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

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421–430 of 439 posts

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

#421
post #229
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.

If I need to disclose all my "social media" profiles in order to visit Yosemite again I'm doing it without blinking.

lol really? i've been there and hell no i wouldnt.

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

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you deny that Trump was extremely active in birtherism and claiming Obama wasn't eligible for the position as president? There are countless articles, videos, tweets (from The Donald himself) documenting it. Instead you attack specific sources, in an attempt to discredit the facts.

He was certainly very active in birtherism but so was Hillary when she ran against Obama which is what people are forgetting about :)

Would you elaborate what you mean by "but so was Hillary"? I'm aware of three incidents that could seen as related:

- Allegedly Sidney Blumenthal urged a reporter to investigate where Obama was born, suggesting it was Kenya. This was denied by Blumenthal and appears to be a misread or exaggeration of an email Blumenthal wrote. (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election...)

- Mark Penn wrote a strategy memo about Obama's "lack of American roots" in reference to him having lived abroad, which the campaign never acted on. (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/09/the-fro...)

- A volunteer coordinator in Iowa forward an email promoting birtherism and was fired for doing so. (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/sep/25/...)

I have a hard time reconciling "very active in birtherism" (or promoting birtherism at all by the campaign, much less Clinton herself) with these incidents. If you've got other references, please share. (Though this is really far off the reservation with respect to the submission.)

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

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One nice thing about having a President with 50%+ disapproval [1] is all the things that got swept under the rug, previously, can now be made alarming. This might be an unintended way the system clears detritus and scope creep. [1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...

Isn't it always the case that the President has "disapproval" ratings around 50% though? Half the country tends to like the person they voted for, and half the country has sour grapes because their side lost. Obama's disapproval ratings also hovered above 50% at several points in his Presidency [1]. So it isn't Trump's "disapproval" ratings that are new for any President, it's the level of hatred that the press has f…

Could you please not take HN threads on partisan political tangents? I'm not sure exactly at which point we went off the rails here but your account appears to have done the largest part.

It also looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648.

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

#424

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 don't think being a corporate mouthpiece was the reason Hillary lost; I think it had more to do with her lack of charisma Maybe, but her being a corporate mouthpiece combined with her lack of charisma, combined with her 2016 loss is a big reason a sizable part of the activist base of the party is in open rebellion against the dominance of the neoliberal wing of the party, and why it's been able to force concessio…

I think sama's analysis re: willingness to admit the problems faced by middle America was point on. She still very nearly won.

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

#425
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is very aggressive about searching for "hate speech" at the border. This includes mandating that you turn over your phone and searching through your texts, emails and any linked accounts for keywords. This is personal experience.

How do we know what they are searching for?

The drug related searches were in my search history. The officer told me he was searching for drugs and hate speech.

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

#426
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is very aggressive about searching for "hate speech" at the border. This includes mandating that you turn over your phone and searching through your texts, emails and any linked accounts for keywords. This is personal experience.

I saw this on their border security reality TV show, but neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever had their phone searched visiting Canada. I've been curious how often they do it. What were your circumstances? If that show is to be believed, they aren't looking for hate speech. They are looking for the person who says they are just visiting, and then has all kinds of text messages about when they start their new job, o…

This was driving across the border for an extended vacation. I'm not going to post every detail, but I had a vague itinerary and I completely understand why we got extra questions. However, I hadn't done anything suspicious at all. It is a question of rights, and as a non Canadian citizen, you have no rights other than to decide not to go to Canada anymore. They were looking for evidence of drug smuggling, proof that I could financially afford to take care of myself if something went wrong, and "hate speech". That is what the officer said. You may find this reasonable, but how thoroughly they search your phone is entirely up to the officer at the border, and they have every ability to just image your phone.

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

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...).

with all of Trump's personal misbehaviors and misstatements, I'm guessing it's hard for them not to feel embarrassed and/or awkward and/or disappointed. in short, they're demotivated: * fiscal conservatives have had to defend the guy who brought them new tax laws that increase the deficit * border wall supporters have had to support a man who just signed an omnibus spending bill which included basically no funding fo…

> fiscal conservatives have had to defend the guy who brought them new tax laws that increase the deficit

On the other hand, non-fiscal conservatives should be jumping with joy.

> border wall supporters have had to support a man who just signed an omnibus spending bill which included basically no funding for the wall (not to mention the lack of funding from Mexico, which Trump also promised)

Well, "border wall supporters" also knew that "Mecico will pay" was BS political strong talk promising. And they see that Trump does indeed moves to restrict immigration, which is what really mattered to them, not whether some physical wall will be built or not.

(And let's not talk about "broken promises" about the Wall, when there's the previous administrations tons of broken promises about progressive politics, all official promises during the campaign of "Hope").

> immigration restrictionists have watched the Trump administration feebly defend travel bans that were immediately held up in the courts

And they can easily just blame the courts for this, while still thinking Trump at least tried

> voters who consider themselves well-mannered, civil conservatives have had to defend a president who frequently insults and/or abruptly fires his own allies and team members

Voters who consider themselves well-mannered, civil conservatives either are hypocritical or felt they have had no place in modern politics ever since at least Nixon.

> voters who mistrust Wall Street big banks and want the swamp drained have watched as Trump embraced and employed some of these same Wall Street big bankers, including a couple of Goldman Sachs Democrats, who ushered in a huge corporate tax break

I'll give you that. Not that they weren't expecting it, short of actually having some kind of revolution.

> conservative Christians have had to defend a serial adulterer

That's no problem for them, Christ himself was all about forgiveness, and besides, most of their TV evangelists are serial adulterers as well.

> manufacturing workers who were promised a significant revival of the manufacturing base have not seen much progress either, because bringing millions of manufacturing jobs back to the US is really really difficult to accomplish. but Trump promised it during his campaign. "You'll get so tired of winning..."

At least they do see some movement in this direction, which is more than one can say for the previous decades.

> what's going on with the US trade gap with China? we shall see, but, as Paul Krugman pointed out recently, Trump is not off to a great start. does he even know what he's doing? which brings me to ...

Well, Krugman had also said in November 2016 that "the economy is never going to recover" (from Trump), based on some temporary disruption in the stock market. Clearly (and perhaps just like Trump) there are no consequences whatsoever as to whether what he prophecies holds up or not.

> voters who respect competence, order, a well-oiled machine, etc are not seeing much of it in this administration. at all.

Those are fewer and fewer, because many (even people who didn't vote for Trump) feel that the "competence, order, a well-oiled machine" of prior decades has been mostly working against them. What they want is to see some disruption to this well-oiled machine of "business as usual".

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

#428

Doesn't some other countries already do this? I was asked about my LinkedIn for a work visa in Canada.

Does the UK or any EU countries do any of this?

Most of the EU does not, not even close. No phone searches, no social accounts, no invasive questions on forms or aggressive interrogations.

That's the norm - for known criminals it's different.

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in real life https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/1... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/us/conor-lamb-pennsylvani...

Can't see the NYT one (paywall). That said, is the Washington Post a representation of the "real life"? Have they regularly run such stories by embittered union leaders before, when the President was more to their liking? Or is it just confirmation bias? Especially with economic indicators going strong (so much for the "disaster" people like Krugman predicted "If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pas…

You asked if Trump supporters have been disappointed. I gave you an example of a person who supported and even advocated for Trump, and is disappointed with his presidency. If that isn't what you wanted, you should have asked for something else.

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

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data says that Trump's disapproval ratings are already averaging over 50, which is unusual, and so far his highest disapproval rating has been 58%. The exact range for Trump so far has been 44-58, whereas for Obama's presidency his range was 19-56. Only the most partisan analysis can pretend that those look the same. At this point in his presidency, Obama was at his highest disapproval level so far, and it was 46…

I also want to point out that it's pretty facile to assert that if Republicans had disapproved of Obama more strongly, he would have been more strongly disapproved of. I think even the most hardcore Democrat would agree that the vast majority of media outlets are liberal leaning. So their disapproval has a stronger effect on their opposition simply because they are louder and more people listen to them.

You really need to stop guessing at reality and start actually learning about it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/02/trump-...
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