Gingrich Off Rhode Island Ballot After Refusing To Provide Facebook Password

SOCIAL - In the latest installment of the Facebook Password Wars,  the ante has been upped to the most visible stage around.  In a surprising development in an already charged presidential primary, the State of Rhode Island has chosen to withhold Newt Gingrich's name from their ballot, after he refused to provide the State Election Board of Review with his Facebook password.

The Gingrich campaign immediately released the following statement about the incident:

"It is absurd that it has come to this in this day and age.  Rather than put someone with new ideas on the ballot, they invade the candidate's privacy.  This is unacceptable behavior from a state government."

Facebook also released a statement of its own on the matter, reiterating its stance on the practice in general:

"As we have stated before, we do not condone the requesting of passwords to our systems from any of our customers, no matter what their position, or how offensive their profiles are.  Even if you are a disgusting pig, you still deserve privacy.  This matter has been referred to our legal department to evaluate options."

The Attorney General from Rhode Island has a different take on the matter however.  He told our correspondent that "we know what he is hiding.  We have a friend of a friend of his on Facebook who saw the pictures.  It's pretty shocking stuff.  We're not gonna put someone like that on the ballot.  We're just not."

Off the record, a staffer from his office told us that the aforementioned pictures included many of Newt playing beer pong with friends, lifting up his shirt and exposing his nipples, and even a few mirror shots taken from a cell phone.  Guess he should have taken that stuff down before he started his campaign.