Tunisian Gov't Spies On Facebook; Does the US? 221
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."
supposedly private information ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clue:
If it were private, your information wouldn't be on facebook in the first place.
Have you been off planet for the last year or two?
echelon (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be assumed that any information you post on a system that doesn't belong to you (and even some that do...) is being peered at by someone that wants to put their nose where it doesn't belong.
We used to live in a society where a comment like 'Oh, but why would they look at you if you're unimportant?' would have been valid, but with the ever-encroaching nemesis of data mining and algorithmic analysis making itself part of our daily lives you have to assume that, at any moment, every transaction you make is being scrutinized.
Heh, (Score:4, Insightful)
Your Rights Online: Tunisian Gov't Spies On Facebook; Does the US?
Silly submitter, the government doesn't spy on Facebook, the government uses Facebook to spy on you. Now that the typical Slashdot pedantry is outta the way, isn't the whole point of Facebook to spy on people anyway?
Does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:supposedly private information ? (Score:4, Insightful)
You give all of your private information to goohle if you use Gmail too but that doesn't mean that it's ok for the government to go fishing there either.
Tell that to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell that to the guy who has his cell phone rummaged through [slashdot.org] without a warrant. And tell it to the the guy who has a GPS tracker attached to his car [slashdot.org] without a warrant. Tell it to the guy who has his computer searched, with anything found being prosecutable [slashdot.org], whether it was what the warrant specified or not. Tell it to the people whose cars (and possibly even persons) have been subjected to airport "naked body" scanners from vans on the street [slashdot.org] without--you guessed it--a warrant. Tell it to the people whose Internet information is handed over [slashdot.org] to the government willy-nilly without any kind of warrant. Tell it to the guy whose cell phone signal is geo-located [slashdot.org] without a warrant. Tell it to 94 baseball players [slashdot.org] whose drug results that were obtained without a warrant.
The list goes on and on. The Fourth Amendment is a joke today. I know it, the government knows it, and apparently you didn't get the memo. It's at the point where we need to pass a new amendment that basically says, "Goddammit, we mean it." Realistically, it's probably never going to change because too many people stupidly think that 1) if you're innocent you shouldn't have anything to hide, and 2) it could never happen to them.
The same thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course not. The US government isn't going to go through the trouble of having ISPs insert malicious Javascript, when they can just send a few agents over to Facebook (and/or the ISPs) and set up a tap sending all data directly to the NSA instead. A lot more reliable and less detectable by the victim.
This is why I quit FB... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is why I quit FB... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Heh, (Score:4, Insightful)
An entire record of your digital life, once you put all this out there, there's no getting it back. While it's probably not very available to governments now (merely advertisers can trawl this stuff to figure out how to sell you more shit) it's out there and it could fall into the hands of those who would do us harm, should laws change. You can bet in another awfully convenient 9/11 style terror attack the government rushes for more legislation to get access to this stuff real fast.
Re:supposedly private information ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Could you explain how private messages on Facebook differ from email?
The former are on Facebook, the latter aren't. That is a huge difference.
This is Tunisia, remember (Score:2, Insightful)
Tunisia is a bit of an odd one.
They encourage tourism (and they're doing pretty well at that - it's a lot more built up than it was ten years ago - though perhaps at the expense of their own culture. It's rapidly becoming the sort of place Brits who want sun and sea but don't want to be exposed to any foreign food or culture might go. Think Gran Canaria but not quite as bad yet), it's much more progressive than most arabic nations and the official line is essentially that they're dragging themselves out of the mud by their own bootstraps.
Yet everywhere you go you see photos of a (now-dead) president, it's nominally democratic yet the same party wins every time with an 80something% majority and while the locals are generally very chatty, very friendly - if you ask what they think of their government they suddenly go very quiet. While hard information for outsiders is tricky to find (Wikipedia and the CIA world factbook simply say it's a democratic republic where the same government keeps getting in with a huge margin) I suspect it's a half-crazed banana republic with rather better PR.