Articles- Melissa Soto

 For my part of this project, I looked in depth into the two articles listed on the syllabus. The first article, “ A Facebook court battle: Is liking something protected by free speech?”, is based on a case between an employee and his boss. Daniel Ray Carter Jr. is a deputy in the police force and signed onto his Facebook and simply "liked" a page. His boss, Sheriff Roberts, saw this and fired him. At this time Carter liked a page from another sheriff who was running against the current one. He along with other employees were fired for what he says was poor performance. He also said it had nothing to do with politics. Carter took this to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The ACLU and Facebook filed in favor of Carter saying that it is right to express his opinion. Unfortunately, U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson said that "merely liking a Facebook page is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection". Director of ACLU, Ms. Glenberg is trying to find a way to protect our freedom of speech since it is changing due to all the new social media.

The second article "“Illinois Facebook law bans employers from violating your privacy” starts off questioning if you would give up your privacy for job. It also questions what you would do if you did not want to give up your privacy but had to because you needed money. This past month, of October 2012 Illinois became the second state, after Maryland, to pass HB 3782 which prohibits firms from asking for access to private social networks of their job applicants as well as their employees. This was tested when Robert Collins came back after a leave and was asked for his Facebook account. He gave it unwillingly but it with this he was able to keep his job. Athletes are also being looked at through their Facebook pages for inappropriate behavior, but don't need to give up their passwords.