If you open your friends list go to the search tab and then in the bottom right corner select privacy. The first option is "Allow only friends and fleet to chat" Try changing that.
What I don't understand with the Specialization tree is why they took away our option to select all the rep passives, limiting them to 4 space 4 ground. Only to bring out the option to select ALL specialization points. Also *Waves Save alts sign*
No, the permission setting only allow you to change for your own rank and below. So rank 6 could be given permission to kick others at rank 6, but. They still wouldn't be able to affect rank 7.