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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

#11

Post by rbehrends »

valdiorn wrote: post #5

"Finally, the officials baffled Jana submitted a printout of the entire Facebook correspondence with their host-father. " Maybe something is lost in translation, but could the officials just have received the correspondence from the family she was coming to visit??

Given that the article claims that it happened to another girl, too, this is unlikely.

Obviously, the problem is not that they were denied entry (as far as I can tell, they did violate US immigration law), but how the US authorities learned about it, namely by accessing private Facebook correspondence.

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

#12

Post by nahreally »

ColinWright wrote: post #2

Yes. When asked the reason for her visit she said it was to visit family, friends, and do an English course. Her Facebook "private messages" showed that she was there to be an au pair , which means to do housework and child-minding in return for money. In short, she was lying and got caught. And after all the recent brouhaha, are you surprised that the authorities had access to her "private" Facebook messages? Added…

I think the idea was that people should feel outrage because they found out about this kiddy, small-time, mockery of a fraud by reading some random civilian's chat logs.

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

#13

Post by rcthompson »

ColinWright wrote: post #2

Yes. When asked the reason for her visit she said it was to visit family, friends, and do an English course. Her Facebook "private messages" showed that she was there to be an au pair , which means to do housework and child-minding in return for money. In short, she was lying and got caught. And after all the recent brouhaha, are you surprised that the authorities had access to her "private" Facebook messages? Added…

The point is that she was caught only because the authorities had access to her Facebook messages. That's obviously why this story was submitted here.

The only justification the executive branch has given for all these spying powers is anti-terror efforts. If the US border agents indeed obtained her private messages from Facebook (and not from her prospective employer), then this would show that the government's access to such data is being abused.

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

#16

Post by rollo_tommasi »

ColinWright wrote: post #2

Yes. When asked the reason for her visit she said it was to visit family, friends, and do an English course. Her Facebook "private messages" showed that she was there to be an au pair , which means to do housework and child-minding in return for money. In short, she was lying and got caught. And after all the recent brouhaha, are you surprised that the authorities had access to her "private" Facebook messages? Added…

The real question (assuming this story is true in the particulars) is why were they accessing her private messages in the first place? Was there any kind of flag, or do the border police just do random spot-checks into people's private correspondence?

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

#17

Post by roin »

Should we infer that the NSA or some other government organization used a FISA request to read a German girl's Facebook messages about her upcoming au pair work in the US? This seems very unlikely, and I believe would be a clear violation of FISA unless they also thought she was a terrorist or spy.

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

#18

Post by doktrin »

sauravc wrote: post #4

Is this the only news outlet with this story? How credible is this publication? Before I get worked up about this story, I'd like to know it's not bullshit.

I agree. It sounds utterly implausible on just about every conceivable level.

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

#20

Post by jcomis »

Perhaps she posted her intent to work illegally in a public facebook post and not only via PM? Or perhaps her host family was under the impression she was official and triggered some sort of alert when they were arranging things (if she for example, listed them as a contact when she got to customs). The typical au pair process from Germany is quite strict and time consuming to get a visa for a 1 year stay, I've had a few friends come to the US to do it. You most definitely need a work visa to be an au pair and she was attempting to violate her tourist visa in two ways, by overstaying the 90 days allowed, and by working. A lot of things could be going on here.
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