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U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

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Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#321

Post by nbdev »

conkerspoon wrote: post #271
nbdev wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't visit the US because they want your social media details?

Americans may be shocked to discover that given the downward trajectory of the US at the moment, for many international travellers this is yet one more reason to choose somewhere else over the US. It's hardly extreme to avoid a country that keeps providing reason after reason to avoid it. Especially for people who have been outspoken about the US' illegal wars and various war crimes.

I could replace US in your post with many European, Asian, African, etc. countries.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#322

Post by s2g »

ExcelSaga wrote: post #184
bambax wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's not Trump, it's the US. I will probably never visit that country again, and I don't much care; but, I'm kind of sad for my kids. That said, the world is a big place. Let's hope not every other country does the same.

It’s not just the US though, the whole ultra-surveillance shtick is very much an international problem. Here in the UK it’s not that great either, and China is full on dystopia. I’m not excusing the US, but we need to accept that this isn’t just the Americans, it’s more and more of the world.

Surveillance is a worldwide problem, but the US is an up and comer in the whole "rabidly anti-immigrant" race.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#323

Post by s2g »

jimmies wrote: post #270
nbdev wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't visit the US because they want your social media details?

It's rather extreme to refuse to visit the US because of just that. However, refusing to visit countries that do things you don't agree with is a rational decision. I have a friend who declared he would totally refuse to visit North Korea -- why do you want to spend your money to enrich a shitty country and government? More practically, why do you want to spend vacation time being pissed off if you have literally hun…

> It's rather extreme to refuse to visit the US because of just that

It's not extreme at all.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#324

Post by ubernostrum »

paxy wrote: post #141
dboreham wrote: post #58

One thing to know is that apparently the reason for having seemingly idiotic questions on immigration forms ("are you a terrorist?", "are you a nazi war criminal?") is not that the government is stupid but rather that they're there in order to be able to deport someone for answering the question incorrectly in the event that the government wants to deport them but lacks sufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case.…

This is such a stupid explanation. Do people really think the government is going to go "You're a terrorist, but we can't deport you for that. But look here, you checked this form wrong.."

Generally these things are set up so that proving someone lied on the form is easy and straightforward. As someone else pointed out, the actual question isn't going to be "are you a terrorist", it's going to be a question about whether you've ever associated with certain people, or organizations which espoused certain views. And that can be very easy to prove.

You see this pattern in more than just immigration cases.

The FBI and other federal agencies infamously "get" people for making untrue statements to their agents, since that's a federal felony right away, and easier to prove than that the person committed some other, more complex crime.

The other day in a reddit thread I got to bring up a case from New Mexico involving someone who literally fabricated evidence of a child in order to claim support payments. Once it was established the child didn't exist, proving all the various elements (like falsifying birth certificate and paternity test) of the crimes involved in getting to that point was difficult, but it was very easy to prove she'd claimed the nonexistent child as a dependent on her income tax returns, which sent her straight to prison (if you want all the details on that one, Google "Barreras v. Trevino").

A few years ago the US Supreme Court (Abramski v. United States) upheld a conviction of someone who purchased a gun, because at the time of the purchase he filled out a form which said he was purchasing the gun for himself, and not on behalf of or as a stand-in for someone else. Except he lied when he checked that box on the form; he was buying it for his uncle. The Supreme Court ruled that it didn't matter whether his uncle was legally eligible to buy the gun (he was); Congress had made it a federal crime to lie on the form, in order to prevent people from skirting background checks by getting someone else to buy a gun on their behalf, and the guy had unquestionably lied on the form.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#325

Post by coldtea »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #289
opportune wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think being a corporate mouthpiece was the reason Hillary lost; I think it had more to do with her lack of charisma and the many years of media that had engendered a deep feeling of mistrust towards her. Obama was almost as corporate as her, in my opinion, except he was much more well spoken and likable. Biden is along the same lines and it looks like he's gearing up for a run for the presidency. Also as elec…

i think so too. if Trump is still around in Nov 2020, he's overwhelmingly likely to lose. his opposition is extremely motivated and overflowing with a prurient desire to defeat him, while Trump's remaining voters, who have been repeatedly embarrassed and disappointed, have as much motivation to show up at the polls as a child has to show up at a vaccination clinic.

>while Trump's remaining voters, who have been repeatedly embarrassed and disappointed, have as much motivation to show up at the polls as a child has to show up at a vaccination clinic.

Have they been? In real life? Or was it rather the inverse (all the impeachment fantasies etc, the collusion stories endlessly appearing and fading, the economy that was "sure" to suffer, etc...).

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#326

Post by lopmotr »

_acme wrote: post #204
lopmotr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has already happened in New Zealand. If you've ever publicly made controversial statements ("have ever publically made a racist statement" [1]), they can deny you a resident visa unless they arbitrarily decide it's OK. You might think you're not a racist, but in the UK, racism law extends to criticizing Islam or even questioning aspects of it. So you better not be an outspoken atheist either. [1] https://www.imm…

Unless NZ is significantly different from most other countries, no one has a right to a resident visa (although some people might have a right to citizenship, such as by descent), so they can already arbitrarily determine whether or not to grant a resident visa.

Sure, but in practice, they don't seem to do that. I've heard of public complaints of denials and it's because the person doesn't actually meet the published criteria, not just "they seemed a bit scary".

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#327

Post by s2g »

felipelemos wrote: post #122
komali2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the 5th amendment make those questions impossible to answer? (If you plead the 5th on them, you're.. probably a terrorist...)

The constitution protect non citizens too?

Not really.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#328

Post by s2g »

scottybowl wrote: post #62
dmode wrote: post #32

Trump administration has been increasingly hostile to legal immigrants, so this doesn’t surprise me one bit. Everyday there is a new policy change in USCIS designed to screw immigrants, whose only crime is working on high paid jobs. I am on the verge of losing my work permit after having lived here for 12 years and working in high tech jobs in leading companies.

Why do you deserve a job over a resident with equal skills?

12 years of paying taxes aren't enough to earn you a bit of credit in society?

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#329

Post by yread »

sly010 wrote: post #210
paxy wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still doesn't make sense. To prove they checked the form wrong, you have to prove the actual charge itself (e.g. they are a terrorist, by whatever definition). That itself is enough evidence for deportation.

Except the question is "are you or have you been in the past associated with, do you know of, are you a relative of a know or unknown terrorist or a terrorist organization?" (The real question is longer) Then a similar question for nazis, intelligence agencies, military and some more. There is a podcast of a story of an immigrant who was associated with a group as a kid. Decades _after_ him immigrating to the US the…

Yeah truthful answer would be "gosh i have 500 facebook friends for like 10 years who knows what they have been up to".

I'm still not gonna check that box though

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#330

Post by b1daly »

weirdstuff wrote: post #275
dbsvsv wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire Russia collusion thing is to take peoples attention away from dnc's burning of Bernie and other actions. I would urge people to read the WikiLeaks emails once and see what's in their. Its truly damning. Also if there were an actual collusion then one of those "17 intelligence agencies" and the senate intelligence committee or Mueller probe would have revealed in a year. Unless you admit Trump is a total Ge…

And it started right after Trump won. Before that night the wisdom was exactly the opposite: that our elections can't be hacked, and we shouldn't believe claims about it. Then Trump won and created mass hysteria in the political community, then the FUD went full steam ahead about Russia. Instead of talking of the contents of the leaks, all we now can talk about was that there was a leak – and, oh – it was Russia hack…

I have no doubt that the “ Russia Collusion” investigation is largely the kind of bare knuckled political tactics used all around by the real political infrastructure. (Though I think think there is far more substance here than the Starr investigation of the Clinton/Monica Lewinsky case.)

It looks like the Russians did try to influence our election, and why wouldn’t they. But I can’t believe any seriously thinks Trump is some kind secret Russian agent.

The heart of the issue is that Trump has worked actively in the shady parts of high finance projects. From what I can tell, his business conduct is shamelessly sleazy, showing little regard for anyone’s interests but his own. At certain level of wealth, entities can start to operate almost above the law. Their wealth protects them through the legal and political systems. It is this kind of conduct that is most disturbing, amongst the “elites” of many countries, including the US.

I’m thinking of the practices of the financial-military-political complex. The connecting thread is the pursuance of wealth and power above all else.

Trump is a bad person, and it always struck me as nearly impossible that he hasn’t engaged in highly illegal conduct. It’s just at his level, before he became president, he was hard to touch.

Ironically, becoming president opened him up to a level of scrutiny that is extreme. His usual legal defense methods likely won’t work. Whatever happens in this case, he has so many enemies, he will not get a rest, as long as he is in power. It takes something like a special prosecutor to go after a president. The authority and power of Mueller is politically based. It’s hard to attach the president on legal grounds, purely, but he remains vulnerable to these political attacks.

For anyone that still thinks the Russian issue is a “nothing burger,”I highly recommend reading this eye popping article on the activities of Paul Manafort. Manafort is a very bad guy, and deserves to be in prison. The level of cynical corruption Manafort engages in is sickening. He is certain very connected with the political and economic power structure in Russia.

Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager.

Put it together...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/paul-ma...

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