Slashdot Mirror
Government Admits Spying Via Facebook
Velcroman1 writes "Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg famously said that the age of privacy is over. And the government wants to ensure that, it seems. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's FOIA request has revealed government memos encouraging agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share — and to spy on them. Thanks to this request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS), and one revealing how the DHS monitored social media during the Obama inauguration."
It's a way for individuals to connect and organize in a way that many of them think is private. Ripe fruit for wandering government eyes.
Living With a Nerd
It isn't actually "spying" if the person is willingly sharing information, or has information posted that everyone can read. "Spying" is getting information that a person doesn't want others to have.
This is not a case of more spying by the government rather more volunteering of information by the citizens. There's a very simple solution if you don't want government spooks reading your facebook information: Don't post sensitive information on facebook (or anywhere on the internet for that matter)!
Using encryption on Facebook is like locking the doors on a house with no walls
It's straight from the Reuters news wire for christ's sake, widely considered one of the less biased news sources around. I would have hoped that people on Slashdot were intelligent enough to spot bias when they see it, rather than just deciding anything connected in any with with Fox is automatically wrong and anyone speaking against Fox News is automatically right. Clearly, I was incorrect, there are at least 3 people (the author of this comment plus 2 mods) who will argue that an article is wrong because Fox News reposts it.