Bill Banning Employer Facebook Snooping Introduced In Congress

suraj.sun writes "According to The Hill, 'The Social Networking Online Protection Act, introduced by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel (N.Y.) and Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), would prohibit current or potential employers from demanding a username or password to a social networking account. "We must draw the line somewhere and define what is private," Engel said in a statement. "No one would feel comfortable going to a public place and giving out their username and passwords to total strangers. They should not be required to do so at work, at school, or while trying to obtain work or an education. This is a matter of personal privacy and makes sense in our digital world."' Ars adds, 'The bill would apply the same prohibitions to colleges, universities, and K-12 schools. ... Facebook has already threatened legal action against organizations who require employees to reveal their Facebook passwords as policy.'" Maryland beat them to the punch, and other states are working on similar laws too. We'll have to hope the U.S. House doesn't kill this one like they did the last attempt. The difference this time is that the concept has its own bill, while its previous incarnation was an amendment to an existing bill about reforming FCC procedures.

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[Yew2]

I would love to rant about the privacy we are compelled give up even applying for a job - companies pull credit reports and wont hire you unless youre a good consumer and all but um...we need a law to prevent employers from demanding LOGON CREDENTIALS? I just love MBAs.

Why is this needed?

[_pi-away]

I truly don't get this. If an organization requires a law to tell it that it shouldn't do this - YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK THERE.

Consider yourself lucky that they demonstrated that right up front in the interview before you spent weeks/months/years there.

Re:Why is this needed?

[arkhan_jg]

And in our modern economy, where it's the first interview you've had in months and your unemployment funds have long since been spent paying the necessary bills; you'll choose facebook privacy over putting food on the table for your family? Now imagine you're not some highly paid code wizard who gets to pick and choose employers, but an ordinary shop floor worker doing a blue collar job who has to take what you can get.

Being able to exercise your rights when you're wealthy and in a position to pick and choose between jobs is one thing. When you're in modern serfdom employment and the employers hold all the cards, federal or state government regulation and enforcement is about the only thing that can protect the workers from ridiculous abuses like this. Even more so when it's local government (such as police) doing it.

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Re:What about friending HR?

[TWX]

I've wondered, since this came up in the news, how those poor, poor employers screened candidates in the old days, before they could readily get information from Internet search engines, social networking sites, and inexpensive background checks.

Oh, right- they had to actually talk to them, and had to evaluate them after they hired them, and had to consider firing them if their professional lives had problems...

Re:Congress?

[artor3]

Congress isn't a single person. It's not hypocrisy when some congressmen vote for CISPA and others speak out for privacy. The two congressmen behind this bill both voted against CISPA and had announced their opposition to SOPA prior to the bill being withdrawn. So no, they're not being hypocritical at all.

How about FBI, CIA, NSA, TSA etc. snooping?

[roman_mir]

How about governments stops meddling with every single business and person out there, introducing all these nonsense laws, while actively snooping on everybody on this planet without any justification, cause and mandate?

Just this NSA data center is a much bigger privacy risk than any number of employees who are dumb enough to ask for FB access of their potential hires and these potential workers being dumb and unprincipled enough to give it to them.

How about NSA stops doing THAT? Never mind the extra-judicial murder the president is involved in.

Shouldn't laws apply to the government first?

Shouldn't the government not be allowed to do things that an individual isn't allowed to do in the first place?

For people with limited options

[sjbe]

I truly don't get this. If an organization requires a law to tell it that it shouldn't do this - YOU DON'T WANT TO WORK THERE.

That is of course correct but not the point. The problem is because sometimes people need jobs that they do not want. My father is a very smart guy but he doesn't have a college degree and he worked for many years in a job with limited applicability outside of a handful of companies. He didn't really want to work there, he had to out of economic necessity. The pay was better than probably anything else he could get and he had a union to protect him from idiots who might demand unreasonable things from him. (one of the good cases for unions actually) It would have been very easy for some moron to demand some ridiculous intrusion into his personal life without some form of external protection like a union or a law.

Bills like this are not to protect (presumably) you or me but rather to protect people with limited options. If your options are to hand over your facebook password so that you can feed your family, you're probably going to give over the password. It's completely wrong to even ask but sometimes we have to make laws to prohibit such behavior explicitly because a few idiots can't figure out why it is wrong. A law gives protections and recourse to those who might be vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

Re:We don't need this law!

[Jon Stone]

Facebook are willing to sue. They don't want people to do this either. It devalues their service (even if the users are the "product", they still need to provide something of value to attract users).

Facebook probably wants to be able to charge companies for access to potential employees' data

Article Six of the Constitution

[sjbe]

Because the constitution bounds the powers of the FEDERAL government.

And the state governments as well via Article Six. Government at all levels is bound by the Constitution.

In fact the laws against murder are all state laws

Demonstrably not true. Perhaps you should actually read about federal law or at least spend 20 seconds on Wikipedia before posting something so easily refuted. There are federal laws concerning murder for cases where state law would not apply such as for overseas military, on federal property, situations crossing state lines, involving federal officials, ambassadors, foreign officials, and numerous other circumstances.

A state could decide not to have any law against murder as far as the constitution is concerned.

Kind of a stupid argument since they all do have laws against murder.

So the First Amendment says CONGRESS shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It doesn't stop a state from limiting free speech.

Actually it specifically does stop states from limiting free speech via Article Six, specifically "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Basically the First Amendment overrides any state law that contradicts it. If the Constitution was not applicable to states then it would be a useless document.