Sen Blumenthal: Ban bosses from asking for Facebook passwords

Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) has a status update for employers who ask job seekers for access to their private Facebook accounts: He’s writing a bill to outlaw the practice.

He said those kind of requests from prospective employers amount to an "unreasonable invasion of privacy" for those looking for work. Sen Blumenthal said it ought to be prohibited, just like other banned employment practices such as administering polygraph tests to screen applicants. "I am very deeply troubled by the practices that seem to be spreading voraciously around the country," Blumenthal said in an interview. He added that an "employer has a lot of ways to find out information" about potential new employees. Sen Blumenthal said his bill would be ready "in the very near future."