THIS is why we need workers' rights.
I had known about this for a while now. Employers asking prospective employees for their Facebook passwords.
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/would-you-give-potential-employers-your-facebook-password/2012/03/29/gIQAlJiqiS_story.html[/url]
[QUOTE]As part of the hiring process, some job applicants are being asked by some prospective employers to submit their usernames and passwords so that the employers can access their Facebook accounts to see what the applicants have posted online, reports the Associated Press.[/QUOTE]
WTF??
OK, so when I first heard this being talked about in the news I didn't pay close attention. I thought it was just some rogue employer crossing the line, so I said to myself, "What an idiot." and I drove on. This morning on MSNBC business I watched an interview on 'Your Business.'
http://www.openforum.com/yourbusinesstv#Featured_Content
BOTH interviewees, both of whom are business owners, said it's OK to ask someone for that. So it's illegal to ask someone if they're gay or straight. It's illegal to ask someone what religion they are, if they're married, if they have any children. But you Mr. employer think it's A-OK to ask me for my fucking Facebook password??
And listen to their reasons. (paraphrasing)
"I have a right to ask, and you have a right to say no."
Right, Dick. But premise of ALL questions asked in job interviews is that your answers affect whether or not you get the job.
"For a 20K job you might not answer. But for a higher paying job you might want to. It's all about how important the job is to you."
The problem is that for the 99% of us who aren't rich, arrogant assholes having a job isn't a want. It's a need. You're making some poor schmuck choose between being having his privacy violated by you in a very humiliating way - and not being able to feed his fucking family.
The fact that both of these guys think it's OK to ask someone for their Facebook password is astounding. While we're at it, "Bring me your home computer and give me the password. I want to see what you're up to." Or, "Here, put this phone on speaker. Call your home and play your messages for me."
How drunk with power. How arrogant. How out of touch with reality do you have to be to think this is OK? YES, we absolutely need the government to tell these guys there is a limit to the douchebaggery that will be allowed.
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price"
An excellent documentary on this hideous corporate parasite. It covers all aspects of their heinousness - low pay, no benefits, union busting, Chinese slave labor, it covers it all.
They interviewed a young woman who was about to lose her job because the local business she worked for was going out of business because a Walmart opened in their town. She admitted that she shopped there & that most the the townspeople did & that she was, to a degree, responsible for her own job loss. And then she gave this sort of pathetic little laugh. 
A friend once told me, "If I can't get to the mall to do a little shopping on the weekend, then it's a crappy weekend!" Until people get over their desire for stuff & stop all nonsense shopping, the beast will thrive & the corporations will intrude even more into our lives. We are no longer citizens, we are consumers with an addiction to feed.
