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US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

bbc.co.uk

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Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#91

Post by embedding-shape »

rayiner wrote: post #53
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #41

What of those who have virtually no footprint? Almost the only thing I have is LinkedIn, which is always only as up to date as the last time I changed jobs, which I don't do often. No Facebook, insta, snap, twitter, tiktok. I subscribe to maybe five channels on YouTube. My HN account isn't linked to my main 'identity' email address so I could hide it just by having a clean phone (which I do for international travel a…

Then just say that. Customs has some list that's automatically generated based on a Google search or something like that, and all they're doing is trying to catch you lying. Like the TSA, this screening is done by the lowest common denominator of government employee to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive.

> to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive

My guess from the outside, is that none of these actions are actually meant to "capture" or even "detect" any of those things, the methods are likely to inefficient and small to be able to do so.

What they're trying to do, is make those people not even consider going to the US in the first place, because they're scared of getting caught. Same as a lot of the ICE actions and other things going on. They're not meant to be efficiently solving some concrete issue with their action, they're meant to scare the rest of the populace into being docile and accepting more and more control over time.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#92

Post by rjsw »

FabCH wrote: post #31
voidUpdate wrote: post #20

What is classed as a social media? I expect they'd want to view by personal instagram, but what about my old business Xitter account that I can't even get into because something went wonky with the 2fa? What about my github? My HN account? Do they want to see my discord history? How will they find my accounts anyway? Not all of them are under the same account name, real name or email address

Laws are not enforced by machines, but by humans. The answer to all of those is "yes" and they will not bother to find them, they will ask you to list them. Omitting information or providing false information on your visa application is a felony. It's the same logic as behind the "Are you a terrorist?" question. Lying is itself a crime, and can be used to prosecute you in the future.

You used to be asked "Are you a gunrunner?", we all had to lie about that.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#93

Post by perihelions »

bilekas wrote: post #10

I'm going to assume it's then going to be considered suspicious if you don't happen to have any social media for at least the last 5 years ?

There's no right to entry at US borders; you can be arbitrarily refused (or much worse) for any subjective suspicion.

(And you are misled by assumptions of privilege, any readers who think this could never happen to you. Your social non-conformity (rejection of social media) is quirky and geeky and completely harmless; and surely the nice government man will understand this).

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#94

Post by egorfine »

saxenaabhi wrote: post #29
mothballed wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but they'll make your day extremely unpleasant before deporting you or if a USC letting you in. A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP 1) Told I could not enter the country. Held up for 3-24 hours in holding areas. Officials come in and claim they will revoke my passport under "national security"-esque grounds. Lots of bluffing and huffing and puffing. Diesel…

Wait what did I just read? This sounds horrible and pure evil and not worthy of america. My sympathies are with you!

> My sympathies are with you!

Is there anything you can do about it?

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#95

Post by andsoitis »

mothballed wrote: post #87
andsoitis wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote: > A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP What happened that caused you to “invoke your right to remain silent”? When you enter a country, including the US, you are asked some pretty standard questions that would be weird to refuse to answer. What question did you not want to answer?

I answered the questions on what I had to declare and anything regarding my identity and citizenship, along with presenting my passport. I also will answer the question to which countries I've been to, although I know of no requirement to do so. I will answer the question about whether I have currency and instruments exceeding $10,000. Other than that I will not answer, nor am I aware of any requirement to do so. Thi…

Ok, so you still don’t say which specific question you refused to answer.

> This caused me to be fucked with mercilessly for about 10 years.

And this happened 10 years ago? I do not see how that connects to discussion of the current tightening of immigration rules, to be honest.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#96

Post by daveoc64 »

dogemaster2028 wrote: post #59
akie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My social media is full of rants about the ongoing trend of bringing fascism to the US and the authoritarian and repressive tendencies of the current president. Am I not allowed to say that?

You are allowed to say it. Unlike UK, you won’t be arrested. But you won’t be allowed in. Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

>Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

There's a difference between saying that you disagree with the way that a country is being run, and wanting to be violent or pursue criminal activity against that country or its people.

What you're missing is that the former should be legal in any democracy (and is in the UK), and the latter shouldn't be legal anywhere (and isn't in the UK).

You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.

I know which side of the pond I'd rather be on.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#97

Post by BLKNSLVR »

jsheard wrote: post #22
lawn wrote: post #14

> who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment or violence The regime will simple classify pro-LBQT, anti-MAGA, and anti-Trump comments as "threats to national security" or as supporting terrorism. Also funny how anti-Semitic harassment is emphasized, while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harass…

> Also funny how anti-Semitic harassment is emphasized, while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not. That's because they're using "perpetuating antisemitism" as code for "being mean to Israel". It's not really about fighting discrimination, that's just a cover framing which sells better than mandatory allegence to a foreign state.

It's the same as when they say "the free market".

The free market is the one with the winners they've chosen. And the winner is Israel and the losers are all the other minorities.

I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-killing-in-general; I'm anti-collateral-damage; I'm anti-kidnapping-of-anyone-especially-children. I could go on.

There's a lot of bad on both sides. Only acknowledging the bad on one side is a denial of reality, and denying reality is never a sustainable position.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#99

Post by vidarh »

dogemaster2028 wrote: post #59
akie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My social media is full of rants about the ongoing trend of bringing fascism to the US and the authoritarian and repressive tendencies of the current president. Am I not allowed to say that?

You are allowed to say it. Unlike UK, you won’t be arrested. But you won’t be allowed in. Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

I live in the UK and have said worse than that about UK governments under full name with no negative effects.

The idea you'll be arrested for mere criticism of the government in the UK is utter nonsense.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#100

Post by estearum »

kutterry wrote: post #52
estearum wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely speaking, they're looking to catch any critique of Israel because it'll provide a broad dragnet that will exclude a lot of Muslims and libs. (I'm not just saying this to be inflammatory. We already know the administration has been going after legal immigrants on the basis of criticisms of Israel. This is a completely reasonable connection to this social media policy.)

[flagged]

Sure, but I don't think we have any evidence the administration has a problem with you. Nor do they have a problem with anti-semitism itself. They have a problem with the people I mentioned.
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