U.S. govt will soon spy on us through Facebook, Myspace, etc.

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Just as a preface, this is meant as an awareness thread, not a topic to be debated on right or wrong or whatever. If I wanted that I would've put it in vs

WARNING: The U.S. Government is attempting to pass a law that would force internet companies (Facebook, Google, MySpace, Skype, etc) to reprogram their services in order to allow U.S. law enforcement the ability to spy on your activity whenever they deem fit.

To help stop this from happening, please visit http://www.webprivacyalert.com
 
soon?

They're already doing this, whether people want to admit it or not. In fact, they've actually admitted to using social networking to spy on people who are involved in federal cases or under surveillance.
 
[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']What a bunch of BS. This isn't China, it's the US.[/QUOTE]

I personally think it is a good idea. If a criminal is publishing his whereabouts on the internet, then the police can easily catch him.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']soon?

They're already doing this, whether people want to admit it or not. In fact, they've actually admitted to using social networking to spy on people who are involved in federal cases or under surveillance.[/QUOTE]

Yeah they do already. They may not have those sites specifically directing and filtering everything in a certain controlled manner but there is nothing stopping them from having people just look at facebook and such anytime they please.

When you post stuff on sites like that there is no such thing as privacy. Anything you post on facebook or myspace is automatically in the publics domain for literally billions of people to see and read anytime they want. Its not spying at all really. Technically they could put that plan into effect with no problems because all its doing is redirecting information thats already there and they can freely look at anyway, that program would just streamline it for them. Posting on facebook is no different than putting a picture, a description and personal information about yourself on a poster board and stappling it to a telephone pole on a public road.

[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']What a bunch of BS. This isn't China, it's the US.[/QUOTE]

See 2nd paragraph above I wrote.
 
[quote name='DrMunkee']The government is going to know when I drunkenly tell one of my friends that she has a nice ass.

Woohoo.[/QUOTE] LMAO this.
 
[quote name='help1']I personally think it is a good idea. If a criminal is publishing his whereabouts on the internet, then the police can easily catch him.[/QUOTE]

They've determined he lives in New York and his XBL is F00L KILLA, but maybe they're taking his words too literally...
 
In a world where the FBI claims the right to put a tracking device on any car parked in a public place - without a warrant - it's a serious LOL that some of you think you have online privacy, esp on a social media site.
 
Yeah, they already do it. I've seen presentations by police a couple weeks back where they'd used myspace to help make cases against gang members.

As to whether you need to friend someone. 1) That's an option. Users set what parts of their profile are viewable to everyone. 2) Lots of people accept pretty much every friend request they get. 3) Law Enforcement could certainly get a warrant to access the profiles of something like known gang members to further their case etc.

In any case, as camoor noted, people are stupid if you expect privacy on social networking sites. We may deserve privacy their, but we'll never have it as it's too easy for such accounts to be hacked into etc.

So treat them like public spaces and don't put any info on there that you care who sees.
 
Honestly, who cares? I'm assuming nobody here is doing anything of importance to the government anyway? Downloading some music? So are millions of others. Just stay away from terrorist or extremist groups, don't murder people, don't plot a presidential assasination, smuggle drugs or illegals, etc etc. In reality, the government can and will do whatever they please. If they want to know about you, they have the means to do so. Look at that story recently of the dude who found the FBI GPS tracker stuck to his car. He removed it and the FBI knocked on his door and demanded he give it back. He had no priors or anything... but they still did it. Didn't even need a warrant because it was used on public roads. Booyah!

Privacy is only needed while I'm on the can. I'm not going out of my way to make things public, but I'm pretty sure in 5 minutes of searching you can figure out where I live if you really want to. Please don't, I would rather not have people showing up at my house :)

Really though, it's not some 1984 conspiracy. Big Brother IS watching, but always has been. Methods are changing because technology is changing, but I don't feel like my life has changed all that much from past years.
 
[quote name='gargus']Yeah they do already. They may not have those sites specifically directing and filtering everything in a certain controlled manner but there is nothing stopping them from having people just look at facebook and such anytime they please.

When you post stuff on sites like that there is no such thing as privacy. Anything you post on facebook or myspace is automatically in the publics domain for literally billions of people to see and read anytime they want. Its not spying at all really. Technically they could put that plan into effect with no problems because all its doing is redirecting information thats already there and they can freely look at anyway, that program would just streamline it for them. Posting on facebook is no different than putting a picture, a description and personal information about yourself on a poster board and stappling it to a telephone pole on a public road.



See 2nd paragraph above I wrote.[/QUOTE]

[quote name='help1']I personally think it is a good idea. If a criminal is publishing his whereabouts on the internet, then the police can easily catch him.[/QUOTE]

I COULD make a well written argument, but I'm too lazy to do that right now (getting tired of using the PC...). The best and quickest way to get my point across is this: Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.
 
Yes, let's not be naive. We don't have all those intelligence agencies so they can just sit there doing nothing. The Internet has everyone connected, and you can bet that the government has entities to closely monitor everything. Heck, we have non-government bodies that monitor all kinds of traffic online. It's so easy for them, why wouldn't they take advantage of this tool? So they can "respect the privacy of the individual"? Please.

I'm not saying that our government is doing something evil. In fact, this kind of monitoring has led to very good things, such as catching criminals. Personally, I prefer that my "privacy" take a hit rather than have more criminals running around. If one has something to hide, or is worried about privacy on social networking sites (this is silly), he or she will have to stay off the web.
 
[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']I COULD make a well written argument, but I'm too lazy to do that right now (getting tired of using the PC...). The best and quickest way to get my point across is this: Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.[/QUOTE]

I agree that your point is very valid. This is definitely a concern.

But we cannot expect the government, one of whose roles is to protect its citizens, to lay back and do nothing while those who oppose the well-being of our society use the Internet and other technologies to their advantage.

Case in point: Airport security. No one wants to have someone they don't know look through the contents of their suitcases and ask them to pull this and that out. But we all agree that it is necessary in order to prevent a few individuals from blowing up airplanes mid-flight.

Anyone using the Internet should be well aware of the risks they are taking as far as security goes. If they think they can be completely "private" in a medium where everyone is connected, they are being unrealistic. And for those who want to "protect" their information on sites like Facebook and MySpace, no. Just no.

Too many people take their "privacy" as a matter of selfish pride and ego. All who live communally in a society must give up some measures of privacy for the society to function properly. It really is a balancing act, but one in which (in my opinion) Facebook and MySpace should have little or no leverage.
 
[quote name='2DMention']But.. but.. Don't you need to friend somebody before they can look at your information?[/QUOTE]

Nope- my mom's friend came over a few weeks ago, upset that her daughter-in-law (they don't get along very well) unfriended her on facebook, preventing her from seeing pictures of her grandkids. Solution? She went to one of her daughter-in-law's friends pages, which gives a list of her friends, including her daughter-in-law... just took a few extra clicks to get right back to it. And this is a middle-aged woman who's had internet access less than a year figuring this out. I think the government can find your facebook page if they want.
 
[quote name='dannyox718']
Too many people take their "privacy" as a matter of selfish pride and ego. All who live communally in a society must give up some measures of privacy for the society to function properly. It really is a balancing act, but one in which (in my opinion) Facebook and MySpace should have little or no leverage.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. And having a Facebook or MySpace etc. account is a choice. It's a choice to put info about yourself out there, how much to put out there etc.

If people are anal about privacy, then they should stay off such sites. I don't see why people worried about privacy would post information about themselves on the internet in the first place.
 
[quote name='DuelLadyS']Nope- my mom's friend came over a few weeks ago, upset that her daughter-in-law (they don't get along very well) unfriended her on facebook, preventing her from seeing pictures of her grandkids. Solution? She went to one of her daughter-in-law's friends pages, which gives a list of her friends, including her daughter-in-law... just took a few extra clicks to get right back to it. And this is a middle-aged woman who's had internet access less than a year figuring this out. I think the government can find your facebook page if they want.[/QUOTE]

That's just because her privacy settings are weak. She probably has things set to be visible to "friends of friends."
 
[quote name='dannyox718']I agree that your point is very valid. This is definitely a concern.

But we cannot expect the government, one of whose roles is to protect its citizens, to lay back and do nothing while those who oppose the well-being of our society use the Internet and other technologies to their advantage.

Case in point: Airport security. No one wants to have someone they don't know look through the contents of their suitcases and ask them to pull this and that out. But we all agree that it is necessary in order to prevent a few individuals from blowing up airplanes mid-flight.

Anyone using the Internet should be well aware of the risks they are taking as far as security goes. If they think they can be completely "private" in a medium where everyone is connected, they are being unrealistic. And for those who want to "protect" their information on sites like Facebook and MySpace, no. Just no.

Too many people take their "privacy" as a matter of selfish pride and ego. All who live communally in a society must give up some measures of privacy for the society to function properly. It really is a balancing act, but one in which (in my opinion) Facebook and MySpace should have little or no leverage.[/QUOTE]I agree with the fact that the government has to protect its citizens, but I think they have more than enough tools all ready to get the job done. Sometimes the government can go overboard, and this is one of those occasions.

I'd also like to address your airport security point. Did you know that when you travel overseas that border agents can actually seize any of your electronics in the name of national security? Imagine having your ipod or nintendo ds taken by some crooked agent? There are plenty of stories out there of abuse, such as when a guy going through security had his laptop broken by the agent only to be threatened with arrest if he didn't just forget about it (consumerist.com had the story, I believe).

Something like this surveillance law could easily be abused by crooked agents, or maybe by someone who is just bored.
 
[quote name='lmz00']That's just because her privacy settings are weak. She probably has things set to be visible to "friends of friends."[/QUOTE]

I suppose- I don't really know, I've never used any of these social networking sites. (So, y'know, let me know when the governement starts spying on us CAGS here. :lol:)
 
I really don't care if someone is spying on me on myspace, i mean if you aren't doing nothing wrong, why worry?
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']soon?

They're already doing this, whether people want to admit it or not. In fact, they've actually admitted to using social networking to spy on people who are involved in federal cases or under surveillance.[/QUOTE]true the difference being this law would allow LE to see the backend stuff when they have a warrant and not just the front end public stuff. basically like a wiretap.

At least that's what I'm assuming because otherwise this doesn't make sense.

Quite frankly they really don't need a law. Right now with the social networks it's like 90% of the people are just shouting to their friends instead of calling them on the telephone. We assume we're safe in the sea of sound but .. anyone including LE can just listen to us.

I guess this law is just anticipation for the day when everyone stops shouting, but honestly.. the entire function of social networks is based in majority on everyone being public if everyone went private suddenly it's not the same noone'd want to use it.

[quote name='2DMention']But.. but.. Don't you need to friend somebody before they can look at your information?[/QUOTE]maybe for YOUR account but for most people on facebook.. they use the default and the default is 'everything open'
 
[quote name='Wolfkin']true the difference being this law would allow LE to see the backend stuff when they have a warrant and not just the front end public stuff. basically like a wiretap.

At least that's what I'm assuming because otherwise this doesn't make sense.

Quite frankly they really don't need a law. Right now with the social networks it's like 90% of the people are just shouting to their friends instead of calling them on the telephone. We assume we're safe in the sea of sound but .. anyone including LE can just listen to us.

I guess this law is just anticipation for the day when everyone stops shouting, but honestly.. the entire function of social networks is based in majority on everyone being public if everyone went private suddenly it's not the same noone'd want to use it.

maybe for YOUR account but for most people on facebook.. they use the default and the default is 'everything open'[/QUOTE]

Back in the AOL days everyone was all open about sharing details about themselves, this feels similar to the beginning stages of what it was like when that started to stop.
 
nah dude not even AOL was as bad as facebook. on AOL you might have a list of details about yourself (probably too many details sure) but when you communicated with someone it was thru e-mail, IM or the chatrooms and while you could make a case for chatrooms being pretty open bc most people never even bothered creating private chats. It's only open to the people IN the room if you weren't there it's not like you could get a log of every chat.

With facebook (and twitter) people wall post all kinds of nonsense and if it was ever posted (cause again most people would never delete) it's still there and findable.

I think that difference is the major thing 'the public' doesn't realize. chat rooms are open but fleeting since people rarely keep chat logs but wall posts.. those stick around.
 
[quote name='Wolfkin']nah dude not even AOL was as bad as facebook. on AOL you might have a list of details about yourself (probably too many details sure) but when you communicated with someone it was thru e-mail, IM or the chatrooms and while you could make a case for chatrooms being pretty open bc most people never even bothered creating private chats. It's only open to the people IN the room if you weren't there it's not like you could get a log of every chat.

With facebook (and twitter) people wall post all kinds of nonsense and if it was ever posted (cause again most people would never delete) it's still there and findable.

I think that difference is the major thing 'the public' doesn't realize. chat rooms are open but fleeting since people rarely keep chat logs but wall posts.. those stick around.[/QUOTE]

You're right AOL was not as bad, I didn't mean to say it was. This just feels similar to what happened with AOL. People went from being open to being private.
 
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