Pictures of a lively party, intricate jokes, instant and personalized communications - someone's life and personality well hidden in the cyber universe. With the simple taps of keys and clicks of the mouse, a complex and ever-expanding social world thrives within the digital world of the Internet. Social networking sites have grown tremendously as more and more people take advantage of the Internet to connect with friends and expand their social horizons. The chat features of these social networking sites have also become popular, giving users the ability to converse instantly and intimately with their friends. But this broadening of social horizons in general has also given radical organizations the means to broaden their agenda. Many issues have come to the forefront of American public culture due to the widespread use of social networking sites. But the two most important issues that coincide with this trend are concerns about privacy and the fight against terrorism. These issues go hand in hand as the government seeks 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 growing rapidly. For example, Facebook has become arguably 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 most viewed website in the nation as of March 2010 (“Complaint Regarding Facebook, Inc.”). One of the most popular features of social networking sites like Facebook are their instant messaging systems, commonly ref...... half of the document... that chat monitoring is neither wanted nor accepted. Privacy and international security are equally important in today's society, and as such, the government must find a balance between the two. Chat surveillance falls short of this balance as it clearly violates the public's right to privacy and does not substantially counter cyber terrorist activity. There is no doubt that the Big Brother of today's society is watching citizens and keeping an eye on them. Public surveillance is a necessary tactic to ensure security, but only when this monitoring does not delve too deeply into the personal lives of citizens' highly personal instant messaging systems of social networking sites, the fine line between privacy and security is crossed.