Unbelievable
Working as an office manager in a career services office and hearing the warnings surrounding social networking sites, the mother knew her son could potentially have a problem. The son had created his Facebook.com profile when he was 18. Now 20, he had accumulated a good amount of material—typical college musings and photos—that his friends might enjoy but others might view differently.
The son was beginning a search for an internship, so she asked him to consider limiting access to his profile to just his friends. Understanding the gravity of the situation, he heeded his mother’s advice and did so.
Shortly after, he got the call he had been waiting for. A state agency wanted to interview him for an internship. He prepared for the interview and reviewed the types of questions that could be asked. He was ready, as ready as he could be.
But, during the interview, something he was not prepared for happened. The interviewer began asking specific questions about the content on his Facebook.com listing and the situation became very awkward and uncomfortable. The son had thought only those he allowed to access his profile would be able to do so. But, the interviewer explained that as a state agency, recruiters accessed his Facebook account under the auspices of the Patriot Act.
Well, I’m inclined to think the interviewer is full of it and used Google Cache or some such. At least, I hope so.
July 13th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Most people are afraid of the patriot act, or worry they will seem unpatriotic is they resist. Throwing the term out is a way to protect yourself if a gov clone.
After all. You don’t want to seem unpatriotic do you?
July 13th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Given that there’s nothing at all in USA PATRIOT that would let a state agency view a facebook account (unless they can convince a judge there’s a FISA connection and, for “US persons”, there’s some content other than “first amendment content”, which I imagine would be what his Facebook entries would be, and assuming the reference is to S. 215 of PATRIOT, which is the only halfway plausible one even by paranoid standards), someone’s either fibbing or completely confused.
Of course, given the immense misinformation spread about what PATRIOT does, it’s not really surprising that people make such claims in good faith, or believe them.
July 13th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
You would be wrong.