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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?"
It's not likely they'd do that thorough of an investigation, unless the job required Top Secret (unlikely for an internship). Something tells me a bored manager was going through google (or some other web crawlers) caches of facebook profiles, since the article stated he had only very recently put a block on his site. There was likely a cache somewhere on the web. Also, it stated he knew someone in the office. Could have been possible that the boss required he (or the friend willingly did so) show him his facebook. /shrugs
Interesting wording, since it leaves out the fact that the last one turned out to be a hoax...
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
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.
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)
Google doesn't search Facebook profiles or cache them, as far as I know (and I've tried to Google for my own).
googling "site:facebook.com" says differently. It's also possible that archive.org was a player in this as well(haven't checked the way-back machine to find out yet).
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Doesn't look like it. googling on "Site:facebook.com" just shows the interface pages that anyone can see (FAQ, signup, etc...). Looks like they at least know how to set up a robots.txt
I do know people that had to get Top Secret clearence for an internship with the government. Its not as uncommon as you think.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
Yes, but what legal agreements are in place between facebook and it's users? (I personally do not know, don't use facebook, if someone knows buzz in anytime). One should be able to trust facebook's privacy controls since it states that they are a licensee of the TRUSTe organization. The service provided is a supposedly private place to collaborate with classmates on a social level, where privacy is restricted by the user. It seems pretty clear to me, based on facebook's own policies, that a user should have every expectation of privacy.
I got nothin'
Some companies require this for direct government contracts AND projects that may become government proposals. Basically it helps in the "pitch" process to have all those involved already have a security clearance to prevent post development leaks.
Additionally some companies may require it just as a matter of good corporate security.
YouStockIt - Education through Unorthodox Methods
Looking through a googling of "site:facebook.com" shows only the public pages with information about facebook. I didn't see any user profiles.
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.
What, they're going to detour your flight to Guantanamo Bay via your lawyer's office to lay the foundation for your civil suit against your ISP for privacy breaches?
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.