Who is looking at you?

As we talked about privacy settings in Facebook and other social media, and looked at the data found in the Boyd and Hargittai article it became clear that the biggest concern for most Facebook users in the “youth” demographic was what their immediate peers and figures of authority thought of them rather than faceless corporations or the government. I am not sure what to make of this finding. I can understand why someone would not be too concerned over a company getting information from your profile since they are probably just trying to advertise to meet your needs, though hearing stories of companies taking upon themselves to announce to your friends your spending habits is a bit disheartening. But why would the government want to get your information? This question becomes more important with the recent bill that the government is trying to pass that would make wiretapping on the Internet easier. This means that emails, social network sites, and everything else on the Internet could be closely monitored. Even though this worries me I feel divided on the issue because on the one hand it is my personal information but then again it is my information that is already on the Internet. If the Internet is suppose to be the ideal free flow of information then the government just like anyone else has the right to that information. Regulating the Internet either to support government interference or to prevent it may end up being it's demise. I understand that the government may just be trying to help defend the nation but because it has used fear to get previous bills into law I feel a certain distrust of the government's actions. Of course if I have done nothing wrong then I have nothing to worry about and the government should be allowed to view my information, right? It will be interesting to see how the issue of government and corporate data collecting plays out especially with the advent of geotagging sites like Foursquare.