Have you heard of the NSA? I think it's pretty safe to say at this point that NOTHING online is private.

Accidentally upvoted. NSA getting everything is not the same as everyone getting everything. NSA doesn't share with my mom.

Privacy doesn't mean "not everyone is getting everything". If FB shares my secrets with anyone without my consent, they're violoating my privacy. They don't need to make them available to everyone for that.

..unless they decide that you are a "radical", in which case they very well might leak it to your family, friends, and acquaintances in an attempt to distance them from you.

One of my good friends is married to an NSA employee, so I can tell you (almost) first-hand that they would if they knew her.

There was the case when someone was denied entry at a US border and a printout of her private FB messages was shown.

http://usahitman.com/ggtaubpfm/ (Best page I could find with the story - I have no idea if that's a credible site or not.)

Uh... the real story is that she gave them the printout.

"Why are you coming to the US?"

"I'm going to be an au pair. See..." [hands over printout]

"You did not apply for a work visa. Goodbye."

> the real story is that she gave them the printout.

That's not what the story says. What's the source of your claims?

Well, the story made its way into the English speaking world via google translate, which is pretty notorious for dicking up subtle things like word order and direct vs indirect objects. She gave them the printout. She the printout them gave. They gave the printout her.

The original article is now gone, but you can read the HN comments from the time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864427

The details of the story seem unlikely and it was probably sloppy journalism, but I haven't found anything besides speculation that claims it happened otherwise.

It doesn't appear anything was lost in translation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864882

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864653

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864577

I think the likeliest case was that they searched her laptop, found an open tab with her Facebook messages, then printed the conversation.

That's fair. But "Border agents can read your private messages" conveys a rather different idea than "Border agents can read tabs you leave open".

It sure does, but that's still just speculation. I think the story carries more weight than my speculation. Ultimately, we'll never really know what happened.