US Customs wants to collect social media account names at the border

I was always very confused/amused by the questions at the border:

"Are you a terrorist or affiliate with a terrorist organization?" "Are you a secret spy"

Why would anyone say yes? What's the purpose of this. Do they just need it to avoid arguments like "we dont even ask?"

A friend of mine explained it to me:

- let's say that they have the suspicion or evidence that you are affiliated w/ a terrorist organization. by US law they would need to prove this in front of a court before they could act on it. OR they could simply show that you lied at entry and use that to expel you from the country. Simple. Done.

I am unsure what the deeper goal behind the social media accounts is but i assume it also connects to a similar strong arm argument like that.

"Of course my good sir, it's @uspatriot2015."

Now, let's all agree to not tell them we can have more than one account!

Or to be slightly more specific, I'll give them the facebook account where I dutifully like all the boring funny dog videos and ugly baby photos of relatives, and I'll keep my seditious rabble rousing anti-establishment twitter ac to myself.

Likely unnecessary.

1. Unless you are taking extraordinary measures to sever all connections between yourself and your online presence, odds are there are enough links for any Government to tie a person to an account. Given how much is collected at the border already along with the big-data collected passively by the various TLA Government Orgs, they simply need to pop in your Passport ID or Drivers License or State ID and they'll have the relevant data; this collection seems more or less like a convenience to the government if anything. Same goes for foreigners, given the reaches of the various NSA programs; just pop in any number from some database and you'll likely get a match.

2. You have no obligation to use social media, and I don't think the government is going to mandate its use (I mean, I wouldn't put it past certain politicians, but yeah). Setting up a sanitized account honestly would draw more suspicion than anything, especially if it was on the heels of an announcement or proclamation that they're suddenly requiring or requesting such information. Regular social media users have fairly regular patterns, and barring some real dedication to the sanitized account, it'd be pretty easy for TLAs to figure out if it's a front or not. Not that it would immediately warrant investigation, it's just it feels like theatre more than a practical protection.

If I wanted to get real conspiracy theorist on this, this motion is just a front that allows the government to segue into actually including this stuff as part of standard background checks, which they likely are already doing with questionable legality. That is, the inclusion of the field is just formalizing what they're already doing, so that the articles that inevitably would arise have less "oomph" behind their reaction. It's not as shocking to the public if the government is surveilling social media when the government outright asks for your info. There's no real smoking gun, just a bunch of guys in suits going "yeah, we asked you for it."

This is a symptom of the constant disrespect for privacy within the US government, not some new issue that's arisen. The same thinking that leads to the NSA led to this, and it's honestly not too unusual that they are asking for it. If anything, my initial reaction was less "How dare they!" and more "was wondering when you'd get to this point."

Indeed Israel does it, but only for Arabic or Muslim tourists that present certain characteristics - political engagement for instance. So it does exist but it's really not mainstream

I find it really problematic: when you fill the US borders paperwork, you are supposed to give objective admin/personal details while on social media you are supposed to speak up your mind. Where do you place the limit between somebody that publicly criticizes the US foreign policy and somebody that can be a threat? How are they going to handle people who posted something like "The US knew about the 9/11 attacks"?