Jul 11
Now here’s a funny thing: state agencies are now using the “PATRIOT” Act to obtain private profiles from web sites such as facebook.com, for people applying for any state-related job.
[Redacted]
In other words: don’t count on your “friends only” or “private” postings not ending up in the hands of any government organization that takes an interest in you.
While this example involved Facebook, I’d put money on other social networking sites doing the same and handing over your data with no questions asked—including LiveJournal, Yahoo, Orkut, MySpace and so on.
Tagged: 1984, employment, facebook, MySpace, Orkut, patriot, politics, privacy, social networking sites, Yahoo
July 12th, 2006 at 15:39 -0600
Mathew, there is no section 321.b.2.B in the Patriot Act. What are you actually referring to?
July 15th, 2006 at 10:08 -0600
Ugh, I should have just pulled and reformatted an entire quote. I can’t find it now, and when I look at the amended Title 18 it doesn’t seem to have anything about disclosure to investigated parties, and is pretty clear about restricted circumstances under which information should be disclosed.
Of course, one of the problems with the “PATRIOT” act is it’s so huge that authorities can approach a company with a request and say “The PATROIT act requires that you comply”, and most of them won’t want to pay a lawyer to spend hours checking…