Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s Internet Director Todd Beeton announced today that the junior senator, who has been “pushing the envelope online” since her early days on Capitol Hill, will host her second live video chat on Facebook at 5 p.m. tomorrow.

“As a new member of the House of Representatives, she was the first member of Congress ever to put her earmarks, financial disclosures, and Congressional schedule online,” Beeton wrote in an e-mail to Gillibrand supporters. “Now, earmark disclosure is a requirement of all members of Congress.”

“Since becoming Senator, she has reached out in an unprecedented way to the blogosphere and is very active on Facebook and Twitter. ”

“And back in February, the campaign tried something new – new to us and a first for any sitting Senator – a live video chat on Facebook. It was a huge success. One commenter even called it ‘an FDR fireside chat for the 21st Century.’ We knew from the enthusiastic response that we would definitely be doing it again.”


This comes as Gillibrand’s political mentor, Sen. Chuck Schumer, is criticizing Facebook’s privacy updates and has written a letter to the FTC asking the agency to develop guidelines for social networking sites regarding the use of members’ personal information.

“One of the tenants of Facebook is you decide what information you want to share with whom,” Schumer told reporters, including YNN’s Erin Connolly, during a press conference at Albany International Airport this morning.

”If you shopped at the same grocery store every week and it’d be like without your permission the grocery store sent a list out of what you used to thousands of people. Maybe people don’t want it to be known they use a facial cream or a laxative,” Schumer continued.

Share|