I was at a local event last night that was ostensibly a panel discusion regarding campaign finance reform. The primary speaker was Senator Blumenthal (CT). In his intro he made it a point to indicate that he was going to support legislation that would make it illegal for employers to ask for access to applicants social networking accounts.
I mention this simply to illustrate how these 'trends' can easily be picked up by Washington politicians and turned into national issues. Blumenthal is actually quite famous/notorious (your choice) for latching on to 'trends' and milking them for as much publicity as he can.
In this case, Blumenthal is latching on to the right thing.
As much as I dislike Facebook, I think it's appaling that you are required to give up keys to employers. One step away from feudalism, where you have to prostrate yourself before your liege.
I agree it is inappropriate. I also think that it is self defeating. People won't want to work for these companies.
There needs to be a lot more evidence of a systemic problem before I would advocate federal legislation for this sort of thing. Even with clear evidence of an actual problem, it sounds to me like something that states would be capable of addressing.
The desire to address every problem at the federal level is itself a problem.
I mention this simply to illustrate how these 'trends' can easily be picked up by Washington politicians and turned into national issues. Blumenthal is actually quite famous/notorious (your choice) for latching on to 'trends' and milking them for as much publicity as he can.