Social Sites for Surveillance

Recently it was revealed Yahoo spies on its users, and there is even a price list.  $40 for anything you want to know about a username, including chat logs.  Can we assume Gmail has a similar “secret” price list for spies? 

Yahoo wants to keep its “spy for hire” price list hidden from view, afraid it has heightened suspicion that Yahoo’s business profit has undermined its promised customer trust. 

Now what happens if Yahoo’s records are tampered with?  Do you remember what happened in Minority Report?  Change a few bytes around and now some innocent person looks like a criminal, or vice versa.  Supposedly you can’t access these records unless someone’s life is in danger.  Is that really an obstacle?  Seems like this would encourage the fabrication of death threats to get access to Yahoo’s records.

Along these lines, InternetEvolution.com posted a poll this month: Should the federal government have to disclose the details of how its agencies use social-networking sites for surveillance?