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US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

thejournal.ie

121–130 of 226 posts

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#121
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Play the devil's advocate with me for a bit. Say you let someone in who suicide bombs himself and takes out several Americans. Then a reporter asks the DHS spokesperson how they let someone in the country that had "Death to America" posts all over their social media out in the open for everyone to see but they didn't. Nobody would forgive the government for such a grave oversight. At the airport you already let them…

It's materially different in my opinion. I will submit to inspection of the things I bring into a country, but I will not submit to a review of everything I've written that I haven't made public. It's like asking me to bring decades of letters and personal journals to be judged by. It's unreasonable. If this required of me I won't go.

>If this required of me I won't go.

Do you think the US will see you not going there as a huge loss?

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#122
post #103
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) You said this was "the most oppressive policy." I gave two examples of more oppressive polices. 2) The vaccine mandates were enforced by having employers fire you for failure to comply with it. It was actually pretty terrible. 3) Visa holders are non-citizens by definition.

You'll remember those as the good old days when you get fired for sanitary reasons. America has begun ideological checks at the gates, this will spread to weed out the enemy within. They don't have a PCR test for this, the test is your speech history. You will have to think the right way, they will need to be sure that you are not infected with a mindvirus. Today's pathogen is the woke mindvirus but maybe in near fut…

>when you get fired for sanitary reasons

Those are private policies, the vaccine mandate was a federal policy. You said you don't live here, take my word for it, there have been far more oppressive policies.

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#123
15 years ago I was interrogated at the airport for some tweet without telling them my username so I'm very surprised that they need the names now, probably just for a confirmation and to see the willingness to cooperate.

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#124
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Mass immigration has been a fake specter used by the right to get votes for decades now. How did it impact you, or even those close to you personally negatively? I can tell you some positive impacts: - Most western countries are concerned about economic cliffs around retirement benefits due to falling population. The US is not because so many people, used to(?), want to move here. - Our food is subsidized by those wi…

[flagged]

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#125
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll remember those as the good old days when you get fired for sanitary reasons. America has begun ideological checks at the gates, this will spread to weed out the enemy within. They don't have a PCR test for this, the test is your speech history. You will have to think the right way, they will need to be sure that you are not infected with a mindvirus. Today's pathogen is the woke mindvirus but maybe in near fut…

>when you get fired for sanitary reasons Those are private policies, the vaccine mandate was a federal policy. You said you don't live here, take my word for it, there have been far more oppressive policies.

Care to explain? What they did exactly? Is there more to it than “ if you want to come to the office, you must be vaccinated or you need to provide clean PCR test results”?

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#126
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when you get fired for sanitary reasons Those are private policies, the vaccine mandate was a federal policy. You said you don't live here, take my word for it, there have been far more oppressive policies.

Care to explain? What they did exactly? Is there more to it than “ if you want to come to the office, you must be vaccinated or you need to provide clean PCR test results”?

No. It had nothing to do with RTO and PCR was not an alternative.

There was a federal policy (not legislated btw, just an EO for all the people complaining about Trump using EOs to undo previous EOs) that said any company with federal contracts (which is nearly all tech companies in the US, not just defense contractors) must have 100% of its employees vaccinated. It had nothing to do with safety since there was no provision for remote workers.

Keep in mind this was very early on before they had any reasonable amount of time to even test the vaccines. Forced medical intervention like that as a federal policy is far more oppressive than just asking immigrants and vistors for social media handles, there isn't any debate to be had here.

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#127
post #13

Haven't these guys heard of the "reciprocity principle"? When I went to Brazil a few years ago, the basic price for a tourist visa was like $25 and could be done online. But, if you were a US citizen, it cost $150 and you had to schedule an attend an interview in person -- because , those were the costs and burdens placed on Brazilian citizens to apply for a US visa. Does the US want other countries inspecting our ci…

Well, other countries want US tourists money.US doens't need it as much.

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#128
post #13

Haven't these guys heard of the "reciprocity principle"? When I went to Brazil a few years ago, the basic price for a tourist visa was like $25 and could be done online. But, if you were a US citizen, it cost $150 and you had to schedule an attend an interview in person -- because , those were the costs and burdens placed on Brazilian citizens to apply for a US visa. Does the US want other countries inspecting our ci…

Well, other countries want US tourists money.US doens't need it as much.

US isn’t nearly as important to world tourism as it thinks it is. Maybe Mexico or Canada since they are so close, but otherwise Chinese tourist dollars are sought after more than American.

Reciprocation is going to be more of the norm than not.

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass immigration has been a fake specter used by the right to get votes for decades now. How did it impact you, or even those close to you personally negatively? I can tell you some positive impacts: - Most western countries are concerned about economic cliffs around retirement benefits due to falling population. The US is not because so many people, used to(?), want to move here. - Our food is subsidized by those wi…

[flagged]

> Without freedom of association people stop socializing when you get a plurality population, you can see this everywhere in the US.

Can you elaborate on this? To me, again just being honest and genuine, it reads as a racist dog whistle which says “without a shared cultural baseline this country will collapse”.

I’ve worked with local immigrant advocate groups and have multiple immigrants living on the same street as me. They largely want nothing more than to be part of American society. Is this a range? Absolutely. Different people want to be part of society to different extents. But it’s very rare to find people who won’t be kind and welcoming to you if you are kind and welcoming to them.

On housing that’s obviously true. There are two solutions there. Reduce the demand, or increase the supply. Given that the demand is “humans wanting shelter” any attempt to reduce demand is clearly immoral. So the answer there is to up the supply.

I also genuinely want immigrants. At a minimum they bring delicious food I get to enjoy.

Re: US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

#130
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain? What they did exactly? Is there more to it than “ if you want to come to the office, you must be vaccinated or you need to provide clean PCR test results”?

No. It had nothing to do with RTO and PCR was not an alternative. There was a federal policy (not legislated btw, just an EO for all the people complaining about Trump using EOs to undo previous EOs) that said any company with federal contracts (which is nearly all tech companies in the US, not just defense contractors) must have 100% of its employees vaccinated. It had nothing to do with safety since there was no pr…

Where’s is the oppression in that? It’s pretty normal to have health procedures to the best understanding of the threat at the time. It’s pretty straightforward, all kind of professions have all kinds of rules. Can be argued that the understanding or the precautions weren’t right but I don’t see the personal or political aspect of this. Maybe hi-vis vest are also problematic, so what?

Are you upset with the bureaucratic process? On how exactly was implemented? Like the interaction between the officials? Like on lawyer level stuff?

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