Earlier quoted context omitted.
The USCIS reviews Facebook for those applying for long term visas, to prevent fraud. It doesn't have anything to do with the NSA.
Source?
[deleted]
German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
61–70 of 257 posts
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
My translation would be "Officials baffled Jana with a printout of her complete Facebook correspondence with her future host. Their allegation: the young woman intended to work illegally in the US. The authorities had apparently been reading Jana's private messages on Facebook for weeks". The key word being "apparently", i.e. bad journalism, jumping to conclusions for a more sensationalist story.
It's an automatic translation, so wording may be haphazard. I note that "offenbar" (from the original article) can also mean "obvious", as in "It was apparent that the authorities had read her correspondence." Edit: just noticed you had written " my translation", not " the translation". My German is nowhere good enough to translate the article, I'm just working off Google's.
"offenbar" can indeed mean "obviously", but in the context of a news article it's a weasel word more close to "apparently". To a native speaker, this word sounds as though they are presenting facts, but reading closely they are only assuming, just like smartician said.
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the "utterly implausible" part? In the past we've had verified incidents of people being refused entry because of things posted on for instance public Twitter feeds. So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. We also know that once monitoring starts for one purpose, it rapidly exp…
The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication. No, part open to debate is whether they'd risk getting the project discovered by giving a bunch of border officers (probably without any clearance) the tools for accessing, printing out and showing to travelers their private Facebook messages, when they could have: 1. Not use it for visa clearance. 2. Use data-mining to creat…
officers showing evidence to regular civilians
Not even American citizens, at that.
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#64I found this story several hours ago, as well. I found the news to be a possible sensationalist story and didn't even think about posting it on HN. Yes, it is a very interesting story. But it a speculative story. You never know if the media did their research properly or if they just wanted to have more readers. There are other more reputable and trusted news sources in Germany than this one. I don't say it is made up, but some facts could be wrong.
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#65This story seems highly unlikely to be true given the following 4 assumptions: 1) The US Government wanted to maintain the secrecy of the program. 2) Giving the data to a large number of border guards would have increased the chance of its dissemination. 3) It would be unnecessary to show her the data to refuse her admission to the US and showing her would violate #2. 4) She would not be a valuable enough target to e…
You are inventing (and then attempting to disprove) links that are no where other than in your mind. Nothing in this article or HN title mention NSA, PRISM or any thing like it.
Companies provide information to numerous law enforcement agencies all the time. Via agreement, court order, subpoena, etc. No secret NSA databases required.
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
My translation would be "Officials baffled Jana with a printout of her complete Facebook correspondence with her future host. Their allegation: the young woman intended to work illegally in the US. The authorities had apparently been reading Jana's private messages on Facebook for weeks". The key word being "apparently", i.e. bad journalism, jumping to conclusions for a more sensationalist story.
It's an automatic translation, so wording may be haphazard. I note that "offenbar" (from the original article) can also mean "obvious", as in "It was apparent that the authorities had read her correspondence." Edit: just noticed you had written " my translation", not " the translation". My German is nowhere good enough to translate the article, I'm just working off Google's.
Slightly off-topic, but "obvious" would be "offensichtlich" in German. "Offenbar" implies a higher degree of uncertainty. "Scheinbar" or "anscheinend" is even more uncertain, to the point of doubt. And finally, "angeblich" is very questionable, almost an accusation of lying.
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#67It's unclear to me who provided the print-out of Jana's private messages. Obviously it seems much more likely that Jana provided the messages, not Homeland Security. I hired a Canadian once under a TN NAFTA "visa" and he had to bring some correspondence from me to the border. We had to be very careful to word things correctly and not to use specific words that could prevent him from coming to the US. It seems that th…
Data acquisition methods in order of highest probability: 1. ^ This. 2. Was actually public information; story details lost in transmission or translation. 3. Her phone was still logged into Facebook. 4. They gained access to Facebook via links in e-mail. [...] 10. Normal federal law enforcement powers. 11. Special federal law enforcement powers, e.g. Patriot Act. [...] 100. NSA data that requires TS/SAP + full-scope…
They do sometimes ask to see your phone.
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#68If you want to come to US and work illegally and get caught, what do you expect?
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#69This story seems highly unlikely to be true given the following 4 assumptions: 1) The US Government wanted to maintain the secrecy of the program. 2) Giving the data to a large number of border guards would have increased the chance of its dissemination. 3) It would be unnecessary to show her the data to refuse her admission to the US and showing her would violate #2. 4) She would not be a valuable enough target to e…
The publicly viewable Facebook message theory sounds more plausible given that (i) plenty of people seem to have little concept of what is and isn't private in Facebook and (ii) the US does have a track record of denying people entry based on public social media posts: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/31/british-tourists-tweets-... Chances are they got a tipoff or she got caught by profiling or a random check as I do…
An 18 year old entering the country with the intent of staying longer than a few weeks alone will raise eyebrows at the border. Next question will be regarding available funds. How can she afford to travel that long? Staying "with friends" is also suspicious, especially when she hasn't met them in person before.
Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages
#70From a German perspective, it probably doesn't matter at all whether or not this story is even true or how the messages were retrieved if it is true. The US has earned the mistrust of the world.