Trump proposes including Chinese visitors in social media checks

From the article: ..."steps to vet foreigners seeking to enter the U.S., including asking for social media passwords. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told a Congressional hearing last week that the administration was considering asking visitors from some countries to turn over those codes as part of an attempt to screen out potential terrorists."

OK -- total geek question here as a developer. Doesnt the US have a far better way to suck social media information than asking for passwords? Not that I'm saying this is a good thing to do -- but it seems it would be be more efficient to ask for permissions to the profile as most websites and apps do. Then, at least the password remains secure.

Then, also, I presume the entire profile and all spider-able information can be sucked and pushed thru some model rather than a border agent perusing Facebook on your smartphone or doing all this in a cursory fashion.

Again, I'm not saying any of this is good or should actually be done, just, it seems a very odd way of the US government accomplishing their goals.