Blumenthal pushes password privacy act

I know it's quite a bit of alliteration there, but I'm a congenitally lazy writer and I simply can't be bothered with actually crafting a more polished headline. If you want good writing, go read CT News Junkie. You want crap writing, well, you're in the right place!

(but go read CT News Junkie anyway...)

That aside, Sen. Richard Blumenthal has introduced a bill to protect employees from having their bosses invade their private personal accounts. This invasive practice is clearly an abuse of authority, and really makes no sense except as a power play by employers. I mean, pretty much everything you see online about a person can be accessed by following their Twitter feed, or friending them on Facebook, or joining their circles on Google (whatever that means; I'm on Google but I've never activated my account).

Making it a job requirement to allow your employer to access your personal accounts, which can easily lead to fraud and identity theft, is way out of bounds. I think there's even an amendment in the US Constitution that is supposed to protect a person from that sort of bullshit.

But we all know that employers often don't consider their employees as citizens; they treat them like cattle, or some other insignificant mammals. Lemurs maybe, or squirrels. And employers don't have any hesitation to invade the privacy of squirrels. (At least, I think not)

So Sen. Blumenthal introduced a common-sense act to protect those citizens and (possibly) squirrels.

I'm going to look forward to hearing whatever bullshit argument that the Republicans cough up to try and block this act from becoming law. Because they will definitely argue that it's the right of corporations to do anything they please, so fuck all you little people with your little people issues. Or something to that effect.

Go there an sign the petition or whatever it is that shows you support this kind of leadership. I did.

Help Protect Our Privacy

When you apply for a job, nothing gives your potential employer the right to go to your house and sift through your personal belongings. So why should he or she have the right to passwords for your online accounts?

Such practices are a real abuse and a threatening problem: employers wrongly invading job applicants' privacy by demanding passwords for private email accounts and social networking profiles like Facebook.

I introduced the Password Protection Act of 2012 to outlaw this threatening problem.

Help build public support for this crucial legislation to keep your employer out of your private, password-protected accounts. Make your voice heard today and add your name as a supporter of this important legislation.