31–40 of 257 posts
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…
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…
Hardly takes a genius. A couple pages of FB wall would take you back a few weeks as well, the agent probably just hit Print.
It'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…
"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??
Does anyone have a link to a human translated version of story?
After completing high school, Jana H. wanted to go abroad to the land of unlimited opportunity – the United States of America. She organized her own au pair exchange. Found a nice family she wanted to work for and live with for a year. For agreed-upon daily spending money, Jana would take care of the children. At the same time, she wanted to take a language course to improve her English. She had regular contact with her host father through Facebook.
When the high school graduate finally landed in the US, she was taken to the side and questioned at the passport control in the airport. The officials at the American immigration agency wanted to know the reasons for her travel and how long she wanted to stay.
Wrong answers
Jana was ready for this kind of question. She wanted to visit friends of her parents and take an English course. Was she sure of that? was the next question. Yes, she was sure. Really, really sure?
Finally, the officials presented the astounded Jana with a print-out of the entire Facebook correspondence she had had with her host father. Their accusation: The young woman wanted to work in the States illegally. The authorities had obviously read along in Jana's private messages on the social network Facebook for weeks. Jana was not allowed to enter. The next airplane brought the 18-year-old back to Germany.
It wasn't an isolated incident. The dream of another youth of an internship on a horse ranch in the US also never came to fruition due to snooped Facebook messages – he, too, ended up right back at the airport after the flight over the pond.
291 words.
"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??
Native German speaker here. The article alleges that "apparently" authorities had been monitoring their private correspondence for weeks. I highly doubt that this was the case. Usually it works like this: Once you're deemed suspicious at the passport control, you're sent for "secondary inspection" to an office in the back. There, you're being questioned further, and officials will search publicly available informatio…
It'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…
The key word being "apparently", i.e. bad journalism, jumping to conclusions for a more sensationalist story.
It'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…
It'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…
This may well be the same- even if the girl did not intend to show those messages to the border control agents, they can search her suitcase for evidence to then later present to her. So, to the extent that the word "provided" does not also imply "voluntarily", I suspect you're right.
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.
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 expands to other use case. This pattern repeats itself around the world.
The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication.
So you're suggesting that everything published about the nature of US surveillance until this very day, including the recent PRISM-related publications, is all "utterly implausible"?
Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible, albeit suspiciously thin on concrete facts.
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.