Hacker News Reader

Comment by nodesocket | Hacker News Reader

I am failing to see how providing your Facebook password provides any legitimate confirmation about you and your associations. You can easily create a fake Facebook profile with your picture, fake posts, fake friends, fake everything.

The internet is a cesspool of people who troll, create fake profiles, invoke reactions, behave completely different than they would on the streets, and intentionally hide their identity. Using it as a primary source of identity verification is a terrible idea.

Why not require proof of a financial statement? Bank account in your name, or a process to verify somebody via their bank account without requiring their bank account password.

View on HN

It won't be primary. A surprising number of people post dumb things, or even talk about their plans to violate their visa conditions while in line for entry. This'll catch a lot of mundane violations, like folks planning on working or permanently residing in the country while claiming they're just visiting for a week. It's very intrusive and I'm against it, but it will be quite effective.

Most people aren't gonna create fake profiles. Or if they do, they'll be suspiciously empty. If someone is gonna go through that effort to get entry they probably can just refrain from posting their plans online in the first place.

You really think there won't be industry of creating and maintaining fake profiles?

I've seen people talk about their plans to enter under false premises while in line at Houston (IAH). Talking about how they're gonna work as a nanny or whatever. CBP has folks walking around and sometimes they ask spot questions and suss these people out. I imagine the same will happen.

People who will go thru the hassle of dealing with a fake profile will just not post about their plans to enter "illegally" in the first place. People prone to writing dumb shit online are probably not going to wise up because of this.

> It's very intrusive and I'm against it, but it will be quite effective.

It will be effective initially, but people will catch wind of this and start to purge their Facebook profiles prior to entry. I'm certain that cheap online "Facebook cleaning" services will start to pop up very soon.

> You can easily create a fake Facebook profile with your picture, fake posts, fake friends, fake everything.

Perjuring yourself to a border agent is inadvisable. The legal threat follows you whether or not you are granted or denied entry. At any time, it may be discovered and lead to very serious criminal and administrative consequences.

If you simply refuse to give over the password, they can refuse entry. But they can't necessarily treat you as an actual criminal.

It is never a good idea to lie to, mislead or interfere with law enforcement officers. If you are having trouble, get a lawyer as quickly as you can.

Speaking of which: I am not a lawyer and consequently this is not legal advice.

There is no legal obligation to be truthful in what one places on their Facebook profile, however, so it's not perjuring. You can out on whatever you like and it's up to the border agent to make of it whatever they will.

In criminal law, intention matters as much as actions.

I suspect the that deliberately creating a false profile would push you into perjury territory. And in any case, even if the rulings come down otherwise, you'll still get arrested and remanded for a long time while the lawyers sort it out.

Again, though: I am not a lawyer. Consult a lawyer.

Sure, you can provide a fake profile. And then they'll find out your real one (Facebook will certainly be compelled to help out) and you're now guilty of lying to the border officials, and probably banned for a long time, if not for life.

How would they discover you provided a fake profile in the first place? Sure they might be able to catch a percentage of people, but not nearly all of them.

The NSA.

A: Most people aren't gonna bother, or do this right. B: Most people will leave their original profile up, so quickly searching might find that person's photo with another account. C: There will probably be a lack of activity. "You signed up for Facebook 1 month ago?" "Why do you have no friends talking about this trip?" etc.

People that don't want to get caught entering under false pretenses can just delete social media or not post dumb stuff on it in the first place. This isn't gonna catch spies[1] and terrorists or whatever, it'll prevent visa overstays and stuff like that.

[1] Though I heard of one spy getting caught cause she tried to collect frequent flier miles on her main account while traveling under aliases. So, who knows what kinda things will happen every now and then. But that can't be the primary aim of the idea.

Depends on whether they decide they want a reason to get you out of the country later. How much do you speak against the regime? They won't be interested in most people but they will target their efforts.

Do we really need the USA anyway? What is honestly being lost if we're banned?

> Do we really need the USA anyway? What is honestly being lost if we're banned?

Good, don't come then. I've traveled the world a decent bit, and there is a reason why people from all over the world come to the US to start a business or try to make financial independence and a better life from their home country.

That may be changing.

That has been/is changing.

Good you did, soon visa might be hard to get.

In many cases its because of ignorance -- America's cultural dominance simply makes it the default rich nation to try to enter. Many are shocked (in one case I vividly remember, to tears) to hear how much better life is for many in mainstream developed nations than it is in the US.

I wouldn't phrase it like that but, yes, there are ~200 countries in the world.

Things like this (and this[1]) just help destroy the idea that the US is a special haven of freedom that cause many people to want to visit in the first place.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13453189

Millions of dollars in lifetime earnings for most of my friends. And they're not even from poor countries, they're from Canada :/

I had choice to move to UK, Canada or Australia.

At least in my opinion USA is one of the last countries on earth which is offering near 100% freedom of speech, largely free trade and individual freedom, right to own guns and many other things which you can not own without nonsensical bureaucracy, huge landmass, top notch education and a growing capitalistic society.

The way I see it countries like France, UK are pretty much going down the drain through which welfare states often go. In these countries government perhaps don't even need your password. They can do all sort of unauthorized searches any ways. Australian society remains hostile to non white people and China lacks individual and political freedom. Canada is close but it is far too cold for me. Japan is pretty much isolated because of the language and unique culture.

It's just as ridiculous as those forms you are asked to fill when entering the US as a foreigner.

For example:

> Do you seek to engage in terrorist activities while in the United States?

Another example of an absurd question like that was one I was asked when I was applying for my visa; along the lines of "are you planning to commit espionage for another country against the United States". I assume they do it so they can pin you for perjury as well was whatever crime you committed should you turn out to be a spy. But it's just so absurd when asked deadpan like that.

Sure that question is dumb, but it's not at all comparable to forcing you to turn over a password. Why would you make that false equivalence?

Because you can as easily create a fake social media profile

They're just getting you to incriminate yourself. The standard of proof for excluding someone for lying on the forms is quite different from convicting them of an actual terrorism-related crime.

The reason for those is to then quickly provide a way to invalidate their visa and have an administratively easy path to kick them out without having to go to court and such. Terrorist activities doesn't mean blowing things up, it could be open to all kinds of interpretation (donated money to some organization, protested and was arrested for rioting, went to a black-hat conference which had talks about subverting security systems of power plants etc, etc).

Any statue establishing those could also establish that those are proper cause for immediate deportation, no need for fancy forms and logic-gymnastics.

Those are just to make people easily deportable if they're found to have lied.

So if such person engages in a terrorist act having lied on a form would matter at all?

They will make you sign a document that would be something like

"I confirm under penalty of perjury that this is the only social media account I have." Later when the government wants to target you specifically they will point out that you had also owned an Orkut account which you had failed to disclose. Bam! you have to leave the country.

All of that (identifiable info such as bank accounts or other docs) is already required when you are applying for the visa in the first place

Reply on news.ycombinator.com