Photos from a lively party, complex inside jokes, instant and personalized communication - someone's life and personality carefully hidden in the cyber universe . With simple button presses and mouse clicks, a complex and ever-expanding social world thrives within the digital world of the Internet. Social networking sites have grown significantly as more people take advantage of the Internet to connect with their friends and expand their social horizons. The chat features of these social networking sites have also become popular, providing users with the ability to instantly and intimately converse with their friends. But this broadening of social horizons in general also gave radical organizations the means to expand their agenda. Many issues have come to the forefront of American public culture because of the expanded reach of social networking sites. But the two most important issues that coincide with this trend are privacy concerns and the fight against terrorism. These questions go hand in hand as the government attempts to strike a delicate balance between monitoring the Internet to prevent terrorist activity and not violating citizens' fundamental rights to privacy. The popularity of social networking sites in today's society is increasing rapidly. For example, Facebook has probably become the most used social networking site in the country. According to company statistics, about a quarter of the website's 400 million active users come from the United States. Additionally, Facebook is the nation's most visited website as of March 2010 ("Facebook, Inc. Complaint"). One of the most popular features of social networking sites such as Facebook is their instant messaging system, usually ref...... middle of paper ...... that monitoring of chats is neither desired nor accepted. Privacy and international security are equally important in today's society, and as such the government must strike a balance between the two. Chat monitoring fails to achieve this balance at all, as it clearly infringes on the public's right to privacy and does not significantly counter cyberterrorist activities. There is no doubt that the Big Brother of today's society watches over citizens and has always watched them. Public surveillance is a necessary tactic to ensure security, but only when that surveillance does not delve too deeply into the personal lives of citizens. It is inevitable that Big Brother's eyes will turn towards the citizens, but when those eyes turn towards them. highly personal instant messaging systems of social networking sites, the fine line between privacy and security is crossed.