Posted on 06/18/2009 11:42:15 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
If you apply for a job with City of Bozeman - a mid-sized burg halfway across these US - you're forced to surrender usernames and passwords for every account you've set up with websites of the "social networking" variety.
According to the City, that includes everything from Facebook and MySpace to YouTube to, well, Yahoo! and Google.
"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," reads a waiver form that allows the City to investigate a job applicant's "background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records."
Then it asks for usernames and passwords.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
Now this is messed up.
They probably are interested in political affiliations.
“Then it asks for usernames and passwords.”
This is like phishing, right? lol
Bizarre. If this is sufficiently publicized, I’d think they’d have to back down.
Uh, no...I would be in court sooooooooooooo fast!
a friend of mine who works in HR told me that their company has been advised by their legal counsel to not even attempt to look at any applicant’s MySpace or Facebook page. It is supposedly the next tsumani wave of employment litigation that is about to hit the courts.
It says “forums”. That would include Free Republic.
It goes to show that all gubmint is bad - even in “free” Montana.
I have no problem with them asking for how to find you on those websites. User names makes me a little squeamish. I would probably pass. No way would they get my password. What is to keep someone in their employ from using that info to post some hate speech or pornography while pretending to be you. That is just crazy.
Are we sure this isn’t a hoax of some kind?? Sounds like one of those probing spam emails we get from time to time.
More trampling of rights. I’m guessing they feel more at ease to do this stuff since January 20th.
Absolutely unacceptable.
It’s one thing to require a potential job seeker to friend them on social site so they can see their posts, but it’s another to require a job seeker to allow a potential employer to take control of their accounts. They could send messages as you, they could post things. It’s just wrong.
That’s one of the reasons why it’s important to remain anonymous on political forums. I can speak my mind here, On Facebook, there’s nothing important or controversial.
I believe most of those questions are not legal....I would challenge them job or not. Freedom and Liberty folks....that is what America is about.
I’d give them the username and password of a brand-new, unused Yahoo account, then close it the very next morning.
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