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US bars friends over Twitter joke

thesun.co.uk

141–150 of 232 posts

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#141
post #120

Those guys are screwed now. Refusal of access means that they'll never get in on the visa waiver program and any employment in the future that might be with a multi-national will be limited by their ability to travel. They just won't be able to enter the USA without going through an arduously long process every time. I've been telling my friends for the longest time to moderate everything that they say on the interne…

I love to travel and visit the US frequently but it's not the end of the world if they don't get to come back to the US. There is a whole lot more of the world than America.

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#142
post #31

As said Richelieu, who knew his police business: “Avec deux lignes d’écriture d’un homme, on peut faire le procès du plus innocent“. Unfortunately, this wasn't representative of a time of utmost personal freedom...

My French is not so good, but my translation is:

"With two lines written by a man, one can arrest the most innocent."

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#143
post #120

Those guys are screwed now. Refusal of access means that they'll never get in on the visa waiver program and any employment in the future that might be with a multi-national will be limited by their ability to travel. They just won't be able to enter the USA without going through an arduously long process every time. I've been telling my friends for the longest time to moderate everything that they say on the interne…

[deleted]

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#144
post #120

Those guys are screwed now. Refusal of access means that they'll never get in on the visa waiver program and any employment in the future that might be with a multi-national will be limited by their ability to travel. They just won't be able to enter the USA without going through an arduously long process every time. I've been telling my friends for the longest time to moderate everything that they say on the interne…

I think you are going a bit too far there with the "screwed".

There are quite a few billions of people who never went or will go to the US - with little effect on their life.

"Welcome to America, home of the corrupt and the beuracrats"

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#146

So, aside from the discussion around the journalistic standards of the Sun, now the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring the twitter accounts of British citizens? Furthermore, how did DHS match up a twitter handle with a passport number?

That's the sort of discussion I'd love to hear. There's surprisingly little about the privacy ramifications here of somehow associating real people to an online account. Granted, the tech exists. Google has been doing it for a while now. Anyone who's gotten the little "is this you?" thing when doing a search knows what I'm talking about.

I wonder how many false positives happen with these match ups. Or if the people in question could have just denied that they made the tweets.

This also makes me super freaked out about Google+'s real names policy, since it will literally be providing the United States Government with a massive surveillance network.

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#147
post #4

Have no more fear, your country is safe from all terrorists who tweet about their plans. Truthfully, I wouldn't have expected this from America, they're the kind of jokes I could imagine myself making on Twitter, but will be careful not to before future trips there.. This is pretty much what I think of when going to China, and what makes me specially careful not to say anything the Chinese could take as a threat. Heh…

After not one but two of my acquaintances have been detained and deported at the airport on trips to the US I can't really see myself ever daring to go there. Both are Muslim, they don't have any terrorist sympathies that I know about, and one of them is even very outspoken in his refutation of violent ideologies.

It's funny but I feel much more comfortable visiting China.

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#149
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US is done as the "land of the free". It's still very hard for many people to believe it, but it's true. I mean it's 47th place in the world for freedom of press now - 47th! That's far from the beacon of freedom US used to be. Whenever I see the heavily armed and militarized police in US and how they react to protesters, it's like I'm watching news about Russia or something.

I left the country in 2008, and I'm wondering if I'll ever go back. It's only gotten worse since I've been gone. It's almost to the point where I'm not even sure I want to visit any time soon.

Same story here. Left in 2007, and no longer have any desire to return. My last visit, in 2010, left quite a bad taste in my mouth, with the creeping totalitarianism on display at the airports in particular. Welcome to America: don't forget that WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING YOU.

What's especially depressing is that the commitment to paranoia and the dismantling of due process, civil rights, etc., is 100% bipartisan; there are no serious political voices taking a stand against it. Bush was of course bad; Obama -- my last great hope -- has extended and amplified everything that Bush did. And Obama's opponents are essentially unified in their position that Obama's chief failure has been to not dismantle due process and civil rights quickly enough. At this point, I think that Obama is probably still the lesser evil, but that's too damned evil for me to vote for.

I don't see any prospects for this reversing itself. Carry this trend out another decade or two, and it means the end of the American republic. There's nothing extraordinary about this thought: over long enough timeframes, great nations collapse all the time, and this is more or less the blueprint they follow when they do it: increasing paranoia about being beset by enemies both external and domestic; dismantling of internal political apparatus and centralisation of political power with a single individual; increasing inability to balance a budget, tolerate dissent, maintain infrastructure, etc. I fear that the present era will be remembered alongside Rome in the late 4th century, Spain in the early 1930s, etc.

I hope I'm wrong, and that those who stay can somehow turn it around. But at this point I'm glad I left.

Re: US bars friends over Twitter joke

#150
post #130
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say that from the inside, we don't look all that attractive any more, either. Do us a favor and boycott us loudly - money's the only thing our government actually understands.

If this gives you any solace, I'm planning to boycott the US for the near future. Being French, I've always wanted to visit the US, and I'd love to come work / build a startup in the Silicon Valley. I'm really interested in American culture: I read mostly american books, and hang out on various English communities (reddit, HN, ...). But, over the last few years, I've been following closely the various US policies (TS…

I hope you change your mind about visiting the US, and the Silicon Valley in particular. If you're concerned about your safety or enjoyment while you're here, that's fine, but I wouldn't boycott the US to make a political statement. The strange minority of Americans who don't understand freedom aren't gonna get the message. Your boycott is gonna hurt the Americans who most want our country to be a diverse, welcoming place.

I highly recommend San Francisco in particular. We have a decent sized French expat population, and the city is fairly multi-cultural and liberal, even by European standards, I think. Once you arrive here, you're in driving range of stunning natural beauty--redwood forests, SF Bay, Yosemite National Park, Big Sur, etc.

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