A Republican legislator's proposed changes to a state law protecting social-media privacy effectively would undo that privacy, according to a free-speech advocate.
On Tuesday, Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, filed House Bill 1087, which would amend the state's 2-year-old law that detailed protections for passwords, as well as rights of association, for current and prospective employees.
Act 1480 of 2013 bars employers from requiring employees to disclose their password information for social-media sites such as Facebook. It also forbids employers from requiring current or prospective employees to grant them access to their social-media posts.
The law, which was passed with only one "no" vote between both legislative chambers, also prevents employers from firing or punishing employees for declining to "friend" their boss.
Bell, who voted with 91 other state representatives to pass the law in 2013, wants to strip out sections of the law that insulate employees from having to add their bosses into their social-media accounts.
Rita Sklar, head of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Bell's changes would effectively undo the privacy protections gained by Arkansans two years ago.
"That's not right," Sklar said. "That's contrary to the intent of the sponsor and the people voting on the bill."
Sklar pointed out that employers already can fire employees for publicly posting inflammatory statements or other comments that would negatively affect their employers or businesses.
But the 2013 law, sponsored by former Democratic state Rep. Nate Steel, was crafted to make sure that employees' supervisors couldn't compel employees to grant them access to view posts or expressions that were available to only private contacts, such as friends and family, Sklar said.
Steel's legislation allowed employers to ask for employees' user names and passwords to their social-media account if "the employee's ... activity ... [is] relevant to a formal investigation or related proceeding by the employer of allegations of an employee's violation of federal, state, or local laws or regulations or of the employer's written policies."
Bell's tweaks still allow that circumstance, according to the legislation.
"This undoes what the [law] intended to do: to prevent people's private communications from prying eyes," Sklar said. "It basically repeals the [law]."
Neither Steel nor Bell returned calls for comment.
Attorneys with the Arkansas Department of Labor were unavailable late Tuesday afternoon.
Metro on 01/21/2015