A devilish dilemma; Choosing between Mark Zuckerberg and Lois Lerner

In contrast to some internet companies, notably Yahoo, no telecom company ever contested a FISA court order for bulk metadata collection. FISA court Judge Claire V Eagan cited "unprecedented disclosures" and the "ongoing public interest in this program" as she approved a request for the bulk collection of data from an unidentified telecommunications firm. She also ordered her ruling to be declassified.
"To date, no holder of records who has received an Order to produce bulk telephony metadata has challenged the legality of such an Order," Eagan wrote. "Indeed, no recipient of any Section 215 Order has challenged the legality of such an order, despite the mechanism for doing so."
So the telecom companies are willing participants in the invasions of privacy of literally hundreds of million Americans and there is little the public can do about it. There is one player, not a telecom, that may eventually pay a dear price for it's participation in the NSA's PRISM program. A poll by the Reason Foundation found Facebook is trusted less than both the IRS and the NSA. Why? Michael del Castillo of the Upstart Business Journal explains;
Here's the only substantial difference between the information Facebook gave the National Security Agency's PRISM program and the information Facebook sells to its customers—the NSA didn’t pay for it. In fact, it turns out what Facebook sells could be even more personal than what the NSA requires. And a study that came out yesterday shows Americans are waking up to that possibility.
The Reason poll of 1,013 people representing 38 percent independents, 29 percent Democrats, 23 percent Republicans, and 10 percent "other" found 45% did not trust the IRS compared to 61% who did not trust Facebook. Forty eight percent said they didn't’t trust Google.
Anthony Wing Kosner at Forbes is not favorably disposed toward Facebook either. In his ominous sounding New Facebook Policies Sell Your Face And Whatever It Infers post he dissects its new terms of service agreement;
“What these new terms of service do for Facebook is to give them carte blanche to guess at the details of our identities that we have not specifically disclosed and target marketing to us based on their guesses,”
Right people, upload your friends' photos so we can subject them to out new automated facial recognition software and our new and more powerful search algorithms.
Quoting Kosner further;
Already, there have been cases where Facebook has outed gay people through inference-based ad selection. The same capabilities that power facial recognition could also power facial inference. Do users realize that now, or at some point in the future, Facebook could profile them racially, guess at their intelligence, judge their attractiveness or even diagnosis certain medical conditions without being supplied any specific verbal data? All of this by merely giving facebook our… face.
There are two major differences between the subservient telecoms and Facebook. First, the telecoms we cannot do without; Facebook, yes we can. Second, the telecoms divulge Americans' personal data for reasons of corporate cowardice and maybe even misdirected, in my point of view, patriotism. Facebook does it for money.
Update: Mr. Z goes to Washington to discuss immigration and online privacy. From Politico; On Capitol Hill, Zuckerberg is expected to meet Thursday with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Republican leaders, Senate Commerce panel Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and other committee members, and the top four House Republican leaders. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is also hosting a meeting with Zuckerberg Thursday focused on immigration, according to a Democratic aide. Democratic Reps. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Xavier Becerra and Zoe Lofgren of California, Joe Crowley and Steve Israel of New York, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and John Yarmuth of Kentucky have been invited to the gathering. A House Republican aide said that while immigration may come up with Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans, it is not the sole purpose of their session.