Slashdot Mirror
Patriot Act Bypasses Facebook Privacy
Geoffreyerffoeg writes "An article from the National Association of Colleges and Employers contains yet another horror story about a prospective hire's Facebook being checked — with a different twist. The interviewee had enabled privacy on his profile, '[b]ut, during the interview, something he was not prepared for happened. The interviewer began asking specific questions about the content on his Facebook.com listing and the situation became very awkward and uncomfortable. The son had thought only those he allowed to access his profile would be able to do so. But, the interviewer explained that as a state agency, recruiters accessed his Facebook account under the auspices of the Patriot Act.' How can a 'state agency' use the Patriot Act to subpoena a Facebook profile?"
Sounds like the Patriot Act's at Slashdot as well...
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
How can a 'state agency' use the Patriot Act to subpoena a Facebook profile?
What kind of crappy 'Ask Slashdot' is this? They just do it.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
If the job required a security clearance, he probably agreed to such invasive examination in applying.
I'm glad a good number of the so-called sunset provisions were recently extended indefinitly. I'm sure a lot of terrorists are plotting the next 9-11 over Facebook.com.
Yes, that was sarcasm.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
After all, if he isn't a terrorist, he doesn't have anything to hide...... right?
1. Never use your real name on the Net.
2. Never disclose any information under your profile especially if you violated rule 1.
3. Never violate rule 1 or rule 2.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Even granting the law allows "state agencies" to perform a search of private property (which a website's content is, even if its on the ISP's server) -- that they don't have to disclose the act to said person.
There was not even reasonable cause -- much less probable cause -- of terrorism. Or any crime.
If a law is written in such away that it can be abused, it will be abused.
Lesson 1. You don't want people to know things about you? Don't put it on the internet. Lesson 2: Don't entrust private data to a company that can change its privacy policies whenever it damn well pleases, or that voluntarily hands things over to state agencies when requested.
Wow, this looks like an answer to the question that was posed here.
This guy's the limit!
How can anyone comment on this article intelligently? No details are given, did he sign a privacy waiver (as you do with many classified gov't jobs), what was the agency? Possibly the recruiter was giving him a BS-line about the patriot act. It's still not a routine enough matter the patriot act would be invoked to investigate some low-level intern....
Interesting wording, since it leaves out the fact that the last one turned out to be a hoax...
Many security clearences require you to take a polygraph and ask you really uncomfortable questions to make sure you can't be blackmailed. Atleast the stuff they had was stuff voluntarily put on facebook anyway.
Who said anything about a subpoena? TFA certainly doesn't.
Shit, they probably didn't use the "PATRIOT act". My money is on the probability that they simply SAID the words "PATRIOT act" and facebook folded up like an origami swan.
First off, I really do hate the Patriot Act, and I don't think Facebook should have to let the interviewers. That said, I think it's unwise to post *anything* to *any website*, private or not, that you don't want a potential employer to see.
Perhaps a more useful way of investigating this question would be to ask whether there's a single verifiable fact that could be found regarding this story of an unnamed student, an unnamed interviewer and an unnamed agency?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I think my position on this would change depending on the job. If he agreed to be investigated for a position requiring a security clearance, I would say that he's basically opened himself up to this kind of thing. I didn't have time to RTFA but in skimming through it, I think this might not be the case, otherwise I don't think the Patriot Act would have to be invoked.
Either way, as my 8th grade English teacher once wrote on a printed email that I accidentally sent to him instead of my girlfriend, "Never put anything on the internet that you wouldn't want your mother to read."
Its really tacky of the employeer. Did they ask: "I see here you like heavy metal music, are you in league with the devil?". I mean, jeeze, its mostly private time stuff.
There are Conspiracy Theories claiming that Facebook's initial funding was from DOD connected venture capital, and that it is a remenant of Total Information Awareness.
Facebook links to eTrust from their privacy policy. Would it be effective if all of slashdot lodged complaints using the eTrust form? https://www.truste.org/pvr.php?page=complaint
Isn't it just common sense to understand the internet is just a big searchable library? Anything online can and will be found. Kinda feel bad for someone dumb enough to out this stuff out there, but glad I was never that naive.
Some (most?) "patriot" or "anti-terrorism" changes are from politicians exploiting 9/11 to do something slimy they cannot otherwise get away with.
Remove privacy laws
Remove habius corpus and trial protections
Crack down on Mexicans and other immigrants (mostly the brown ones)
Fund churches directly to reimburse for charitable activities (Ok, that one is in the wake of Hurricane Katrina)
Slimy, slimy, slimy.
It's not "how can they", it's "how can they be stopped in the future".
This is the most gratuitous bullshit abuse of the Big Brother Act that I've ever heard of, and that's saying something.
Since this guy got the job, he's unlikely to speak up, but maybe someone out there had the same problem and didn't_ have connections on the inside? Facebook, or any other social networking site consenting to violation of it's user's privacy without legal justification, needs to get sued.
That law was sold as an anti-terrorism thing. This ain't that.
> Sounds like the Patriot Act's at Slashdot as well...
;-)
You mean it as a joke, but I'm sure that Slashdot hands over
information to when required by the PATRIOT Act.
So much for the Anonymous Coward
If you don't like it, write to your elected representative.
Explain how this PATRIOT Act they passed has been abused to invade the privacy of law-abidng American citizens, and done zip to catch terrorists.
Write to your write to your elected representative. Write to your write to your elected representative. Write to your write to your elected representative.
WRITE TO YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE.
It probably depends on the agency and the particular job he's applying for as well. The authors of this piece are carefull to limit the description to "a state agency".
Also, this is not a criminal investigation. It is an interview. Employers can and will do detailed background checks, drug tests and due diligence in their interview processes. Is this a case of a rogue state power abusing the Patriot Act to invade a person's privacy? Perhaps, but the authors of this piece do not give us many details. You can for example have your blood examined by an employer. Of course we agree to this in a more direct manner by not only filling out the lawyer's paperwork but when we take the needle. When he filled out his application was this possibility disclosed?
Do not put anything on the Internet you are not comfortable with everyone in the world, your friends, your enemies, your employer, your parents, etc seeing. That's the point of the net. Not pretend like superficial blocks keep people out. Assume if you posted it on the net, everyone can see it.
Also, use a pseudonym. It's not like you have to be crafty about hiding the connection between it and you, but most people won't bother to dig in to it. It keeps a layer of seperation between you and your comments online.
For the most part, just apply the mom test: If my mom found out aobut this, would I care? If the answer is "no" then keep it off the net.
Any law can be used for ill purposes; and the PATRIOT Act is no different, it matters not if the law is good or bad. But with the PATRIOT Act, the law is as those who wield it wish it to be, a nebulous thing without restraint--the essence of bad legislation; yet it became law because nobody in Congress read the proposed legislation prior to the vote to approve--there simply wasn't time to do so. Thus we have a law that is a chameleon: all things to everyone. It is both weapon and armor, and it needs to be repealed.
Having worked in a Career Development Office (read: job placement), I can recall telling dozens of students on my campus to keep their facebook exploits as a minimum, simply because there are so many people trying to get a look at their facebook. Facebook causes a lot of problems because of the things that are exchanged behind the wall of privacy that Facebook has, and companies are wary of it. On top of that, they are paranoid about who they are hiring and have trouble dis-associating a person's professional life from their personal life, and often times use things such as facebook as a sort of pre-judgement.
What this article tells me is that the paranoia of some employers has reached a new level of ape-shit. The fact that more time was spent during the interview discussing facets of his Facebook profile instead of interviewing him for the internship he applied for is a bit appalling. Imagine some future ramifications of agencies being able to plug Facebook; homosexuals being screened before the interview process even takes place, racial profiling, any of those things that employers simply are not supposed to do. While I agree that people need to be careful about what they put out online, it does strike me as a big no-no that we have employers actively seeking out the personal lives of prospective employees before they've had a chance to see what the employee has to offer to the company.
From my experience, nothing is private. If you worry something will demean your character, don't post it at all; anywhere.
It's politics. People can find a way for anything to come back to haunt you.
...are not actual legal binding documents not matter how fancy they look. Mostly they are typed up by sysadmins or HR and are not an actual legal document. This has been talked about before here I'm sure (or somewhere else, haha, i don't know where my head is, but I have read this similar situation before in the past 2 weeks regarding a case that was in court and the whole web agreement thing got tossed by the judge).
if, for example, I was to put a box here [ ] and say to verify that you are older than 18 you have to check that box or you can not read the rest of this comment. anyone who read past the box (cause I know you can't check it off) has now broken my comment reading agreement (patent pending, patent pending, patent pending). have you broken a law, no, none i'm aware off. have you broken my agreement, yes, completely, i'm shocked at your disregard for the agreement. agreements are often just that, agreements - if you don't agree, than you can probably still go ahead and do it. and 90% of website owners are not going to try to fight the gov't in court over an internal unenforcable policy. If you put info on the internet, your a fool if you expect it to be private unless YOU own the box and the site it's on.
The article goes on and on talking about how employers are more regularly checking social networking sites, and posters need to be aware of that, blah, blah, blah. We here at /., and an increasingly large number of people on the internet, understand this. Nothing to see here, move along.
/. crowd more, is that the interviewer used the Patriot Act to circumvent the privacy controls of Facebook.com. The article mentions it in the context of the applicant using the privacy controls, but then doesn't bother to examine this troubling issue. I think we would all like to know a bit more about the justification the interviewer may have had to circumvent the privacy controls, and the methods used to do so. Which agency was this? They called it a "state agency" but that could mean just about any level of government. What was the position the person was applying for? Did it need a security clearance? Did the employer really need to see behind the curtain to hire the person, or was it just abuse of power? Was there some waiver signed that may, in the fine print, have given permission for the circumvention?
What intrigues me more, and what no doubt interests the
So what would said paranoid individuals do, when confronted with a blocked personal site? Ignore it? Yeah, right. I don't agree with what they look for - it seems questionable as to whether it has any relevance to whether the individual can be trusted - but it's blindingly obvious they'd investigate obviously hidden data.
For "confidential" clearances, the rules are different. There, a fingerprint check with the FBI and a routine background check seems to be sufficient. That can take a week or two, but it's nothing like as extreme.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yeah, so folks being able to look at your privates is not great but , hey, if you put it out there you put it out there. That doesn't seem all that different then putting a "Shoot 'em all and let Dog sort 'em out" bumper sticker on your car... or whatever...
But anyway, FTFA, if you get passed over for a job against someone else because of something on your facebook account, maybe you should have studied harder. I mean, aside from Goat.se pics and stripper poles dashing your great opportunity for That Cubicle working for Initech, inc., do you really WANT to work for a company that didn't hire you because you have a picture on your facebook with a beer in your hand or are you too desperate because of poor academic performance to be able to choose where you want to work?
That's how you use the PATRIOT act. You'll agree that from the point of view of the user, it's very efficient.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I changed the phrasing of the question but not the answer. Should be: For the most part, just apply the mom test: If my mom found out about this, would I care? If the answer is "yes" then keep it off the net.
That got me thinking Recently I saw a job posting on one of the major boards for a well known anon service, and at the end of the posting it said "security clearence required".
Now, unless they're doing some kind of business with the government, or spying on the people - why would they require a security clearence?
Know why the government won't give you a security clearance if you have bad credit or unsavory habits? Because it makes you vulnerable to blackmail. If their screening process doesn't identify people that have made themselves extortable ("'lose' your keys this weekend or I tell your dad about that 'experimental weekend' you posted about on MySpace") then they wouldn't be doing their jobs.
In short, if you must keep secrets about yourself, don't publish them online and still expect to get the sort of jobs that frown on them. This isn't rocket science.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
1. It doesn't say WHICH state agency, which after all makes a significant difference.
2. Nor is there any sort of sourcing, just some sort of vague (and short!) mumblings about some unidentified student and what he told his mother his interviewer told him.
3. The bulk of the article is even worse, posing "ethical" questions about whether employers should look at publicly available information about a candidate. The way I see it, if you go around posting pictures to the web of you mooning cop-cars from your last drunk drive across the country, you deserve what you get. There almost certainly isn't a real legal question, at any rate.
wow it must be a REALLY slow news day. what kind of retards use facebook anyway, let alone post anything about themselves on any social networking site? people, get a freakin' life.
I am a US born White american and my secret clearance has not come through yet and the paperwork was put in 2 years ago. I traveled to Germany as a Junior in HS with a school trip, other than that I don't know whats the holdup.
.sigs suck, thus nothing here.
How can a 'state agency' use the Patriot Act to subpoena a Facebook profile?"
Ummmm, like this:
State Agency: Facebook, under powers of the patriot act, we request that you give us access to your site. Failure to do so will be considered obstruction of justice and people will go to jail.
Facebook: No prob
Seriously, who in their right mind is going to stand up and be the test case for government powers this day and age, especially over something this stupid. Even if you win you will be labeled a terrorist sympathizer, unpatriotic, and have mounds of legal and financial problems. Not just the company, you personally.
And I'm sure there will be some responses of "vigilance is the price of liberty" and "we must stand up against this" and all that jazz, but YOU aren't putting your life, reputation, livelihood, and (if applicable) supported family on the line. Whining that other people don't do so for you is just cowardly in the extreme.
if-you-don't-want-it-published dept.
Boy is the the truth. Think people. Have an interview coming up? Why not delete the pictures you posted online of yourself doing bong hits? Don't blame facebook or even the patriot act for what is clearly your own stupidity. Why trust the access control mechanisms of facebook when most of corporate America cannot control access to financial data and the government cannot control access to classified information. What makes you think that tomorrow facebook will not say "screw private controls, we are opening up the whole thing for the world"? What are you going to do, demand your money back?
Finkployd
(Warning karma killing rant coming ... damn whipper snappers.)
Patriot Act or not, marked private or not -- saying something on Facebook, MySpace, or their ilk is akin to a billboard in the middle of the town square. Kids today think that they can post ellicit, embarressing, or immature activities on the Internet, mark the information as private, and, magically, no one they don't want to know will ever find out. Learn some discretion, and keep matters to yourself.
In short, quite your whining and develop some common sense.
the Patriot Act isn't being used just to track terrorists? Color me surprised.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
If the governemnt comes to Facebook (or mySpace, or whoever), and demands that information on an individual, there's not much Facebook can do. Most of these sites have agreements that reserve the right to hand over information to government agencies that ask for it.
/.) has this in it's TOS. You can also find the link to it at the bottom of the page...
/. website (and whatever else OSTG owns, whatever that is...), not just accounts, so this covers terrorist threats by our good friend, Anonymous Coward.
For example, Open Source Technology Group (Which owns
OSTG, in its sole and absolute discretion, may preserve Content and may also disclose Content if required to do so by law or judicial or governmental mandate or as reasonably determined useful by OSTG to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of OSTG Sites' users and the public.
That's for the whole
Sadly, in the age of speed scrolling to the bottom of a website's 'Terms of Service', we have many people who wonder these things...
Idiot: What? You can't give away my information to a government agency without my permission!
Social Networking Site: We already have your permission. You agreed to our ToS, which give us that right.
Idiot: But I didn't read the ToS!
SNS: Tough luck dumbass!
Good advice would be to read these things before you click 'I Agree'. Better advice would be not to post stories or pictures on the internet that involve you doing things that are stupid and/or illegal. The best advice is to just avoid doing stupid and/or illegal things altogether.
FYI: Pour speling makes you look like an idiott.
Facebook is a private company that, so far as I know, does not sell the personal information of the people who visit the site. If they sell their information, which isn't suggested in this article, then what I'm about to say is moot. Even for a security clearance, the investigation does not involve issuance of subpoenas or other extraordinary searching. The clearance involves interviewing the person, their friends and family, and thoroughly scouring public records. In some cases it might involve a polygraph test.
What really disturbs me though is how the article just glazes over the fact that Patriot Act was being used to investigate an intern for a government job. They just go on about how you should be careful what information you put out there. That's not the issue. Here we have a situation where information is on a public service but is kept private and it has been obtained through the Patriot Act for purposes clearly not realted to a terrorism investigation.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
is that it sounds like catch 22.
You can't handle the truth.
On the "private" Internet, employer sees this and doesn't want to hire, AGAIN. How is this news? This is like posting "Boy cuts hand off playing with lawnmower," yeah we know it happens but it happens to stupid people. I'll give a small amount of credit for it not being a Myspace page, but he deserves a job working at McD's for being so stupid.
Sounds like someone was bored and doesn't like the patriot act so they decided to make up a story.
This is a weird and unsatisfying article. There are two paragraphs or so stating that the employer essentially 'broke in' to this guy's facebook profile. It doesn't mention how (did facebook allow them in? Do they keep crackers on staff? Did they serve a subpoena?), and it doesn't mention what they felt they needed to bring up and address at the interview. The rest of the story is just the boilerplate myspace/facebook/social-networking introduction and privacy discussion/lecture (which shouldn't even apply if the site was designated private). So maybe it's a hoax--another product of the paranoia bred by the parade of spying programs coming to light in the U.S.
But, assuming it's real, this seems pretty sloppy. The PATRIOT act was supposed to be used to prevent terrorism right? Of course, it's a little bit tough to picture the connection between one internship applicant's social networking profile and the prevention of terrorism. If the guy was anything anywhere near being a terrorist threat, they wouldn't have hired him (raided his house maybe, but not hired), so the 'questionable' material had to be harmless. And if they had suspected him enough to say, "this guy might be a terrorist, but we can only know for sure if we check his facebook site," well, they're not really very effective in anti-terrorism then, are they?
And then, assuming all this is true, it means they were comfortable enough with this breach to bring it up casually? It means they're breaching privacy a lot, and they suck at it.
Best practices: Assume everything you put on the internet is public, because chances are, it soon will be.
I used to be careful to separate my professional online profile from my personal online profile. Since I never refer directly to my work on line and I am intentionally vague when referring to friends who may not be cool with the online thing, I no longer care that you can see the real me vs the professional me and if you wouldn't hire me because of what you've seen on my personal site, well, fuck you I wouldn't want to work with you anyway.
the powerbook name predates the apple move to powerpc, "dipshit."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerbook
I mean, aren't you supposed to be Faced to be on it?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
what happend to a person's own responsibility? /. about a family suing myspace because their daughter posted all her real info, met some guy on the site, and then found out he was a year old than he said he was.
These are 'free' services. No one is forcing people to sign up. If a person signing up is stupid enough to post their personal info, then they deserve what they get.
Not too long ago there was an article on
If you don't want it 'out' there, don't put it out there. Be very selective with what information you provide on the internet, not to mention what personal info you provide companies.
If you want to share personal things with only a select few over the inernet, you're better off either using a 'paid' service that can be held responsible, or create a secure site yourself.
This isn't shocking in the slightest, especially since I suspect it isn't even real.
why isn't it real?
-anonymous writer
-anonymous person affected,
-anonymous state agency
-person ended up getting the internship anyways so how do we know it didn't help the person's interview?
People are stupid, and the stories being posted on slashdot these days have no credibility seemingly as if 'people are stupid' is something new.
Anybody else remember the story about the young man who had the Department of Homeland security show up, demanding to know why he was trying to get Chairman Mao's "Red Book" from the library? And how it turned out that something so unbelievable was, in fact, made up by a bored young guy who wanted attention?
It's pretty obvious that the same thing is happening here.
It is good to be careful about your private life, but what the weed manager needs to realize is that, someday maybe someone will search his arse out on the net and wham, who knows what one might find! I mean come on the the deputy press secretary of Homeland Security was aressted for being a child porno freak. What did this guy do, party a little, maybe a picture of his girlfriend? On second thought, maybe he should have said, well I do not want to work for a government that employs child porno freaks.
You guys are forgetting the most important part of the acronym, "Uniting and Strengthening America"! It's the "USA PATRIOT Act", losers.
Honestly, this shouldn't affect hiring practices at all.
1. You're hiring someone that is capable of doing their job, not someone who is a social recluse.
2. You shouldn't reward someone for hiding their personal habits better than someone else.
3. The Patriot Act has been criticized enough, this is just adding fuel to that fire.
looks like you need to re-take slashgeometry
Make a loud verbal stink about the situation and leave.
This interview is over!
Life is too short to put up with this kind of thing.
The DMCA!
Yes, that's right, our other poster boy of bad legislation, the DMCA, to the rescue! See, bypassing the lock constitutes circumventing an access control...
It's dumber still when that information includes your name, picture, or any other easy personal identifier.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
>this whole sketchy story is just bogus
right. if anyone speculating about this had bothered to RTFA, this is a 'true story' given as an example, w/o any real details whatsoever, as part of an 'article' on why you should be careful what you post about yourself online.
IOW, the whole thing is about as 'true' as the true stories they told you at school about the kids who put fireworks in their pocket / took acid and thought they could fly, depending on what level of education you were at.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
"Bombay"
Maybe they should change the name...
Name: John Smith
Favorite Hobby: Stealing Office Supplies to sell on eBay.
(And don't tell me there isn't someone out there dumb enough to post exactly this.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why do people use their real names online and then expect privacy? It's 2006, and we should all know by now not to expect things we put online under our real names and contact info to stay private. Use pen names online, different ones for different sites if you don't want it all connected, don't post work places, phone numbers, etc..
What I do: First, I never ever use my real name. Even in my friends-only LiveJournal I haven't mentioned the name of where I work or use my real name because those who should know have found out somewhere other than LJ. My handles are changed on a semi-regular basis, and friends who should know are privy to this. Security breaches are possible, or there could be a loophole in the ToS I overlooked allowing someone access. Even my user IDs on websites is not unique to me. Go to MySpace and AriaStar there is someone else, and AriaStar on LiveJournal is yet another person. For most messege boards, the user names are so plain that many more people can share it. And I have many e-mail addresses, one for each of these places, so trying to connect my posts and whatnot by connecting e-mails won't work either. I only put up photos online because there are billions of people in this world and even more photos online, and the chances of an employer coming by them is infinitesimally small. The only pieces of information I don't skew are my age (if I decide to share it), my town, and my occupation, which would describe hundreds of people with age, or thousands without my age, and my photos are real. You're not going to find anything I wrote a year ago online. Even I'd be hard pressed to do so.
It's now a part of life that very little is private anymore, and it's wrong, and we can all either bitch and moan about it, or bitch and moan and try to get things changed while taking steps to protect ourselves in the meantime.
Anyone who expects privacy these days is a fool. It's not right of the government to break our Constitutional rights, but until we can get this changed, we have to take the neccessary steps to keep our own private lives private, even it if means going as far as taking on assumed names online.
It's a girl!
Obviously that state agency has blatantly violated existing law. Hopefully the person will not remain a silent victim but take the matter to court.
Why don't you... you know... READ THE PATRIOT ACT and find out?
"I have a rule of thumb here," Rogers says. "You shouldn't broadcast or share any information that you wouldn't want to share with your parents or spouse, or that you would be ashamed of should it appear on the front page of the newspaper. Follow that and you can't go wrong."
I must admit there are very natural bodily functions that I feel it is beneficial to discuss privately, including anonymously on the internet, that would indeed be very embarassing on the front page of the paper. I bet this Mr. Rogers would be very uncomfortable if his regional paper dug up a post he "anonymously" made on a web forum asking about a nasty rash in a private area, complete with pictures, and posted this information on their front page.
Lie about yourself. Constantly. Hey, it worked for Janet Cooke.
... until then, this is all just a bunch of he-said/she-said in my book. As far as this so called article goes, it looks more like an attempt to get the great unwashed masses to holler and shout about the so called abuse of the law. Everyone gets all worked up about these things, even the ones that end up not being true. "Oh no, it's the Big, Bad, Government(TM) coming to invade my privacy again!"
Well there is a funny thing about government in the Western world (read the US, Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Mexico, etc, etc...), it's representative. As in, if you don't like it, then go do something about it! I know too many people who will spent lots of time complaining about what they think is wrong with the system without ever getting up out of the chair to go and actually vote on Election Day.
I'm not even going to get into the merits of the Patriot Act or the existence of the vaunted right to privacy, because, to be brutally honest, I'd rather wait and discuss the subject in a format that is conducive to a logical and reasonable analysis of the facts and possible outcomes, even if the other person happens to disagree with my point of view.
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
This whole story reads more like one of those hypothetical situations made up to illustrate a point. In this case, "don't assume your Facebook account will only be seen by those you want to see". I don't think the account actually happened, and I think the Patriot Act is being used by the writer as a MacGuffin which allows the unnamed office manager access to the supposedly "hidden" Facebook profile.
Watch what you assholes put on these sites! I hope he had tons of details about his sexual conquests!
Fucking morons! At least if you are forced the need to have a facebook or gayspace site.... be annonymous you jackasses! One more job for someone more reliable I say!
Google can find some embarrassing stuff too. I had a friend who if you searched his first and last name & and sexual term, you got a PDF copy of a newpaper article he worked on in college. with on the cover in his boxers. another one of my close friends had to delete his myspace because the URL contained his last name which was also the name of his Dad's business. The problem was people where searching for his dad, but getting his myspace. So, people don't need the patriot act to find you...they just need to know how to search google.
I mean, really. Seeking employment isn't like running for office.
(sigh) Pearls before swine.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
My roommate recently started a blog, and belongs to several of the social networking sites. When he ask me why I didn't join him, I simply explained that thought history we've always had the ability to list all our friends and thoughts in a diary and leave it on our front porch for anyone to read, but nobody ever wanted to.
Just because we can doesn't mean we should...
Why would anyone put things on the internet (at any security level) that could prevent them from getting a job? Sounds Darwinian to me, if you're too dumb to protect your private life, you're probably related to the person taking home a laptop with 25,000 social security numbers on it, so good riddance!
Another horror story!
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
1. Just because your cell phone can take pictures and post them on the Net (or Facebook), doesn't mean you should.
2. Joining a Facebook group like The Drunker I Am The Smilier I Get and posting an album of pics to it, probably isn't a swift move unless you want to work as a public drunk.
3. Taking revealing pics of yourself always sounds good, until your grandma or prospective employer sees them. Ewww.
4. The more you drink, the less sound your judgement becomes. Never post anything while drunk. Ever.
5. Don't break up with a vindictive ex-bf/gf, as they will post those pics they promised never to post.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They probably don't. It's just a 21st century shorthand for "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs".
Hell in a handcart, I tell you.
What the heck is facebook? And if some guy posted his info in the internet without strong encryption, why is he surprised that the government knows about it?
The default may be school-wide access, but it sounds like he had restricted access to a relatively small group of people. Different story.
I'm sorry, but this is a little bit overreaching, considering that he had marked his profile as being private.
To create an analogy:
If he had a public profile, it would have been like the employer sent out a PI to follow him to the grocery store every time he purchased groceries. Groceries are in no way connected to work, but hey, he could be building a bomb out of household cleaning products. It's creepy, but is most likely within the realm of the law --- and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent this sort of thing.
If his profile was private, it would have been like the detective following him into the grocery store, recording exactly what he purchased, taking down the number of the credit card he used to pay, and following him home to see how he used each item he purchased, and then following him on a date with his girlfriend. Whoa there! That's a definite unwarranted invasion of privacy!
The line has to be drawn between what goes on in the business world, and in the personal world. Even if you're perfectly legit, certain personal information on your profile could affect the hiring decision for the wrong reasons. In the job application process, I don't specify my religion, political affiliations, sexual orientation, musical tastes, etc. because none of these things have anything to do with my ability to work. However, on facebook, I provide all of this information voluntarily to the people I consider to be my "friends" so that I can form new relationships and network with others. From a logical standpoint, there is no reason why I should not share this information, as it has absolutely no bearing on my ability to do my job.
However, it is a well-known fact that subliminal subconscious biases occur in virtually all people. Perhaps if the employer noticed that I listed Greatful Dead and Phish as my favorite bands, he would subconsciously draw the correlation that I could be a stoner, and am thus less worthy to be hired. Logically speaking, itis a completely ludicrious assumption to base a hiring decision bsaed upon musical tastes, but the fact is that we make these sort of snap-judgements every day without realizing it, and such a judgement might be the impetus to choose between two equally-qualified applicants.
I guess what it boils down to is that these sort of invasions of privacy give employers access to completely extraneous information, that although innocuous, will unfairly affect that person's chances of being hired.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
We're 3rd generation don't give a fuck...
If it's declared private, and protected as private under relevant TOS & municiple code, it shouldn't matter if it's on the internet or not.
Come on, when you are using facebook (which is public) and then telling Facebook that it really is private (password protected) where is there any garantee that it is, in fact, private? A TOS says how YOU may use Facebook, not anything about legal liabilities Facebook has in regards to your data (except explianing it has none). How does Facebook fall under any municiple code?
If the password is given away someone can still access your data.
You don't pay facebook anything nor did you sign mutual contracts proclaiming who is responsible for what.
Data on a puiblic server is public, period. That they give you the convieninece of putting weak protection over something does not suddenly make that data magically protected by law in ways the original facebook data was not - after all, if someone stole and then gave away your facebook password would there be in fact any laws broken?
If you want to be angry at someone be angry at Facebook for just saying OK when people ask them for data. Or if you want to put up profiles on the internet and truly keep some parts confidential do your own hosting with your own box, or at least with a hosting agent who signs a contract that they will not release your data without consent or at least inform you. Claiming anything else on the internet is private is silly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The government can do anything they please.. the people that make the rules can always change or break them; its just the screwed up part of the game.
How could the contents of a private web forum possibly be germain to a job interview?
-
So much for the Anonymous Coward ;-)
If I should fall, another will rise to troll in my place!
Don't post these private to social networking sites for the whole world to see! "Look how wonderful I am and how great my life is! Don't you wish you were just like me?" Bullshit. I really don't get how these narcissistic bastards think we give two shits about their pathetic lives.
What kind of PowerPC processor did the Powerbook 520 series (and earlier models) have?
Yeah. You're a tool.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I looked at the link. It is on Louisiana State University - Shreveport. The article says it came from "NACE Spotlight Online", but NASE Spotlight Online had no reference to the article, and the reference on LSUS's site had no reference to a webpage or date of publication.
I've found three other copies of this story, all with the same generic NACE Spotlight Online reference.
The article is of an unnamed individual interviewing at an unnamed company located in an unnamed town. It references a well known career site, but with no context about where this article was located or when it was published.
Hear that sound? That's the sound of an URBAN LEGEND!
What does attributing typing errors to poor spelling makes one look like?
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
I don't understand what the issue is here. If you handed a complete stranger a photo album with a lot of photos, comments, and other potentially embarassing things, would you expect that person to keep it private only if you told them too? Let's use some common sense here people. When you post something online, anywhere & anything, it is really the same thing a posting it on a sign for the whole world to see, and it lasts virtually forever.
The myspace craziness should have been tempered with common sense. Kids posting personal information about themselves, and then people wonder why pedophiles toll the myspace boards. This is just another example of college kids being completely stupid! This really has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. Everyhting you post online may, and can, be viewed by anyone @ anytime. Privacy on the internet is only an illusion.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Add to this the recent relevations that the Pentagon still considers homosexuality a mental disorder more than 25 years after mainstream Psycology determined that's false.
And if the Patriot Act was used in leiu of just cause to issue a warrant or to snoop without a warrant in this case, I would consider it a complete breach of our government's entire foundation.
another will rise to troll in my place!
Like so!
ph34r!
From the article and facebook.com: "Facebook's website has grown to over 7.5 million people and, according to comScore, ranks as the seventh-most trafficked site in the United States."
That seems a bit far-fetched if you ask me. Without having any sort of real data, I'd have to bet that all of these sites get more US traffic:
Something tells me they left out some qualifying words, like: "seventh-most trafficked social-networking site in the United States."
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
This is the argument for a police state! Everybody is suspicious. Those who are not suspicious arouse suspicion.
With this argument you give the wrong signal to politicans.
You tell them: "Privacy does not matter to me!"
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Oh wait, I thought that I was posting to the DRM group...
Ironically they dont have to plot any more, the gov seams to be fighting the battle for them.
So I didn't see the name of the state agency. Was he looking to work for the state police? FBI? CIA? Some other organization that requires security clearance. Many gov't jobs, including those that give you access to sensitive information, require very very intense background checks. They will delve into every aspect of your life. For example, in the FBI, they want to know EVERY SINGLE PLACE you have lived since you were 18, including all roomates if you were there for 2 months or more. As a person who moved around since the age of 18 (Lived in college, then moved out to live with some people for winter break, then moved back to college for spring semester, then moved to friends for summer, then to college, etc..) I have had many roomates. Some of them I don't even remember their names, let alone a way to contact them. But the FBI will delve deep, including calling each and every person and saying "so what do you know about...."
Face it, some jobs require this - and I am glad they do....when someone who is working for the gov't has access to my information, or gov't money, etc then I want him/her to be extra scrutinzed...
Put it this way - many of you will scream foul now, but if tomorrow you read some moron embezzeled money from the gov't, or sold your personal information you will get pissed...and if you find out the state angency that hired him would have known this guy to be less then reputable, by digging DEEPER into his life, then you will want revenge for the "incompetant state employees who failed to check this guys facebook."
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Because we know that terrorists would never want access to government facilities... and they would certainly not stoop to applying as a mere intern.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
You know, TFA would be a lot better if it were a short film shot in black and white, with a blond freckled kid playing The Son and a pretty woman in a light colored skirt suit with shoulder pads playing the mother. And a Hugh Beaumont-esque voice narrating:
Working as an office manager in a career services office and hearing the warnings surrounding social networking sites, Mom knew her son could potentially have a problem. Timmy had created his Facebook.com profile when he was 18. Now 20, he had accumulated a good amount of material -- typical college musings and photos--that his friends might enjoy (fade in brief scene of Timmy snapping photo of a giggling girl in one-piece bathing suit) but others might view differently. (fade in brief scene of man in dark suit with horn rimmed glasses reading file and shaking his head)
Timmy was beginning a search for an internship, so she asked him to consider limiting access to his profile to just his friends. Understanding the gravity of the situation, he heeded his mother's advice and did so.
"Very well, Herr Klein so you've decided to apply for membership in the SS. I see you have a very good athletic record, .. puzzled .. Tell me, Herr Klein, what do you do every wednesday night?"
your certificates of racial purity appear to be in order.. and you have served in the Reichswehr during the war, Herr
Gefreiter. You're almost 2 meters and 10 centimeters tall, you have blue eyes and blonde hair and you have won multiple
contests both military and private in marksmanship. I'm sure a carreer awaits you in the Schutzstaffet but there is a
matter which still has us
"Herr Standartenfuehrer, I go to a club where we listen and dance to music but I can assure you this has nothing to do
with my dedication to our Fuehrer and the Reich."
"Oh? But I am afraid it does, Herr Klein, I'm afraid it does. You listen to American music! You listen to music created
by jews and enacted by blacks, isn't that so?? You seem to like that kind of music, eh? We had you followed! We saw you
dance with a Fraulein and above all, did you know that Fraulein is also half jewish??! We followed you then to your appartment
where you sneaked in with your "Fraulein" and had sex with her. Our investigator listened at your door and made a personal
of what perversions you were living out with that "woman". You had sex with a half-jew and outside of marriage at that and
believe me you're going to hear from the Staatsanwaltschaft (state prosecutor) for this."
"What, Himmel Herrgott! You had me followed??! You spied on me??" You spied on me sex-life??!?
"Quit acting so surprised Herr Klein. The SS lives up to high standards and we are legally bound by order of the
Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler himself and by various laws enacted by the Reichstag to investigate the backgrounds
of all our applicants. You Herr Klein are certainly not the kind of person we're looking for. If you want to make an issue
of it, be my guest. If you want, you can use my phone to call the Gestapo.
Someday, a slashdot troll will apply for a government job and they will ask him about those lovely images he continually posts, and is he really into that sort of thing? And what is his connection with the known terrorist organization, GNAA?
And without knowing why, the rest of us will get a warm fuzzy feeling in our bellies and we will laugh in a Nelson voice, Ha-ha! and then wonder why we did it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Come on. A "state agency" claiming they can instantaneously get around Facebook security without a subpeona in the course of a few days, and then claiming an act of Congress empowered them to do so? The article itself states that the interviewee had friends within the agency - more likely, they were pressed for the information, and the employer told the interviewee they had the power to do so through a well-known and controversial act in the hopes he'd buy into it. Apparently he did, and is left with the impression that his new employer has more power than they originally led him to believe.
One anecdote based on hearsay is hardly proof of wrongdoing. The far more likely explanation is the employer pressured his friend to do the search and lied about it. Show me another state agency that's claimed to have identical power, or better yet, the specific clause in the Patriot Act that would allow that kind of power.
What the interviewee doesn't remember is how they also made his mouth disappear, wrestled him onto the table and inserted a robotic bug in his stomach.
Or was it all just a bad dream?
lesson learned:
if you have a boring, poorly written story to tell, scream PATRIOT ACT and people will pay attention.
lesson that should be learned:
supress those exhibitionist urges and stop exposing so much of yourself on the internet.
Oh Shit!
Back when I was college-aged, we had a saying: "What happens in ______ stays in ______". Now, how the hell is that supposed to happen when you document (anywhere) every detail of your cavorting and debauchery? That shit should just be stories to reminisce on when you're running low on beer and there's no chicks around to bang, not posted on a blog for everyone to read.
cat
I think we’ve all been corrected on a technical detail we fucked up in a comment before. But it really sucks when that comment was an attempt to correct someone else and ended in the word ‘dipshit.’
But to have that happen at the hands of people named poobie and Moofie? Wow, what’s that feel like?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
The great nth americana union is happening, the new soviet america is born.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I think the issue is the use of the patriot act by a state agency to access his profile, which he had set as private. This really seems like one of those stories where the patriot act was at least apparently misused. Personally, if it was the military, or a major defense contractor, or a position anywhere near the president I could understand, but it does seem a bit excessive for a state agency to use it. While I do not feel that information posted online is private in any way, the patriot act really doesn't seem like it should have anything to do with him trying to get an internship.
Oh great, so why the hell bother in the first place with such useless stuff like privacy laws and the like, because "If you handed a complete stranger ...[any kind of information]... would you expect that person to keep it private only if you told them too?"
:D
I know, everyone is stupid, but you...hear it all before
I also suppose you don't rent or lease places - ever! After all, you don't want to deal with a third party that posses a thread to your privacy, now would you?
Facebook is a private company that, so far as I know, does not sell the personal information of the people who visit the site.
The hell they don't...from Facebook's Terms:
"By posting Member Content to any part of the Web site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."
All of that implies to me that all the info you put up on Facebook is open game for them to sell to whomever. (Facebook's data is extremely valuable--since it is categorized so neatly by college/high school with good email addresses, which is why the guy who founded it thought it was worth $2 billion when Myspace sold for a paltry $500 million.)
Myspace has a slightly friendly terms of service.
Two quick points: 1. Car dealers requires SSNs for the Patriot Act on some purchases. Even casinos are involved in this kind of stuff as well. Don't believe it? Visit http://www.bridgerinsight.com./ 2. Earlier this year, I told my older kids not do anything with MySpace.com if they don't want their past to haunt them. Same thing applies here with Facebook.com. With Google + archives + cache, there's lots to see. Job holders and hunters: what you do on the Internet stays on the Internet, and stays, and stays, and stays... TechVet
I was hired at a health care company in 1977 (Upjohn) and by the end of a 3 month probation, they had interviewed my parents, half the kids in my high school yearbook, most of the teammates of my college track team, my paper route customers, and numerous relatives.
To what end? To see if I had EVER used illegal drugs. Would someone say I had taken even one drag of a doobie? I hadn't, and nobody lied or exaggerated. OK, I was a social retard, but very studious and smart.
The FDA mandates that any employee in the ethical drug industry be immediately fired if an accusation of illegal drug use is made. Just an accusation! And without recourse, the courts are not permitted to hear a case of wrongful discharge in this instance, Congress took it out of their jurisdiction.
You people have no clue what's going on.
As a right winger of the small government, economically liberal (or conservative in US parlance), and civil libertarian type, I take offense to that statement. A right winger is somebody who believes in free market economics. Right wingers stand opposed to left wing economics. In my views, the difference between left wing and right wing are only economic. We have an entirely different scale for groups that strongly protect civil liberties versus those who are strongly opposed to civil liberties. What does support for free markets have to do with the PATRIOT Act, invasion of piracy, the war on terror, and other similar actions?
Now, there are some right-wingers who do believe in those actions. Use terms like neoconservative or fascist then, if you wish. But don't conflate neoconservatives and fascists with the entire right wing. You're falling into the same trap that some of us right wingers make when we conflate Castro and Mao with the entire left wing.
That's not an appropriate use of the patriot act no matter how you phrase it. When the law was passed it was billed as a temporary measure that would be used to discover terrorist plots and to find and capture members of al-Qaeda, not as a way for HR managers to gain access to web sites that might have embarassing pictures of job applicants.
To paraphrase and old Judge Dredd story. "Guy calls the police to report someone iimpersonating a cop at his front door trying to get in. Cops arrive and arrest the fake. Cops ask the guy how he knew it wasn't a real cop...Guy says if he was a real cop he would have just busted the door down."
FBI says Patriot Act used in Vegas strip club corruption probe
... clearly was not intended for this," Las Vegas lawyer Dominic Gentile said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
8:35 a.m. November 4, 2003
LAS VEGAS - The FBI used the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial information about key figures in a political corruption probe centered on striptease club owner Michael Galardi, an agent said.
Investigators used a section of the Patriot Act to get subpoenas for financial documents, said Special Agent Jim Stern, a spokesman for the Las Vegas FBI office.
"It was used appropriately by the FBI and was clearly within the legal parameters of the statute," Stern said.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Tuesday that records were subpoenaed from Galardi, the owner of Jaguars in southern Nevada and Cheetah's in Las Vegas and San Diego; his lobbyist, former Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone; former Commissioner Erin Kenny; County Commission Chairwoman Mary Kincaid-Chauncey; former County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera; and Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald, who lost a re-election bid in June.
The Patriot Act, passed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was originally touted by the government as a tool to help federal law enforcers combat and prevent terrorism.
Civil libertarians have criticized the Bush administration for employing the wide-ranging act to also crack down on drug traffickers and child pornographers.
The measure lets federal investigators seek financial records of people suspected of being terrorists or laundering money.
Malone's lawyer called it an outrage that the FBI used anti-terrorism measures in an effort to gather information on his client.
"The Patriot Act
Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said the Patriot Act included provisions "that in no way had anything to do with the threat of terrorism, but could help them in your more garden variety criminal prosecutions."
Attorney Richard Wright, who represents McDonald, said he was unaware investigators had used Patriot Act powers.
"It isn't anything that's lawfully known," he said.
Federal authorities in San Diego say Galardi and Malone paid San Diego city officials to lift a ban on contact between topless dancers and their customers. Malone and three San Diego city councilmen await trial on public corruption charges.
A federal grand jury in Las Vegas also has been hearing evidence regarding allegations of public corruption in southern Nevada. No indictments have been announced in that case.
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
I've never understood this. US slashdotters (most of you?) are always opposing better identification schemes, but then you scream because someone knows 25.000 social security numbers?
We have a national ID card in my country, and it's common to see them posted next to faculty exam results, on the internet, etc... but with the number and name alone an identity theft will be just a little better off than when he started.
So why is it so important in the US? BTW I've just looked at Wikipedia's entry: "Ironically enough, Social Security cards used to have the caption "Not for identification," indicating that the cards and their number are not intended to be a form of identification"
Of course, Wikipedia also states that all Spanish-law based countries usually have an official ID while English-law based systems don't.
Also from Wikipedia: "Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the United States has no national ID document and that the social security card contains no biometric identifiers of any sort, making it essentially impossible to tell whether a person using a certain SSN is truly the person to whom it was issued without relying on some other means of documentation (which may itself have been falsely procured through use of the fraudulent SSN)"
Of course, this is only tangentially relevant to TFA, but...
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
About a month ago my wife--who is a permanent resident but not a national of the United States--was mugged walking home from work. The assailant got everything in her purse, keys, debit/ATM, credit cards, etc. We immediately cancelled all of her banking credentials and even went as far as having our bank account number changed the next day during our visit to our banking institution (since checks were also taken from her purse).
A week later we received a letter from our bank saying that since the account was opened without her showing any identification that under the USA PATRIOT Act, section 326, our bank account would be closed. The account actually wasn't new, just the numbers. She couldn't have possibly shown any ID since she lost it all in the incident (yes, by now we realize it would have been much smarter to have photocopies of all her identification).
I often wonder how far we're all willing to go under the pretext of national security. I wonder how many lives have been more than inconvenienced due to simple misunderstandings. It doesn't bother me so much that we're required to show ID to open bank accounts, just moreso that the government can come along and close my bank account and I have no recourse.
I now keep my savings in a safe in my house.
"He strapped a whole sheet to his chest, started dancing and sweating and now he thinks he's an orange/glass of orange juice and if you touch him he'll leak/be drank down."
Terminate and stay resinous.
Suddenly, when they call my former employer all they can do is confirm employment but when they call up facebook (or well, when they call someone who calls facebook) they can invoke the patriot act to get things I intentionally mark as private (as opposed to say, my personal habits or how I treat my coworkers which are plainly visible to former employers and I dont ask them to keep it a secret or anything yet they are still not allowed to say anything more than the fact that I worked at said business)
Bottles.
"If you do not want something heard, do not say it".
Though I'd always wanted to live in a society a bit more open and free than the Klingon Empire.
Using the Patriot Act to screen government employee applicants is a whole lot more on-topic than some other rediculous use of an over-broad law.
... do not believe that the laws apply to them. To them, the laws are a nuisance, interfere with their god-given right to do their jobs, and there is no acceptable reason to prevent them from enforcing policy by any means necessary. They are knights in shining armor, fighting for you and me, and would never do anything to hurt or suppress us. Then, the laws become mere obstructions to these agencies, to be excepted and bypassed and invalidated by any means necessary, legal, or otherwise. And even then, when caught doing something that even the "adjusted" laws do not allow, they will cower behind the all-powerful statutes that basically say "we do what we want to, are accountable to no one, and it's illegal to investiage us."
The patriot act comees immediately to mind, as do executive orders, "state secrets", and of course our all time favorite, "for reasons of national security."
I am now thoroughly convinced that the executive portion of the US is hopelessly broken, broken in such a way that the very means to fix it are quickly becoming illegal. It's being done for our protection. But isn't that the way it always is? Preying on people's fears, tricking them into giving up their fredom and rights for safety? B. Franklin said "those that would give up a basic liberty for a measure of temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Too bad we missed that lesson. I think we are fulfilling that as prophesy.
Soon all avenues of escape will be gone. American is broken, and it doesn't look like it's fixable. But what to do?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
start posting as anonymous coward all the time.
I've seen people try to get the capitalization right, knowing it's an acronym, but I've not seen anyone get it right in responses to this article. Its official title, as enacted, is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001." So the proper shortening would be to call it the USA PATRIOT ACT. Leaving in the USA and having even the ACT in all caps will remind everyone that "PATRIOT" isn't what it does, but an acronym to hide its more sinister (apologies to all left handed people) goals and effects.
Learn to love Alaska
A Top Secret Clearance requires a 10 year back ground investigation.
(Maybe it's changed but as far as know this is what I went through)
And yes they look at -everything- they can.
And talk to everyone who -might- know you.
So for anyone applying for this kind of clearance this should not be unexpected.
After all, people's lives are on the line.
It's that critical.
My best advice is to just tell the truth about everything.
Don't hide anything, that's what will get you in trouble.
It's an integrity check.
If you don't have it, you won't get it.
If the scope of the investigation was out of context with the position he was seeking then that's another problem all together.
Perhaps even a violation of the person's civil rights.
A clearly written certified letter to the attorney general of the state in which he resides would be a very strong way to follow through on the legality of the background investigation in question.
However, if anyone thinks that McCarthy style Witch Hunts cant happen in today's "post 911 world"
Then let you be the one.
Looks like it's time to work for ourselves instead of for someone else. Most companies do hire contractors as necessary.
Hey, I said not to look!
No, it doesn't work like that. If you post something online you may think you have some 'privacy rights' but you actually don't. And even if you DID have those rights, and if you mark it private and everything goes well, you're okay. But if a script-kiddie or a search engine gets ahold of your stuff, you're toast. Heaven forbid a government agency need a look at it. You've got about the same amount of privacy that you have in a bar. Most people aren't going to snoop your conversation, but you definitely can't count on it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
That the information which is currently in your Facebook.com account could be viewed by anyone does not suprise me, but I ask you this: Is it possible for anyone to see information that was there in the past but was later edited away? In particular, is it possible for anyone to see a deleted profile?
Step 1 - Obtain employee list of 'ethical drug industry' corporation.
Step 2 - Threaten to post anonymous claims of methamphetamine use of every listed employee somewhere on the internets. Blackmail the company for phAt l3wt.
Step 3 - Profit!
Seriously, when _anyone_ can perform a DOS attack on a company and get their board and executives all fired in a trivially easy fashion, you have to wonder why it hasnt happened yet.
Thank goodness 'Innocent until proven Guilty' has been removed from legal doctrine. Its so much easier to execute random people, claiming suspicion of them being a terrorist. Of course, what with everyone being killed constantly there is pretty much worse than any terrorism, but hey, its the law so it must be right and ethical.
-n/t-
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
"...what with everyone being killed constantly..." You must live in a very interesting neighborhood.
SECRET is about 6 months, with an interim clearance in a few days if you don't have anything interesting to investigate.
TOP SECRET is about a year, though currently all new applications are on hold for budget reasons.
They're trying to get things down to about 4 months by the end of the year. Their hope is that streamlined processes and less-incompatible software will help.
The Patriot Acts are a giant fraud stuck on the US by Bush and his Republican Congress. Of course it was not sold to the public as a way for employers to violate your privacy. Of course it is used to spy on people for business and personal reasons totally unrelated to "terrorism" or security of any kind. And of course we are stuck with it.
WHERE'S OSAMA?
--
make install -not war
"Your papers please, Mein Herr" - classic lines from US movies and British movies that let us know we were in the presense of evil Nazi minions. It was used to remind us what we were fighting for, freedom from a dictatorial government where your every move was noted, logged, filed and cross referenced for ties to subversive elements in society. How things have changed.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
+5 Pedantic
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
How can a 'state agency' use the Patriot Act to subpoena a Facebook profile?
Or the even more far reaching question, what about the profile did they find unacceptable?
I don't know about you, but I sure feel a little less "free" after hearing this. Not because I think the "story" is real (don't care), but because it wouldn't surprise me if this sort of thing did happen. That's what sucks. Just throw this onto the pile of things that have made me feel a "little less free" over the last few years. All together it's palpable.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
You're damm right. Here's a web site to read up on that: http://www.infowars.com/
I don't usually advertise sites here on slashdot but this article warrants it.
Check out the site. Flame, cry foul or scream your own paranoia in my face, call
me a conspiracy nut I don't care.
I have karma to burn for stuff I strongly believe people need to know about.
How can a 'state agency' use the Patriot Act to subpoena a Facebook profile?"
Because the Patriot Act was designed to enable this kind of thing. That's why some people tried to keep it from being renewed. Asking "how" is about as pointless as asking how the KGB used to operate in the USSR. Just assume you have no privacy and you'll be fine. Don't like it? Move to a democratic country where freedom is more than just a buzzword(*).
*: As the election of 2000 proved, in which the POPULAR vote that was unambiguous in giving Al Gore the majority was ignored, the US is a republic but it isn't a democracy. And the longer King George and company remain in power, the less it is even that.
I agree Ed. It's really not hard to understand how an empire can rise from a democracy. What we have here in the good old USA is a homegrown ultra religious oligarchy fed by an out of control capitalist economy.
Combine this with that school watching for myspace profiles for dissidents together with the requirement of handing over your cellphone data ; your data will NEVER be fully private; even if the storing company tells it is ; it will never be private if stored on other servers.
.. I'm human; I'm not a number; and as long as I live I don't want to be treated like a number either. Even when having a Belgian ID number; I am still not "government property" there to "work for the government". Although that's I tend to believe ;) When is the time going to be ripe a private shit isn't really private anymore?
The only real private space is the server you have at home; they'll have to carnivore/echelon the internetline before the data can be reproduced. Local files will never been seen if the server is running on a local network (providing it is secure of'course).
I just wonder when they are really going to abuse this data in a way people will find out what happens to 'm; because; messing with personal stuff is a rather dangerous thing for people who don't want their stuff to be in dozens of commercial and government databases.
Well hello
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Yes, I considered bringing the incident up in the interview, except I was aware that one of the interviewers knew me from years ago, and knew about my BBS. (In fact, I mentioned on my resume that coding and running my own BBS was among my interests outside of work.) I was under the impression that had he thought this could have been a problem, he would never have let me get past the first interview, or even the initial application I submitted online.
I couldn't really envision it being much of a "positive" to discuss the FBI raiding one's home and confiscating all of their computer equipment (apparently by mistake, due to receiving false information and tips). At best, it's an entertaining story that has no real bearing on one's ability to perform a job. At worst, it scares people and casts doubt on one's ability to be trusted with corporate information.
Quite frankly, I was a bit surprised they even dug deep enough to find this info. My personal web site didn't exactly have this story in bold type off the main page or anything. You had to go down several layers of menus to find it, buried under a whole list of info I wrote about various interests of mine. (If I were a recruiter, I don't think I would slog through applicants' personal web pages, reading about their pets, favorite cars, favorite bands and rock concerts attended in the past, and who knows what else - trying to find some morsel of damning evidence against them.)
How do they know that embarrassing material on Facebook is real? It could be fictional or, worse, it could be missdirection. As the CIA was infiltrated by Soviet agents, the experts don't look so good.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
what a score of 1 - WOW - how come the fascists here gave the above a score of one!!! ;)
All would be well if he just laughed?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
So much for the Anonymous Coward ;-)
And his IP address
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I was just thinking lately about how each time some repressive law or action gets passed, it always seems to get packaged as some patriotic/faith/whatever act that only some horrible person or traitor would oppose. Even when such pretense is blatantly bogus.
Sorta the same as how the only countries who included things like "democratic", "people's", "ruled by workers' councils" (soviet) etc, in their name were the ones which were anything but.
It's as if it were to tell you in advance that you _will_ get to answer some uncomfortable "What, you support the enemies of the state?" questions to some Inquisition/Gestapo/etc guy and get your answers distorted for you. It's sorta like the bright spots on a poisonous mushroom.
E.g.:
- the spanish inquisition's burning people alive, often blatantly just a an excuse to confiscate someone's wealth, got called "Auto de Fe" meaning "Act of Faith". (Cue, "What, brother, you oppose acts of faith?" in the Inquisition's cellars if you dared speak against them.)
- the USSR's and China's brutal repression of dissidents got presented as hunting for foreign spies and saboteurs. Never mind that most of those people had never seen a foreigner. (Again, cue, "What, comrade, you're opposed to our protecting the motherland from American spies and saboteurs? That's not very patriotic, is it? Are you one of them, perhaps?")
- some of the most inhuman concentration camp systems, got painted in such terms as "reeducation" or "reintegration" programs for criminals
Etc.
And yeah, then there's the PATRIOT Act. Hmm.
It's kinda symptomatic that you don't see that kinda names on normal honest laws. You don't see, say, Sarbanes-Oxley (overkill as some may find it) presented as "The Great Patriotic Act For Saving The Fatherland From Economic Sabotage" or CAN-SPAM presented as "The Great Patriotic Act For Protecting The Fatherland From Electronic Terrorism." You don't need that when (A) people can already understand what the problem is, and (B) you're honestly open to a democratic discussion as to how the law should work to best solve the problem. It's only when you try to sell them some poisonous snake oil that you need such packaging as "patriotic" or "in defense of democracy" or whatnot.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Some bozo in a Gov office needs some info on someone ...
Option 1: Call his references, call previous jobs, call his university, school, etc, etc, etc
Option 2: Use the Patriot Act to get all the above to call you with the information
Which is easier? So which is more likely!
Just Say NO!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
I was at college with Hank McKinnell, and we used to blaze through weed like there was no tomorrow. Hell, we rustled up our own LSD a few times, and tripped out 'round the campus.
I keep hearing the "well, they're vulnerable to blackmail" excuse, and the more I hear it, the more it sounds like just a crap excuse to discriminate against some people. It's the same bigotry and idiocy, only with a better sounding excuse than the previous "they're an abhomination in the eyes of God!" excuse.
How _do_ you blackmail someone with info they've made _public_? No, seriously. Let's say I were to write on my home page, Facebook profile, MySpace, etc, "I'm gay and into BDSM". I'm not into either, but let's assume that for example sake. How _would_ you go about blackmailing me with something that's that public? How would a blackmailing dialogue go?
"'lose' your keys this weekend or I tell your dad about that 'experimental weekend' you posted about on MySpace"
"Heh. Dude, have you met my parents? Even if I hadn't already told them, they're the kind that put TALKER in STALKER. They google me weekly and tells all their friends, relatives, and strangers on the street about it. Heck, dad not only 'accidentally' openned and read my mail when I lived with them, he used to take the train to come over and 'accidentally' open my mail when I moved to another town. So, trust me, any information you may find, dad already _knows_. And mom already emailed all her friends about it."
How do you go from there?
"I'm gonna tell your boss about it!"
"Dude, I hope you do realize that (A) it's public information, and (B) they do a background check when they hire you here, and dig up exactly this kind of stuff? Trust me, they googled for my name already. They know."
What next?
"I'm gonna publish it in a newspaper!"
"As opposed to it already being published on several sites indexed by Google? You do realize that anyone interested in me is more likely to find it via Google than in that newspaper, right? So knock yourself out."
I mean, seriously, how does one go about using _public_ information to blackmail someone? Exactly which part of "public" is so confusing? Is it the "pub" or the "lic"? How can you threaten someone with publishing something they've already published themselves?
So as I was saying, it seems to me like the whole "blackmail" excuse is just a crap excuse to continue to be a bigotted prick. The same bigotted pricks who 100 years ago would just say, "eew, you're an abhomination in the eyes of God! I'll never hire you," now discovered that they can be hit with a nasty discrimination lawsuit for that. And rightfully so. Enter the golden age of using some crap illogical excuse instead. Like the "blackmail" one.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
And thats why you never use any form of identification that ties you to the real world on the internet, unless you are making legal purchases or conducting normal transactions(ex: ebay, amazon, or newegg). You create fake personas, and you use those fake personas when you want to remain anonymous. Then again, im not stupid enough to post possible incriminating evidence onto a moronic site like facebook or myspace...
I love to slaughter the english language.
"Your papers please, Mein Herr" - classic lines from US movies and British movies that let us know we were in the presense of evil Nazi minions. It was used to remind us what we were fighting for, freedom from a dictatorial government where your every move was noted, logged, filed and cross referenced for ties to subversive elements in society. How things have changed.
Yah. Because you get asked for your papers on a daily basis. And the CIA is building giant ovens in the arizona deserts.
People like you truly disgust me. You wouldn't know real evil if it bit you on the ass. You live in a country which gaurantees you almost complete freedom, and yet seem to get a hard-on from comparing it to a fascist tyrany.
Exactly! I don't understand why people don't get this yet. I've been using this fake name for years and years online. You search for my real name and you find very little, and none of that is anything that paints me in a bad light.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
As a college student with a facebook profile and who has to constantly put up with these stories being printed by the "journalists" at the campus paper - Facebook is a public website. It is no different than putting your information on a bathroom wall... except that it's indexed and readily searchable. No one requires you to be on facebook - put any information on facebook - or even guarantees that any of that information is accurate. If you are woried about your privacy of facebook - don't be on it. It's that simple. It isn't like your employer is going through your bank records or other "personal" information - which I am sure they are doing anyway.
Let me guess....white male?
Last post!
And the CIA is building giant ovens in the arizona deserts. No, they're just building prison camps in Guantanamo.
Last time I checked, the government didn't need to ask you for your papers. They just look up the information They want in their databases. You won't get caught on an airplane without your papers. You simply won't get past the checkout counter. Hell, you're lucky you can still get on a bus without being screened. Once you get your shiny new national ID smart card, you'll probably have to swipe it for any kind of long distance travel. I bet They'll find a way to tie it into you bank account too, as a convenience, so that you can use it to buy goods, instead of having to carry around all that heavy, awkward, anonymous cash.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
You're a fucking idiot. Go read some history and you'll learn that the Germans didn't go from a republic to a genocidal dictatorship overnight.
Government spending at its finest!
My personal web site didn't exactly have this story in bold type off the main page or anything.
What you need to do is put a "robots.txt" file into the root of your web directory to prevent certain parts of your website from showing up on a search engine. (See this F.A.Q.) That's how I prevent the photographic images on my website from showing up in an image search. You need to do the same on for the BBS section. Just Google for your name and see what comes up. You might be surprised.
If there was proof there was access to facebook, why not just sue and claim discrimination based on some contents in facebook... even a most basic profile contains information an employer would *never* ask for, in fear of lawsuits over discrimination (age, religion, sexual orientation in particular).
Using the courts to get this information isn't any better than asking point blank "what's your sexual orientation".
Tough guesswork when 90% of the folks here fit that description. ;-)
LOL!
As a right winger of the small government, economically liberal (or conservative in US parlance), and civil libertarian type, I take offense to that statement.
Well, that's just too bad. If you can read the newspapers, you can see for yourself what the right-wing has done now that they control all three branches of government. They are intruding government control into the most personal and intimate areas of our lives and spying on citizens. You go right on ahead being offended and those of us who actually love this country will continue resisting you.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
Job postings that require security clearances are usually government jobs, possibly as a contractor, which (obviously) requires it.
I popped up because there are not many government contracting agencies on the website, Recruiter-Rater which deal with government agencies. I invite Slashdot readers to post some, and help weed out the spam, scams, and bad recruiters.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
What privacy laws? In addition to doctor-patient privilege, attorney-client privilege, etc., we can now add facebook-student privilege? There are very few cases where the fourth amendment applies once something leaves your immediate possession.
Although using the PATRIOCT act seems somewhat unnecessary since they could just make disclosure of the information a condition of employment.
Let me guess, Cynthia McKinney?
OH MY GOD! PRISONS! FOR, LIKE, INCARCERATING CRIMINALS! With such horrible conditions that each prisoner is provided with a copy of the Quaran and a prayer rug. Each cell has an arrow pointing east. And prisoners gain weight within days of arrival.
Oh yeah, deffinitely compareable to a concentration camp where prisoners were starved, gassed, and worked to death.
I'd like to poletly suggest you now fuck off and go fist yourself.
Last time I checked, the government didn't need to ask you for your papers. They just look up the information.
Ah, yes, I guess that facial reckognition technology's gotten much better.
Just pointing out that white males are the most likely to claim a country offering "almost complete freedom". The germans who looked like you in 1933 didn't have anything to worry about either. You aren't being targetted, and so don't feel the effects of any movements towards fascism your government may be making.
No, it's not as bad as Nazi Germany, but neither do people making comparisons "disgust me" - by recognizing how some actions are similar to oppressive regimes, maybe we can recognize when we've gone too far.
Last post!
Except what makes your argument ridiculous is that the only ones being targeted are criminals and murderers. That's one type of "targeting" I can support. Who else is being targeted? Let me guess, Muslims? Bullshit. What percentage of American muslims have been incarcerated for suspicion of terrorism? Or, more accurately, what fraction of a percent of American muslims?
heh. Good point. I guess it the same thing, if you have to identify yourself to them.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
Bullshit. Prove it. I worked for Pfizer for 6 years and I've never, ever even heard of such a thing.
How many people at Guatanamo have any charges against them?
How many there have a case that could even warrant a hearing against them?
Feel free to look this information up, and post an apology here for saying everyone there is a criminal. I know it makes your life easier to pretend no innocent person gets locked up or harrassed, but you're categorically wrong. Being incarcerated indefinitely for no crime with little chance of trial or acquittal- that's no gas chamber but it's not fucking Church Camp like you make it sound either.
And I'm not just a terrorist sympthizer or Islamofascist- how about using no-knock raids to train your local SWAT team? Line it up for some small-time drug offender's house- no one will see a problem with that. Until the twentieth time you get the wrong address, then the newspapers slowly start printing the stories.
Remove the right to a fair trial and the sovereignity of a man's home and it's only a matter of degrees if you want to take him from his home and put him to work till death in a camp.
Not only did you not read the article, you didn't even read the summary!
To continue Godwinning, what percentage of Jews - sorry fraction of a percent of Jews were incarcerated in Germany in 1933? It started with a fraction of a percent being detained on what would normally be considered illegitimate evidence, and ballooned into what we saw at the end of WW2. And the Germans who spoke out against it were ridiculed for standing up against it.
The US is absolutely not Germany in 1944, but any step down the road Germany took should be pointed out and squashed mercilessly before it becomes something worse.
Last post!
Do you know how many prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan have been tortured and killed? Do you know how many were grabbed for any reason other than a US officer said to grab so many locals, and there were that many nearby? Or grabbed because on an unchallenged charge from a neighbor?
Is that the American way? "Not as bad as the Nazis"?
--
make install -not war
Ah, yes, I guess that facial reckognition technology's gotten much better.
No, it is at about the level of spell checking technology.
"Do you know how many prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan have been tortured and killed?"
2? 3 maybe? Killed that is. Mainly due to prison uprisings or fighting the guards. Zero tortured.
"Do you know how many were grabbed for any reason other than a US officer said to grab so many locals, and there were that many nearby?"
Zero.
"Or grabbed because on an unchallenged charge from a neighbor?"
Zero once again. The system doesn't work that way.
If you've got any evidence to the contrary, feel free to post the evidence.
"The US is absolutely not Germany in 1944, but any step down the road Germany took should be pointed out and squashed mercilessly before it becomes something worse."
So we should free all of the US prison population? Because, you know, Germany incarcerated criminals as well as Jews. So we should have never taken that step in the first place!
Saying we should point out and squash ANY "steps down the road Germany took" is too broad of a statement. We need to avoid taking any of the unreasonable steps which Germany took. Arresting individuals whom we have strong evidence to suspect of planning a terrorist attack, but cannot neccesarily convinct in a court of law, is NOT an unreasonable step. Executing them based on flimsy evidence, or holding them for the rest of their lives, that WOULD be unreasonable. Holding them for 4 or 5 years will allow us to either gather enough evidence to charge them, or take them out of circulation long enough that they become irrelevant. Either way we're preventing the posibility of an immediate attack, and saving lives. If accomplishing that means that we occasionaly lock up an innocent person for a couple years, so be it.
I think we agree - I think you just have more trust in your government to make reasonable decisions than I do. I'd rather you be right than me.
Last post!
You're insane.
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make install -not war
Yeah, you just proved squat. Your link shows absolutely ZERO random arrests. It shows zero intentional murders. And it shows no cases of systematic torture. What it DOES show is that guards get out of hand sometimes, abuse prisoners, and then get caught and punished for it. It also shows that death do occur in jails, mostly as a result of prisoners resisting the lawful authority of the guards. Both of those happen in civilian jails a lot more often than they do in military prisons, so you're simply blowing smoke here. Misrepresenting the facts doesn't help your case.