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German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

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Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#101

Post by Amadou »

laumars wrote: post #87
icebraining wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, according to the article the printouts were provided by the US immigration officials. I think the point is that the facts provided by the article don't seem very likely.

Why don't they seem likely? We already know that the NSA had access to private messages from Facebook and other popular sites.

I expect we will learn that the NSA turned their eye of sauron on occupy protestors, if not within the US then certainly on protestors outside of the US. If this young woman had any involvement with the protests she could well have ended up on a list of those that are regularly monitored.

I'm not saying that is what happened, there are other plausible explanations too. I am just saying that such a scenario is entirely plausible.

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#102

Post by Kylekramer »

laumars wrote: post #87
icebraining wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, according to the article the printouts were provided by the US immigration officials. I think the point is that the facts provided by the article don't seem very likely.

Why don't they seem likely? We already know that the NSA had access to private messages from Facebook and other popular sites.

The real reason it seems unlikely is not about whether they were able to access Facebook messages (though the scope of PRISM is still unclear). It is more that it seems unlikely the NSA or other groups who may be able to get access to private messages care about German teenagers attempting to work in America. Alternative explanations (they got it from the host family, it was actually public, etc.) + vague reporting is just much more probable.

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#103

Post by kawsper »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #90

Just a note of caution, a friend of mine wanted to send their daughter over to visit the US during the summer before she headed off to college. We were of course happy to let her stay at our place which is a good west coast starting point for things California. Somewhere in correspondence where she was trying to ask nicely if she could stay at our place she said "I could watch the kids or something" and later in that…

Was it messages through Facebook?

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#104

Post by danielweber »

njharman wrote: post #65
wtvanhest wrote: post #6

This 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.

He can probably be forgiven for assuming this was supposed to be about the NSA, given that it's a top story on HN, and with the context that 8 of the 10 top stories on HN right now are about NSAgatewater.

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#105

Post by proland »

smartician wrote: post #75
llamataboot wrote: post #58

When my partner (who is from the EU) got to the US this most recent time (she visits here for 90 days at a time, as allowed under VWP rules), immigration pulled her aside with a printout of (public-facing) facebook pages on their desk. Interesting only in that her face book is not under her official name. They had pages and pages of printouts that they thought proved she wasn't simple a tourist, and that she was work…

Interesting. Any theories on how they linked that FB profile to her real name? Maybe through the WHOIS record of her website, that got linked from that Facebook page often enough to imply a relationship?

If someone has had their real name on their profile at any time, and later changed it, it's pretty easy to still find using the real name. Trivially so if they chose a username that contained their real name.

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#106

Post by nano111 »

wtvanhest wrote: post #6

This 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…

plus, they can refuse entry to any non-citizens for any reason or no reason

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#107

Post by laumars »

rieter wrote: post #89
rbehrends wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously it seems much more likely that Jana provided the messages, not Homeland Security. No, according to the article the printouts were provided by the US immigration officials. In fact, the article draws the inference that the US authorities may have been reading her private Facebook messages for weeks. I'm a native speaker of German; there really isn't any ambiguity here.

> the US authorities may have been reading her private Facebook messages for weeks. That's ridiculous and puts the whole article under doubt. Nobody would waste that much time on her.

I disagree, It's already well documented how the US government follows social networks and decline people entry over comments made[1].

Where this case differs is that the comments were over private messages - which means that the intel would have been collated covertly. So the real question is whether this is another piece of the PRISM jigsaw or just a sensationalist article cashing in on the hysteria that the NSA leaks have generated.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/30/leigh-van-bryan-a... (though in that case - I actually blame the visitors for posting dumb comments rather than the US government)

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#108

Post by cantos »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #86
zmitri wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do sometimes ask to see your phone.

Do you recall any specific story where they ask you to unlock it?

All electronic devices are subject to search at the U.S. border.

http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/crcl-bor...

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#109

Post by jrockway »

magic_haze wrote: post #22
Tenoke wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that the authorities are using their access to her facebook messages for something so trivial and this openly (if they actually did). Additionally, she was not even an american citizen or resident.

> Additionally, she was not even an american citizen or resident. In all probability, it's /because/ she's not an american citizen or resident. The fourth amendment doesn't apply for non-persons.

Actually, the Constitution does apply to people that are not US citizens. However, it's the "law of the land" and the border (and other countries) is not part of that land.

Re: German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

#110

Post by icebraining »

darkarmani wrote: post #95
icebraining wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, according to the article the printouts were provided by the US immigration officials. I think the point is that the facts provided by the article don't seem very likely.

> I think the point is that the facts provided by the article don't seem very likely. Exactly! How would the US gov't have access to someone's private correspondences on Facebook? They'd having to be spying on FB's users for that to be the case...

That's not the part that I find unlikely.
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