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Bill Banning Employer Facebook Snooping Introduced In Congress

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-we-technically-employ-congress dept.

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.

20 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. er by Yew2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    will work for dragon quest localization
    1. Re:er by houghi · · Score: 4, Informative

      It amazes me that this is even legal.
      In Europe, at least in Belgium, this would be illegal as hell. At some jobs they might do background checks, but these are clearly identified and will be e.g. jobs at NATO.

      At some jobs (e.g. banks) you might be required to show a proof of your criminal history. Then the company can decide if they hire you or not. There are even people who want to make these stricter and limit the information.
      That way a pedophile will show up if he wants to work at a school, but not when he is going to work at e.g. a banks call center. With a bank robber, it might be the other way around.

      Where I work I know of one person not getting the reason, because something on it was a too high risk. Another person had something on it and we still hired that person, as we decided it wasn't a high risk at all.

      Things we will NEVER ask: Are you with a union? Are you pregnant? (They are allowed to lie to that question. Once they are hired and tell they are pregnant, you can't fire them.) What is your religion?

      What we do have is a 6 month trial in which both the employer and employee can decide if this is an OK situation workwise. If it isn't, we can end it or they can end it with a weeks notice. After that it will be a much longer notice period for both the employer and employee.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  3. Who is Bill Banning? by rtconner · · Score: 4, Funny

    Never heard of him.

    --
    023AD01("Child", "Evil");
  4. Why is this needed? by _pi-away · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --

    "The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
    1. Re:Why is this needed? by arkhan_jg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Re:What about friending HR? by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  7. Re:Congress? by artor3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:What about friending HR? by gmanterry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is the USA. We haven't had a Constitution since 2001. 9/11 to be exact.

    --
    Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
  9. How about FBI, CIA, NSA, TSA etc. snooping? by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  10. List of what's not allowed - ridiculous. by blind+biker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So if there's no bill banning a certain activity, a company may engage in it, is that how it work in the USA? You know, in other western countries corporations aren't allowed anything unless it's granted to them explicitly.

    Is there a bill forbidding cavity search by corporations? Or one that forbids corporations from harvesting the organs of their employees? It seems apt to ask, in case I ever dream of working in the USA.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  11. Constitution? by fnj · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why not simply an affirmation that private companies, corporations both foreign and domestic, as well as individuals, are fully bound by the constitution and all of it's amendments

    That question is easy to answer. Because the constitution bounds the powers of the FEDERAL government. Period. It says very little about what state and local governments can't do, and it certainly doesn't say what employers (and private citizens) can't do. The word "murder" doesn't appear in the constitution either. The constitution isn't concerned in the slightest whether Joe Blow goes on a killing spree. In fact the laws against murder are all state laws. A state could decide not to have any law against murder as far as the constitution is concerned.

    Dig it. It took an act of congress to implement a ban on discrimination and desegregate the public schools. There was an amendment passed at the same time as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifically to ban poll taxes, but that was the extent of it. Similarly, there is nothing in the constitution that says an employer can't ask employees for various concessions. That is for states to limit.

    The Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That's the ENTIRE text. 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.

  12. Re:question by digitig · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes, but that's not why.

    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  13. For people with limited options by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  14. Re:We don't need this law! by Jon+Stone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  15. Article Six of the Constitution by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Article Six of the Constitution by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 5, Informative

      So say a state makes a law abridging the freedom of speech. That does not violate the constitution in any way.

      Evidently you failed high school civics class. Article Six doesn't say anything about Congress; it specifically binds *judges* to rule according to the *Federal* Constitution in the event of a conflict between it and the laws or constitution of any state. Note also that it doesn't say anything about State or Federal judges--it says *judges*, period.

      US states that do not exist only in your imagination may not enact laws that contravene the US Constitution. States may not restrict or take away rights that are guaranteed by the US Constituion. Period.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  16. How to Make it Sail Through Congress by Timtimes · · Score: 4, Funny

    Attach a rider that further deregulates the banks. Enjoy.

    --
    This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
  17. 183 to 1 isn't a difference? by Tancred · · Score: 4, Informative

    Only one Republican voted for it. 183 Democrats (and Independents?) did. So there's a real difference.

    http://www.dailytech.com/Proposed+Amendment+to+Prevent+Employers+from+Asking+for+Facebook+UsernamesPasswords+Fails/article24337.htm

    If you don't look too close, you can call it bipartisan and be pissed at both parties. If you look closer, however, you see the blame falls primarily on one side of the aisle, as with this amendment. Same thing with CISPA, SOPA and PIPA.