ACLU: Facebook password isn’t your boss’ business
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/22/tech/social-media/facebook-password-employers/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Proof, as if it were needed, that governments are required to exist as counterweight to the idiotic tendency of society’s elite (business owners, in this case) to abuse anything they can possibly get away with. I can accept the need for the pee test if you are going to be ‘operating heavy equipment’ or acting in some highly trusted capacity (national security, vast sums of money, etc.), but not to work at McDonald’s (actually, I am not aware that McDonald’s, WallMart, etc. actually do drug testing, I expect because it is too expensive) because if you are impaired on the job you can cause a lot of damage very quickly. Sure, you might only get impaired off the job, but if you are getting illegally impaired at home, you clearly have the potential to take the risk to get so impaired at work. Personally, since I think this whole ‘war on drugs’ thing is a total waste of resources (I do not buy into the arguments that society is worse off if drugs are illegal; even if usage goes up because it becomes legal (I don’t find those arguments persuasive at all) and more people get hurt as a consequence, I still view that as a smaller price to society than the hugely massive impact the ‘war’ has had on our society), I think if you just own up to being a druggie and are scrupulous about being sober on the job, then fuggedaboutit. If there is reason to suspect someone is impaired at work, take them off the job, give them a piss test and fire them if they fail (naturally, the levels would have to be high enough to show they were impaired).
So, back to the Facebook thing. Since Facebook is Constitutionally protected free speech (except when you are a member of the military suggesting you won’t follow orders from the President), it is therefore a violation of the Constitution, let alone privacy, that companies insist on this sort of access. It is no different than viewing your email, listening to your phone conversations or bugging your bedroom. It should not be necessary to have a ‘Facebook’ privacy law. Simply enforce what laws already exist. The fact that the laws were put in place long before Facebook came into existence is no reason for a (rational, but therein lies the problem) person to think that the same laws don’t apply now.
