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

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

#211

Post by xracy »

msgodel wrote: post #126
mrtksn wrote: 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…

> It had nothing to do with safety since there was no provision for remote workers.

Citation needed for all of these claims. Please show me this information in the executive order.

> Keep in mind this was very early on before they had any reasonable amount of time to even test the vaccines.

Sorry, the Moderna vaccines were approved under their expedited schedule under the Trump administration in December of 2020.[1] You're complaining about gov't overreach by the same administration as is implementing the above policy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_the_Un...

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

#213

Post by Gigachad »

ethbr1 wrote: post #142
soco wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call yourself lucky if you're "just" deported, and not sent to (and forgotten in) some unnamed prison abroad in a random exotic country.

Are there any instances where the US has refused to repatriate a foreign citizen whose government was willing to take them back? In the interest of truthfulness, I believe all(?) of the CECOT deportations weren't accepted by their own country. Which doesn't make it right, but does change the situation.

At a minimum you get locked in a damp basement for an unknown amount of time while they book a flight for you, which happened to an Australian journalist recently.

The general vibe I'm hearing in Australia is that people are afraid to travel to the US right now if they have any reason at all to raise suspicion (being trans, having posted political comments, etc).

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

#214

Post by Gigachad »

Daneel_ wrote: post #61
sorokod wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share the definition of social media the excludes HN ?

To me social media platforms are primarily for sharing updates about the lives of people and remaining connected to either friends or followers. HN is primarily a news site that allows discussions - I wouldn't classify it as social media. Heck, Reddit barely qualifies as social media for me. My internal definition is probably two decades out of date, however.

Reddit absolutely counts as social media they want, it's likely much more useful to them than your facebook account since people post a lot more interesting stuff on reddit vs a facebook account. Your comments on this thread are more interesting to dictators than your dog photos on facebook.

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

#216

Post by OKRainbowKid »

msgodel wrote: post #55
OKRainbowKid wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the authorities weren't already aware of the identity of the person who posted that, what's stopping somebody with terrorist intentions from simply omitting that account while applying for a visa? To me, this seems like a grave transgression of privacy with little to no actual safety benefits.

It's a little dumb to just ignore it. People on Visas are guests, it makes sense to ask questions like this that wouldn't ask ordinary citizens. We have been way too relaxed with it and it's nice to see some changes.

If this is how you treat your guests, I don't want to be your guest.

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

#217

Post by ethbr1 »

Gigachad wrote: post #213
ethbr1 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any instances where the US has refused to repatriate a foreign citizen whose government was willing to take them back? In the interest of truthfulness, I believe all(?) of the CECOT deportations weren't accepted by their own country. Which doesn't make it right, but does change the situation.

At a minimum you get locked in a damp basement for an unknown amount of time while they book a flight for you, which happened to an Australian journalist recently. The general vibe I'm hearing in Australia is that people are afraid to travel to the US right now if they have any reason at all to raise suspicion (being trans, having posted political comments, etc).

Overlong detentions with limited communication / ability to contact lawyers should definitely be illegal.

The check on enforcement excess is that one should always have the option to confer with legal council.

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

#218

Post by ujkhsjkdhf234 »

potato3732842 wrote: post #208
ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've misunderstood my point with mentioning that they pax taxes. If more people are paying taxes then more money should be flowing into these programs, doubly so if more people are using them. If that isn't happening then your problem is with funding.

It doesn't matter if they "pay taxes" if they cost more than they put in. If I make $36k/yr doing the kind of string together mcjobs you do at that income level, pay $0 in effective income taxes, pay 10k of consumption taxes and I cost the taxpayer $20k in benefits then the state is $10k in the hole per person who lives that way. You multiply these people and the result is obvious.

The point you're trying to make can equally apply to people simply moving from out of state into your state.

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

#219

Post by ben_w »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #196
DrJaws wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go from Paris to Warsaw, you still won't need a passport, just a basic ID Schengen area travelling around Europe as European is not much more hassle than moving on the US from one state to the other.

Huh, TIL. I had assumed that you needed a passport, they just didn't do border checks.

In addition to the other answers, I'd like to add that the Schengen area, the EU, and the Eurozone are all technically separate, none is a subset of one of the others:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Supranational_Europea...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone

Ireland and Cyprus are in EU & Eurozone but not Schengen; Poland, Hungary (and more) are in EU & Schengen but not Eurozone; Switzerland is in Schengen but neither EU nor Eurozone; Montenegro and Kosovo are in the Eurozone but neither the EU nor Schengen.

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

#220

Post by jaybrendansmith »

msgodel wrote: post #197
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't reason with these people. They don't understand science or biologics. They think it's ok to infect someone's grandparents with COVID-19 and kill or disable them (as what happened to my mother). It's their right as citizens, to spread their filth and pathogens to everybody and refuse the vaccine. In short, it's all about them.

This argument has nothing to do with science. No matter how effective or safe the medicine is forcing medicine on people is invasive.

The science you are speaking of is epidemiology, and has everything to do with science. If I can vaccinate enough people, the disease will not spread. It also falls under various terms: The Common Good, Externalities, and the Responsibilities and Duties of a citizen of the United States. We don't just have rights, we have responsibilities to each other, as human beings. I teach this stuff to Scouts but perhaps you missed the merit badge. It's pretty basic stuff, actually.
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