Privacy Archives - Page 2 of 4

Phoenix Car Dealer Insisted on Requiring Cash Buyer to Sign Form Authorizing Disclosure of Information to 3rd Parties

Arizona Republic: “A Phoenix real-estate broker says she got the surprise of her life when she bought a car for cash last month. . . . a manager at Bill Luke Chrysler Jeep Dodge and Ram threw her cashier’s check at her, yelled at her and followed her out into the parking lot while threatening to ‘unwind the deal.’ The argument . . . . was about her refusal to sign a form allowing the dealer to share personal information with ‘non-affiliated third parties‘.”

What We Lose if We Give Up Privacy

Wall St. Journal: “An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance that allows free government to function successfully. Broad and intrusive surveillance will, definitively, put government in charge. But a republic only works . . . if public officials know that they—and the government itself—answer to the citizens. It doesn’t work, and is distorted, if the citizens must answer to the government. And that will happen more and more if the government knows—and you know—that the government has something, or some things, on you. ‘The bad thing is you no longer have the one thing we’re supposed to have as Americans living in a self-governing republic,’ . . . . ‘The people we elect are not your bosses, they are responsible to us.’ They must answer to us. But if they increasingly control our privacy, ‘suddenly they’re in charge if they know what you’re thinking‘.”

The Protection Against Unreasonable Search And Seizure And The US Supreme Court

Law.com: “I long have believed that the best predictor of whether the U.S. Supreme Court finds a violation of the Fourth Amendment is whether the justices could imagine it happening to them. For example, the Supreme Court upheld drug-testing requirements in every case until it considered a Georgia law that required that high-level government officials be subjected to it. The two Fourth Amendment decisions this term, U.S. v. Jones and Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of Burlington County, powerfully illustrate that the justices only seem to care if it could happen to them.”

Free Speech Concerns Not Limited To the Public – Marine Fights Discharge For Disparaging Obama Comments

Thehill.com: “The case of a Marine who is facing discharge for posting disparaging comments about President Obama on Facebook has renewed a debate about free speech rights for members of the military.” For more about the latest controversy in free speech issues, the entire article is here.

Can Potential Employers Ask For Your Facebook Password?

ABA Journal: Citing “a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s Facebook profiles,” Facebook’s chief privacy officer warned in a Friday post on the social network’s website that the company could “initiate legal action” against employers who do so.

The comment by Erin Egan suggested that information obtained in this manner could put employers at risk of a discrimination suit, reports Reuters.

Her comment follows news last week that lawmakers in at least two states, Illinois and Maryland, are considering possible legislation to prohibit employers from pressuring job applicants to provide their Facebook passwords. Lawmakers in California and Massachusetts also are mulling such legislation, the Associated Press reports.

Continue reading can potential employers ask for your Facebook password.