Move over big brother, and lets give a big giant hand to the corporate eye in the sky!
"Employers and colleges find the treasure-trove of personal information hiding behind password-protected accounts and privacy walls just too tempting, and some are demanding full access from job applicants and student athletes."
Yep, you read right. They are DEMANDING FULL ACCESS FROM JOB APPLICANTS AND STUDENT ATHLETES!
Uh? Right to privacy? That went out the window when you decided to try and get employed.
But don't worry, I am sure I will see lots of comments [again] who will tell us all, that we should just get used to it.
Well fuck that incredibly bad idea!
I say NO.
NO you cannot have access to my online accounts.
NO you cannot install a camera in my bedroom or bathroom or pov.
NO you cannot have my phone records or personal bank account numbers.
Don't get me wrong, I don't care for Facebook at all. But I am sure that FB are not the only accounts they are looking for.
Give them an answer: NO, it's none of your business and I am writing the ACLU and the other pertinent organizations that deal with computer freedoms.
No one should have to be silenced to this degree, to get a job. And mark my words this will and probably already has had a chilling effect on speech by people who want to be employed.
I know that some people imagine that the only reason to use a pseudonym online is so that one can troll. Well I am sure that is true for some folks. But for many of us, it is a necessity to allow us to participate in online discourse, in places such as the DK, without being run out on a rail or fired, because our boss doesn't agree with our politics, our religion, our sexual orientation, or any other number of characteristics or lifestyle choices that should have NO Bearing on our qualifications for a fucking job.
"In Maryland, job seekers applying to the state's Department of Corrections have been asked during interviews to log into their accounts and let an interviewer watch while the potential employee clicks through wall posts, friends, photos and anything else that might be found behind the privacy wall."
Seriously, can you believe this shit? I am beyond shocked. What's next? Will the job seekers be forced to rifle through their own underwear drawers while an interviewer watches, to ensure they have no unservice-able skibbies?
This has gone to far. The powers that be, know they have us over a barrel. The younger generations have made it so that most communication that does not take place face to face, happens online somewhere. And the rest of us either participate in that capacity or find ourselves socially isolated.
And now the employers step in and say, AND WE WANT ACCESS TO YOUR MOST PRIVATE THOUGHTS.
The enablers say, "Don't put anything online you don't want broadcast!" which is the short skirt defense for privacy invaders everywhere.
So why have a password then? Why have virtual walls to protect confidential information at all?
Why lull the masses into a sense of semi-security if this was all part of an evil scheme to shame us and make us unhire-able?
"Previously, applicants were asked to surrender their user name and password, but a complaint from the ACLU stopped that practice last year. While submitting to a Facebook review is voluntary, virtually all applicants agree to it out of a desire to score well in the interview, according Maryland ACLU legislative director Melissa Coretz Goemann."
Yes, this is similar to the sexual harassment issue. The employer asks you for something that isn't exactly legal. But due to an innate imabalance of power that rests upon your desire or even desperation for a job, you will most likely comply in order to pay your bills.
That doesn't make it right or even legal, just expedient. You give up your adult privacy for a paycheck. See--it wasn't that hard!
Employers should know that even asking, makes them schmarmy and evil. But somehow, given the state of our own country and our collective lack of character, I doubt they give a flying shit about that. After all, they hold the purse strings and you best start dancing to their tune fool!
Schools are requiring student athletes to friend coaches or teachers--oh wow. So they can see what these kids are talking about. These are college kids btw. So lets train them early, for a life of Big Brother in your home, spying on your every thought from your social media and computer.
"A recent revision in the handbook at the University of North Carolina is typical:"Each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitoring the content of team members’ social networking sites and postings,” it reads. "The athletics department also reserves the right to have other staff members monitor athletes’ posts.""
But you know--"Get Used to it!" that is what the enablers say, the people who will flip over belly up and do the submissive dance! Yes Please! May I have another! that is their motto!
But thankfully, there are others like me who find this reprehensible:
"This is an invasion of privacy. People have so much personal information on their pages now. A person can treat it almost like a diary," said Goemann, the Maryland ACLU legislative director. "And (interviewers and schools) are also invading other people's privacy. They get access to that individual’s posts and all their friends. There is a lot of private information there."
I have an innate right to a separate, independent adult life. When I go out to look for a job, I am not selling anything more than my services in the context of that job, perhaps my expert skill as well. But I am not selling them my soul, nor my privacy, nor my personal sovereignty as an independent American citizen.
I will not to comply.
And people who do, are setting the rest of us up, setting dangerous legal precedents that will undermine our freedoms.
There is a line. This is a line and we should not allow these abusive, spying, controlling companies to cross that line.
Ever.
The story goes on to say that we need federal laws to protect citizen's online privacy from nosy employers. Yes we do.
You can read the whole story here:
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/...