'Extreme vetting' would require visitors to US to share contacts and passwords | Hacker News Reader

'Extreme vetting' would require visitors to US to share contacts and passwords

theguardian.com

80 pointsfinid68 comments

I'm wondering how my company would react if I declined any further traveling to the US on business trips. I hated the experience at the US border controls before, but that goes definitely way beyond anything I would find acceptable.

The cost to the US economy would be way beyond the tiny gains in security, if there would even be any.

Each time I visiting US I hate waiting in a long queue for a pass check.

They will find someone who will. Right?

Or not.

> if there would even be any.

There wouldn't be. There is no good way to verify someone has access to any given social media account. If you just say you don't have an account how do they prove you wrong. Hand 'em your phone with a clean browser history and no apps installed, then start using your real equipment later.

On the flip side the first time a journal is "randomly" selected and is forced to give up password this policy will come under extreme scrutiny and lots of people will be yelling.

> Hand 'em your phone with a clean browser history and no apps installed, then start using your real equipment later.

Sure fire way to end up being turned away at the border.

Are they going to turn back everyone with a new or clean phone?

Are they going to turn back everyone who refuses to give social media logins, and everyone who claims not to have a social media account?

The article and quotes in it make it sound like they will turn away people who refuse. The article and my earlier post included not having accounts in the grey area that makes this look unenforceable.

I took 30 seconds to come up with my of ways to defeat this. Clearly it is a stupid rule and in my opinion a cheap attempt to garner votes by politicians looking for high visibility low impact things they can do. I say low impact because someone dumb enough to support this isn't smart enough to see all the negatives it can have as well, for the person seeking votes the negatives here are low impact.

No, but they're going to turn away anyone who thinks they're going to outsmart a guy with nothing to do but make your day more difficult by wiping their phone and claiming they don't use social media or email.

If you claim to not use social media, have a top of the range movie device and/or high powered portable computer, both completely clean with no signs of use, and a smug "I don't use social media" response, you're only going to make your trip more painful, and risk getting turned away.

That is why this rule is going to hurt the US more than help it. It comes with a real cost, but that cost is hard to measure. That one traveler that is turned away, won't pay for a hotel, any food, or any tourism. That will cost jobs in the long run.

The terrorist arriving will have time to carefully craft fake accounts not related to his real ones.

This is just more reason to think the rule is stop and clearly a political move to strengthen the xenophobic base.

They might if the find the "real equipment" undeclared in your bag.

Someone looking to smuggle something in have a plethora of options, like the mail.

Or buying a local burner phone and putting apps and contacts on that from the web.

Or putting a hidden partition on the phone TrueCrypt style.

Or spending 5 minutes thinking about the problem and taking some action.

All the terror attacks involving foreign nationals here in the US involved months of time. Presuming this is a real rule and not a piece of political showmanship this rule wouldn't have stopped any attack. Presuming this is a piece of political showmanship and not a rule, it can be quietly ignored and used to attract votes from xenophobes.

With iOS, just backup your device before travel. Reset. Configure it with basic, but real, accounts. Say an email address you don't use much, some photos (real, but not all of them), maybe your full music catalog so you've got options on the flight. A handful of useful apps (like your airline, hotel, a couple chat clients). Once entered, reset and restore from backup. I imagine a very similar solution would work for Android.

EDIT: Meant this for the GP.

That sounds like a lot of work for something you shouldn't have to do. Are people going to have to do this with their business phones and laptops? This whole situation just seems all so ridiculous and prohibitive.

Certainly it's ridiculous. Just offering an alternative to entering with a blank slate device, or a device with all your information on it.

I'd rather leave my device behind than go through the hassle of setting up that sort of breadcrumb trail. Even more effective.

Or no phone at all. I don't believe they have been made compulsory, so far.

They don't need a good way of verification to hassle and throw you out for it. (And many people have social media accounts that are quite well-connected to their identity)

I really don't understand the logic that leads to decisions like this. The vaaaaaaast majority of recent terror attacks in the US have been committed by US citizens.

There really doesn't seem to be any reason for this decision except bigotry and xenophobia.

It's security theater for those Americans who have been lied to that the world outside their town is significantly more violent or dangerous by the media at large (the whole if it bleeds it leads thing has finally become its own reality for the US newscast watcher). And it garners votes to a significant degree which bothers me. I'm thinking of leaving entirely since I can't imagine the domestic front being any more friendly if this cements a permanent trend. I don't want to pay for or be party to a government that sees enemies around every corner. I thought the cold war was fought and won on the basis that such ideologies don't work. I guess I was wrong.

Security Theatre. Tsa Middleman X sells the idea to Tsa Boss Y who then sells it to Political Hack Z who sells it to Elected Narcissist K who sells it to the public as "we're defending you hard! Keep voting for us and you'll be safe!". Everyone in the chain has to justify his job and bonuses; "well, things look ok, we'll just keep doing what we're doing" is not a good strategy for that.

>except bigotry and xenophobia.

When those values win elections, they then become policy. We've seen it countless times in history.

There's no mastermind behind this. Its politics and very much a campaign promise 62m voters approved last November. I don't think we need to be in denial about who is behind this. Its straight from the top, not some TSA nobody writing new rules.

It is just xenophobia and bigotry pure and simple. You rile up a bunch of people to be afraid of some group you can "other" (like Syrian muslims) then you stoke that fear with whatever happens, no matter the details. San Bernardino! Nice! Belgium! Xenophobia only requires the thinnest of threads of realism to become full blown.

Divide people into groups and then make certain groups the scapegoat for whatever problems your society has. A time honored tradition.

True. Also from the article:

   The Journal report said the DHS official working on the review said 
   questions under consideration included whether visa applicants believe in 
   so-called honor killings, how they view the treatment of women in society, 
   whether they value the “sanctity of human life” and who they view as a 
   legitimate target in a military operation.

Do they possibly think people won't figure out the right answers?

Well there was a time 15-20 years ago when you had to fill a form with questions such "do you come to America to kill the president?" and some people still managed to answer yes to that question and end up denied entry and added to a ban list if lucky.

What do you mean? You still have to answer these questions if you want the simplest of US visas. Source: I've done it.

What's the right answer to the last one? All men of military age?

>majority of recent terror attacks in the US have been committed by US citizens.

Is there like a list/spreadsheet/wiki/website of "recent terror attacks" with stats like this (i.e. Birthplace of perpetrator, citizenship of perp, religion of perp, number of injuries caused, number of deaths caused, immediate financial loss caused, etc.)?

What do you consider 'vaaaaaast majority'? And over what time range?

Also, the issue with homegrown terror is that you can't preemptively kick those people out. This vetting wouldn't stop 100% of terror attacks, but it could help prevent terror attacks that are preventable.

> What do you consider 'vaaaaaast majority'? And over what time range?

Since the most recent war in Iraq? Since 9/11? Since I was born? I don't think the time range really matters — it's still a notable exception when a terrorist is not a U.S. citizen.

> Also, the issue with homegrown terror is that you can't preemptively kick those people out.

But you can, you know, arrest them.

It's not about logic, it's politics as usual. Sometimes it is about pushing an agenda.

That's not an incentive for visiting the US as tourist, nor for business. I would expect that from North Korea, and not from "the land of freedom", unless foreigners are not considered human beings anymore there.

Phrases like "The Land of Freedom" are some of the best marketing of all time. How well does marketing typically match reality?

The US is a country of freedom [1], I have no doubt. And I would like citizens, and residents in general, get as much freedom as possible. I hope it stays free, so everyone could enjoy their people and their cool stuff, for mutual fun and profit :-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World#Country_r...

I agree we are freer than we could be. But the poor are not nearly as free as the rich, the black as free as the white nor the citizens not as free as the corporations.

Too bad we don't have as much freedom as our richcorporations.

Sure. There are places like e.g. North Korea where "rich corporations" don't abuse the "poor". In my opinion "rich corporations" are necessary, because Civilization requires economy of scale. And because centralized/planned ("socialist") economy is not flexible, better you learn to deal with "rich corporations" and hope where you live citizens keep their rights while dealing with a complex context.

You lost me when you jumped from "rich corporation are necessary" to "civilization requires economy of scale".

There were no rich corporation until very recently in the history of civilizations, this pretty much debunks the part where rich corporations are necessary.

Sure, you don't need economy of scale if economy of subsistence is enough for you.

I think you are artificially connecting the two. I think you can have economy of scale without having rich corporations. There are many kinds of wealth and risk aggregation schemes that are potentially better than giving huge amounts of wealth to a single point of failure.

According to this source the US is as free as brazil, chile, barbados, estonia, hungary, etc.

It feels like this is not giving the full pictures. According to the report[1] its aggregate score is 89/100 down from 90 with freedom of press and freedom of internet. Same article says in overview:

  in recent years the country’s democratic institutions have 
  suffered some erosion, as reflected in legislative 
  gridlock, dysfunction in the criminal justice system, and 
  growing disparities in wealth and economic opportunity.

Then reporter without borders tells us the US is 41th on freedom of press:

  US media freedom, enshrined in the First Amendment to the 
  1787 constitution, has encountered a major obstacle – the 
  government’s war on whistleblowers who leak information 
  about its surveillance activities, spying and foreign 
  operations, especially those linked to counter-terrorism. 
  Furthermore, US journalists are still not protected by a 
  federal “shield law” guaranteeing their right not to 
  reveal their sources and other confidential work-related 
  information.

For internet freedom, the US is on the enemies of the internet list since 2014[3].

US ranking on the Human Freedom Index went steadily from 16th in 2008 to 23th in 2014[4]. On the Democracy Index it got demoted from full democracy to flawed democracy in 2016 before trump got elected[5]. In terms of economic freedom the US right after Qatar and Taïwan and right before Romania[6].

I'd like to see how this supposed freedom would hold if the US wasn't one of the worse if not the worst offender in terms of energy and resources consumption and waste. From the rest of the world the US is free to ruin the world for everybody, free to watch tv, get morbidly obese on junk food and to choose between brand A and brand B.

[1]: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/united-st...

[2]: https://rsf.org/en/united-states

[3]: http://12mars.rsf.org/2014-en/#slide2

[4]: https://framapic.org/8p2WjK12neKn/LlmHYvBl0Nu3.png

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Freedom_of_the_World

You keep telling yourself that. I've never seen a first world country where so many people are so afraid of cops, the law, the lack of accessibly health care, and the general uncertainty of their future in the labor force.

Having to go through US borders' security is an incentive to never come back either as visitor or for business. Only reason would be family but then it would be preferable if family came to visit instead of going into the mad madness of the fools.

Why does the headline present this as a known fact, while the sub-headline clarifies the fact that this is just a theoretical and unconfirmed possibility?

"Trump administration’s proposed changes may mean travelers from countries including UK, France, Australia and Japan have to share digital information" (emphasis mine).

Maybe they could wait to report until they actually know the information they're reporting on?

I'm afraid I've learned to totally disregard headlines containing weasel words like "may", "might", "could", etc. It's a sign of motivated manipulation of information and click-baitism.

By the time you definitely know what a new policy means its too late to do anything about it. In this case, there is most definitely a policy making its way through the administration, and the problems described by the article are on the table. The mays/coulds/woulds are simply a reflection of the changing nature of an unfinished document.

The insinuation that the Guardian is just making it up is wrong on its face. Example:

[Homeland Security Secretary] Kelly told a House homeland security committee hearing in February: “We want to say for instance, ‘What sites do you visit? And give us your passwords,’ so that we can see what they do on the internet. If they don’t want to give us that information then they don’t come.”

So what's a newspaper supposed to do? Not report on it until it is signed law?

You mean they should wait till they get quotes from government officials discussing the methods of extreme vetting? Wait, they did that. "May" means "if Trump gets his way." It does not mean the WSJ is making up their own ideas of what Trump might do.

Normally I agree with you. Most of the time this happens, it's a journalist creating a story where there is none.

But in this case someone relevant and notable (the "senior counselor to homeland security secretary") is making this representation to government ("House homeland security committee") so I think the article is newsworthy in general.

You refer specifically to one statement that does seem unsubstantiated though (a nameless "senior official" is pretty weaselly); I agree with you there.

It could be related with the fact that trump proposed change have been rejected so far. And informing people about it is the way to help preventing such proposed change from happening.

So IMHO it's good that they report it.

Sounds pretty counterproductive, unless it's designed to keep out democrats / supporters, not terrorists. Under this system, any serious terrorist is just going to create a clean legend. Just because terrorists are terrible people doesn't mean they are also lazy.

>Just because terrorists are terrible people doesn't mean they are also lazy.

Great point. However, this is the same group that thinks a wall is going to deter multi-millionaire drug lords.

As soon as this happens you can say goodbye to the US as the global business hub.

> Trump administration’s proposed changes may mean travelers from countries including UK, France, Australia and Japan have to share digital information

This is absolute garbage. Like everything rating machine DJT does this is hopefully only for headlines. If it does really happen though expect those countries to impose the exact same restrictions on us.

Like most Trump plans it doesn't make practical sense. If this password disclosure was to become a true process once people are aware they will take corrective actions to hide their online identities. This will stop nothing but it will impact all of us. I know I am not going to give up my personal details at the border of any country and it's not fair to expect anyone else to do that entering this country.

This administration is just so depressing day in and day out, absolute pandering to the most backwards looking Americans.

AFAIK something similar already happens and has been happening at the US border for some years, this proposed change is attempting to put into law and generalize an existing practice.

The article states that this would affect travelers on tourist visas from visa-waiver countries. Madness.

Hopefully this is just a trial balloon that will get shot down in a normal policy process—these are just ideas being considered.

This is not necessary. The NSA can get, or already has gotten, this information. I guess all that intergovernmental data sharing after 9/11 has stopped, or maybe even the NSA hates the TSA.

The NSA having the data NSA does not mean it can be used directly, IIRC FBI and police forces are required to make an investigation to pretend that's how the found out.

... but only if the target is domestic. NSA is supposed to spy all they want to on foreign targets.

It seems the Trump people are completely ignorant of the practice of taqiyya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiya).

Aside from the obvious issues of principle, why don't people just say they don't have social accounts? I actually don't have Facebook but even if I did it seems like a border agent would have a tough time finding it and linking it to me. It all just seems so unenforceable.

My guess is with enough data collection they'll be able to verify that via your friends. The same way that even if you don't use gmail, virtually all your friends do, so practically speaking google sees all your email even if you don't use it.

They can catch you. Lying to federal agents is not a good idea if you want to stay out of prison.

What if I really don't have one, or someone else created one in my name unbeknownst to me ?

Not having a facebook account makes you a de facto suspect.

Sadly there is only one US, no country competes with US in business culture and capital torrent. I cannot close business deals with other people in different cultures at the speed I do in US, in a win/win condition, and with enough budget.

This is a very interesting subject to discuss, so please reply if you don't agree. For 15 years I have been personally doing business with cultures across more than 30 countries. One of my favorite papers on this subject is "Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?" [1]

[1] http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/sapienza/htm/cul...

Concerning speed: I recently bought raw land in the US as a German living in Germany while staying in Germany. The transaction took a day without me needing to be present. Never seen such a straight forward land buying process. Sending the warranty deed to the county clerk was by far the longest taking part.

Interesting. Why would you do this? How do you know it was not a scam? And even if not a scam, how could you be sure you were not wasting your money on land of low value? Did you research who has rights on the land for mining, etc. before acting?

I'm not asking to make any point, I'm more curious about this as a lifehack / investment or how you see it.

It was a financial no brainer :) it serves no other use than owning it. It was surrly not a scam, double checked it all, was working with the county clerk. Land with Mineral rights costs much more.

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