Tensions have risen between the U.S. government and tech communities now that the Patriot Act has expired, and there is no basis for blocking encryption codes on people's social media sites, according to an article on Business Insider.

That basically means that strong encryption codes make it nearly impossible to decipher by external sources that do not have the pass code. This makes it harder for government entities to spy on users of social media and other platforms.

Facebook has recently announced in a statement on its website that it is allowing its users to add extra layers of security to their own content to make sure their information is safe.

Although Facebook protects its data on its own site, it cannot protect its data on external sources, including email.

"To enhance the privacy of this email content, today we are gradually rolling out an experimental new feature that enables people to add OpenPGP public keys to their profile; these keys can be used to 'end-to-end' encrypt notification emails sent from Facebook to your preferred email accounts. People may also choose to share OpenPGP keys from their profile, with or without enabling encrypted notifications," the statement read.

According to The New York Times, the National Security Agency can no longer simply do a query in their database to retrieve information on private citizens without a subpoena. Even then, they will have to subpoena a phone or data company for the information, which could be provided to them in a time frame of the company's choosing, as long as it is reasonable.

But as Business Insider points out, the Edward Snowden whistle blow has hastened tech companies to the extreme that they have been using increasingly desperate measure to keep their operations safe and secure.

Facebook will now allow users to add these public keys to their profile, to encourage others to contact them only via the private key code.