn't exist.
Re:Why is this needed? (Score:4, Insightful)
There would be nothing keeping competitors from acquiring and selling the drug
Yeah, nothing except the fact that they would have to figure out how to make the drug, and if there were no patents, such a formula would be a very closely guarded secret.
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No kidding... If Cocacola can keep its soda formula a secret, why can't/wouldn't a pharm company?
No patents = everything is a trade secret.
That's why we grant patents.. so inventors will tell us how their creation works.
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> No kidding... If Cocacola can keep its soda formula a secret, why can't/wouldn't a pharm company?
Actually, the formula for Coca-Cola ceased to be a true secret a long time ago, and you can find it online pretty easily with some help from Google. What protects Coca-Cola *today* is trademark law. You can make a beverage that tastes EXACTLY like Coca-Cola, with the exact same recipe down to the nanogram and picoliter of raw ingredients, and sell it with complete legality... but if Coca-Cola, Inc. can find
Re:Why is this needed? (Score:4, Insightful)
say for a drug that can save lives but which is administered in private clinics so as to keep competing pharmaceuticals from gaining direct access to the drug
There would be nothing keeping competitors from acquiring and selling the drug, as in a true free market, patents and copyright wouldn't exist.
Presumably there would be a measure of security through obscurity. The pharmaceutical companies could presumably put some complicated passive compounds in with the active one (obfustication!) so those wanting to clone it would have to either isolate the active ingredient or work out how to fabricate a whole raft of ingredients, either of which could be a significant research task. After all, in a truly free market there would be no need to declare the active ingredient (or, indeed, for there to even be an active ingredient).
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The passive ingredients would probably appear pretty passive. If they did not, they would each cost the original company some considerable expense proving that they were safe.
Of course that's under current government rules. Under libertarianism, presumably the drug approvals process would be abandoned and we'd be back to snake oil salesmen selling all sorts of useless and/or poisonous preparations as medicines.
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Pharmaceutical companies employ a significant proportion of the world's best and brightest organic chemists, and supply them with all the chromatography and spectroscopy equipment they need. Pharmaceutical products generally consist of a single highly-pure active ingredient, maybe with some kind of safe filler or binder to get it into a safely dosable form. Adding materials which would frustrate reverse-engineering for any significant period of time, while maintaining the efficacy and safety of your product
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If we applied your thinking more broadly, no one would want to work anywhere. I'm not saying you're wrong on that count... but you know. There's isn't a big corp on the planet that wouldn't start doing this if it became really mainstream.
Yes and no (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I wouldn't want to work there.
No, that's not how it works. There are more workers than employers, so without any external force employers are free to set the rules as they see fit. When many employers adopt a policy, workers have to band together if they want to fight it; and that's exactly what we're seeing here.
Re:Why is this needed? (Score:5, Insightful)
And in our modern economy, where it's the first interview you've had in months and your unemployment funds have long since been spent paying the necessary bills; you'll choose facebook privacy over putting food on the table for your family? Now imagine you're not some highly paid code wizard who gets to pick and choose employers, but an ordinary shop floor worker doing a blue collar job who has to take what you can get.
Being able to exercise your rights when you're wealthy and in a position to pick and choose between jobs is one thing. When you're in modern serfdom employment and the employers hold all the cards, federal or state government regulation and enforcement is about the only thing that can protect the workers from ridiculous abuses like this. Even more so when it's local government (such as police) doing it.
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It's simple. If I am that desperate for a job I will delete the stupid fucking Facebook account and tell them "I don't have one, I deleted it because I'm too busy looking for work on LinkedIn and Indeed to post about my asinine behavior, love life, food picture taking habits, or whatever the fuck people do on Facebook.
I've also suggested that I'd create a professional "William Roehl" account and leave it wide open with nothing on it and keep my "Bill Roehl" account locked down as it currently is or just sim
For people with limited options (Score:5, Insightful)
I truly don't get this. If an organization requires a law to tell it that it shouldn't do this - YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK THERE.
That is of course correct but not the point. The problem is because sometimes people need jobs that they do not want. My father is a very smart guy but he doesn't have a college degree and he worked for many years in a job with limited applicability outside of a handful of companies. He didn't really want to work there, he had to out of economic necessity. The pay was better than probably anything else he could get and he had a union to protect him from idiots who might demand unreasonable things from him. (one of the good cases for unions actually) It would have been very easy for some moron to demand some ridiculous intrusion into his personal life without some form of external protection like a union or a law.
Bills like this are not to protect (presumably) you or me but rather to protect people with limited options. If your options are to hand over your facebook password so that you can feed your family, you're probably going to give over the password. It's completely wrong to even ask but sometimes we have to make laws to prohibit such behavior explicitly because a few idiots can't figure out why it is wrong. A law gives protections and recourse to those who might be vulnerable to being taken advantage of.
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Take a trip to your local supermarket. Look around the shop assistants. Do any of them look like they WANT to work there?
The number of people who can work in their dream job and choose from a wide selection of offers is rather small, you know?
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YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK THERE.
Oh but I do. You see often organisations aren't defined by the actions of one small HR department with a dumb arse idea. If I'm being interviewed at a small company by the CEO and he is asking for these credentials, then yes I'd agree with you. In my experience though douchebag policies quite frequently end up being isolated ramblings of an individual and not representative of the company on the whole. Also the fact that I'm at the interview, now, at a time where unemployment is highest since the great depr
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> If an organization requires a law to tell it that it shouldn't do
> this - YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK THERE.
If an organization requires a law indicating the absolute minimum amount they're allowed to pay employees...
See where this is going?
In a sane world, we wouldn't need labour laws like this. In fact, in a sane world, it'd be legal to hunt and kill anyone who'd intentionally put people into a position of needing such a law.
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No special law regarding TOS violations is required. You'd be granting unauthorised access to a third party's computer system, which IIUC is already a violation of Federal law. (And this is what I keep saying whenever this topic comes up.)
Congress? (Score:3)
Oh, the hypocrisy...
Re:Congress? (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress isn't a single person. It's not hypocrisy when some congressmen vote for CISPA and others speak out for privacy. The two congressmen behind this bill both voted against CISPA and had announced their opposition to SOPA prior to the bill being withdrawn. So no, they're not being hypocritical at all.
Hahahahah (Score:2)
That's one of the few guaranteed ways of killing something, attach it to the FCC.
question (Score:2)
Re:question (Score:5, Funny)
How about FBI, CIA, NSA, TSA etc. snooping? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about governments stops meddling with every single business and person out there, introducing all these nonsense laws, while actively snooping on everybody on this planet without any justification, cause and mandate?
Just this NSA data center [wired.com] is a much bigger privacy risk than any number of employees who are dumb enough to ask for FB access of their potential hires and these potential workers being dumb and unprincipled enough to give it to them.
How about NSA stops doing THAT? Never mind the extra-judicial murder the president is involved in.
Shouldn't laws apply to the government first?
Shouldn't the government not be allowed to do things that an individual isn't allowed to do in the first place?
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Oh, and by the way, to those, who will reply to me with nonsense like: government must protect us from the evil corporations.
Stop and think for a second: nobody forces you to work for any of those companies and if you actively refused to work for them if they violated your privacy, they'd stop doing it, just the PR alone is going to be a problem for them.
But with a government... how are you going to opt out of that? With a company you can opt out. You can not buy the product, you can avoid being employed w
Circumstances trump ideals (Score:2)
nobody forces you to work for any of those companies and if you actively refused to work for them if they violated your privacy
A person might not force you to work for them but circumstances very well might. Unions came into existence precisely because it was difficult for some people to find alternative employment and some companies took advantage of that face. When your choice is between your privacy and feeding your family, your privacy is going to lose most of the time. Doesn't matter if it is wrong up in your ivory tower. You have the good fortune to have choices and live in a society that (generally) protects that right.
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Why didn't you stay in Russia?
- I was born in and I left the USSR, one of the most despotic countries of 20th century. Despotic. Dictatorial. Totalitarian. Why didn't I stay there? Because I am not masochistic?
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Oddly enough, I view the fact that Congress actually cares about this issue as a much more disturbing sign relating to your point... The average Joe actually does think about thinks like what his boss would think of his crossdressing habit; They don't think about
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Businesses are foolishly supporting CISPA while having their own access to information curtailed. If industry was shrewed they'd demand the same access and protections the government wants for itself.
The opening rounds of the privacy war have left government able to ignore the 4th amendment, and all privacy issues are now 'private sector' issues, like restricting business access to Facebook.
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Small and medium sized business did the good things of which you speak. But the mega-corporations have taken over government, they enslave, kill and maim for profit, they seize wealth and are parasi
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You are ignorant of the fact that business can become anti-capitalist and/or fascist. You imagine that anyone who decries evil that corporations do must be marxist or socialist.
- not at all. You are clearly unfamiliar with the history of my comments.
I absolutely agree with you. But you are looking at the consequence of government selling power to businesses and you believe that's the cause. You are ignorant on the cause and effect in these matters.
The more power that government holds, the more power it can sell. The more power that government holds, means the less power that individuals have.
If government is very powerful, it only means one thing: it is controlling actions of in
The fuck? (Score:2, Insightful)
The country is circling down the shitter, and this is the best thing the Congress has to occupy themselves with? If a prospective employer asks me to provide my FB account, I'll tell them to go pound sand, and so should everybody else. My photos of funny kittens shall be mine alone.
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If a prospective employer asks me to provide my FB account, I'll tell them to go pound sand, and so should everybody else.
Which will be of consolation when the righteous themselves are pounding sand trying to figure out how to make money to put food on the table. I'm sure the 300 blue collar workers who just lost their jobs when a local metal foundry shut down this past week will gladly hand over a facebook password in exchange for not having to try and live of welfare payments.
Here's a quick tip for those of you not paying attention to the current economy. At the moment common people will take what they can get. It's up to th
List of what's not allowed - ridiculous. (Score:5, Interesting)
So if there's no bill banning a certain activity, a company may engage in it, is that how it work in the USA? You know, in other western countries corporations aren't allowed anything unless it's granted to them explicitly.
Is there a bill forbidding cavity search by corporations? Or one that forbids corporations from harvesting the organs of their employees? It seems apt to ask, in case I ever dream of working in the USA.
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That's how some expat US businessmen behave in my country. Since the ones I've heard doing that spectacularly crashed and burned I can only assume they were the idiots that parent companies wanted to get rid of and that it's not anywhere near being universal. There was definitely a "slavery is good" vibe from some and an opinion that they owned the employees outright, with many intrusions into priv
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You know, in other western countries corporations aren't allowed anything unless it's granted to them explicitly.
Not true.
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Draw the line (Score:3)
>"We must draw the line somewhere and define what is private,"
And yet it is perfectly legal for an employer to demand fluid samples from an employee and test for whatever legal or illegal substances they choose. And in some states and fields, it is
even REQUIRED.
Same thing with a criminal background check. And others even run credit reports, with the assumption that someone with bad credit is a bad person or someone that is going to steal from the company. And others require physicals to gather health status information.
No probable or even remote cause needed in any of the above cases. So, yeah, demanding a social network password is certainly crossing the line, but there are plenty of other lines that are have already been crossed.
How can this not be legal? (Score:2)
Your employer has veto power over what your health insurance covers, but asking for your Facebook password is too far? I'd love to hear what the Republicans in Congress say on this.
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I'd love to hear what the Republicans in Congress say on this.
Well, there were 184 votes in favor of the amendment banning this practice. Only 1 vote [dailytech.com] was from a Republican.
Great idea (Score:2)
How to Make it Sail Through Congress (Score:4, Funny)
Feed Those Babies (Score:2)
umm (Score:2)
Right to Privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
People have a right to privacy. The Federal government has recognized it since the Constitution created the government: "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures [cornell.edu]" is to have privacy. Our privacy defines what is private vs what is public.
Not only does the government of the US have no legitimate power to violate that privacy right, but neither does anyone else. It's our right. And we create governments like the US Federal government to protect that right, among others. Protect it from governments, individuals and corporations.
This boundary should be the most fundamental and obvious fact in the US, but it's not, since the enemies of privacy have steadily gained so much power. We need a new Constitutional amendment that spells out the privacy right and goverment's obligation to protect it from all enemies, public and private. It must say that "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" is to have privacy that the government may not violate and must protect except as provided in the Constitution.
Re: (Score:3)
Er, we have a right to privacy. We created a government to protect our rights. The Bill of Rights does explicitly instruct the government not to violate some rights, because the new government was a new kind of government. But rights aren't selectable to whom they're violable. Rights are rights, not merely exemptions from government powers.
Which you acknowledge when you agree that people can't force you to give up your passwords. Of course they can ask you: they have the right to free speech, after all. It'
Loophole (Score:2)
Of course, even if this law passes, the company just claim it's for cybersecurity purposes and, under the terms of CISPA, just ignore the privacy protections in this law.
Re:We don't need this law! (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook probably wants to be able to charge companies for access to potential employees' data
Re: (Score:2)
I hope the same thing that's done with all the privacy erasing bills: Reintroduce them 'til enough people throw up their hands and vote yes to finally get that damn thing off the table.
Re:republicans *did* kill it (Score:3)
The amendment was rejected by a vote of 236 to 184 [dailytech.com]. Of the 184 yea votes only one was from a Republican. For reference, there are 242 Republicans and 190 Democrats in the House.