Over on Concurring Opinions, Peter Swire is guest-blogging:
The Maryland General Assembly has just become the first state legislature to vote to ban employers’ from requiring employees to reveal their Facebook or other social network passwords. Other states are considering similar bills, and Senators Schumer and Blumenthal are pushing the idea in Congress.
As often happens in privacy debates, there are concerns from industry that well-intentioned laws will have dire consequences — Really Dangerous People might get into positions of trust, so we need to permit employers to force their employees to open up their Facebook accounts to their bosses.
Also, as often happens in privacy debates, people breathlessly debate the issue as though it is completely new and unprecedented.
We do have a precedent, however.
Read more on Concurring Opinions and do read the comments under the post.