U.S. now can ask travelers for Facebook, Twitter handles | Hacker News Reader

U.S. now can ask travelers for Facebook, Twitter handles

usatoday.com

40 pointssr271 comments

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465534

I'm all for privacy and the government not overstepping their bounds, but could someone please let me know why this is so bad? I'm genuinely curious.

Your social media info is Public. If you have information public, that is your own fault and the govt can access that regardless if you give them your handles or not. If they were asking for passwords and access to accounts - of course that would be a different ball game.

But simply asking for your handles (while you can easily say you don't have accounts) doesn't seem like too much of an intrusion to me.

The problem as I see it is your are presumed to have one of these things in the first place. If they wanted to get publically available information, there are search engines and facebook's search, they should just do that. But by asking you to find yourself the onus is on you personally to produce a result- and what if you don't have one? Will they believe you? Should we de-facto require everyone in the world to get social media accounts with American companies that look presentable should they ever want to visit?

There's a lot of value inherent to the ability to remain anonymous on the internet. This essentially strips that away because to retain that anonymity you have to commit a felony.

Innocuous example: for a while people wanted to know who horse_ebooks was, and there was some allure to that. Under this rule some low-level government employee can essentially leak it to all of their friends, or worse — blackmail.

Now we're creating two groups of people:

A. Those who are not anonymous

B. Felons

No, It is not public info, you can have social media accounts that are not obviously / publicly "your" accounts.

I don't think the ability to lie to government agents is a good argument against a law that allows them to ask for that information. At best it gets you enhanced scrutiny, at worst you go to jail.

Right, I see your point. But I'm saying - they are asking for public information that ANYONE can search for. When you enter the country obviously they have to ask certain questions (or get info from your passport, ie name, DOB, country of origin, etc) - but I feel people get extra worked up for social media simply because it's digital.

If you have public information out there I have no problem with anyone asking for it - it's public after all!

Sure anyone can search for jc_811. I don't get a lot of useful data. It I can search for Joe Conner, but that isn't going to get me to jc_811s posts. Just because something is public information didn't mean YOU have to provide it

This is the most relevant answer (to me) in this thread, I see what you mean - I wasn't thinking that way and I'm glad you changed my mind.

When I originally posted I was working under the thought process of "My name is Mike Smith, my handle is @mike_smith (or something similar/easily searchable), so no big deal"

Considering the totally other side of "public" social media handles (ie, "my name's Mike Smith, but my handle is @xyz123, it's public as I want to get information to the public, but don't want my identity tied to it") - I definitely now see why this could potentially be a huge issue.

Thanks for the constructive explanation!

It's OK, they're only asking because they already know!

"could someone please let me know why this is so bad"

thought police

unconstitutional (wouldn't it be nice if the USA followed its own laws?)

chills free speech

data linkability

i could go on

"If they were asking for passwords"

news flash https://www.wired.com/2017/02/guide-getting-past-customs-dig...

"Your social media info is Public"

false

"while you can easily say you don't have accounts"

do not pass go, go directly to jail. don't lie to DHS/CBP

This probably would have happened no matter who was President as a consequence of the review of the visa process started under Obama after San Bernandino massacre. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks...

> Your social media info is Public.

Information posted on say Twitter may be public but the link between me as a person and my Twitter account is not.

If I run a satirical Donald Trump Twitter account, I certainly don't want it on my visa application, even if the tweets I post are public.

And if you're not a US Citizen/LPR you have no 1st amendment protection at the border. And if US ICE/CBP discover you haven't listed all accounts, that alone could be a disqualifying issue for entry.

Most US citizens will shrug this off and say no big deal, until the very small minority of them try to head to a country practicing reciprocal visa requirements.

Yeah I'm mixed on this. Obviously from your social media accounts they can find nearly everything about you. However giving address & phone number probably links you too and that is just normally accepted.

People don't usually publish their thoughts on bulliten boards outside their homes and phone calls (of citizens who are comfortable giving these to the government at least) have a reasonable expectation of privacy, so that data is gated behind warrants from the judiciary.

Good point.

BTW did I mention I <3 Putin! Trump family forever! North Korea the best Korea! Chinese Communists #1.

Going to be a lot of legwork to update that if any of those countries experience drastic regime change ;)

I mean, the govt claims that even citizens only own their emails for 6 months. Seems like great, relatively clean training data to match identities.

Is this a legitimate claim they make? If so, is there a source?

So, why do you use jc_811 and not "Matt Smith" or whatever? Isn't it all public?

And travelers can now promptly regret Facebook's Real Name Policy.

Headline is a bit misleading. This was possible before, it's just a bit more official now. "Visa applicants might have faced requests for their social media handles in the past, but the practice is now explicit...."

It certainly seems like bad guys will lie. Which makes it sound stupid at first. But maybe there's some logic to the law.

At least for those who lie, it adds a punishable offense that can potentially be used for prosecution at a later date, if and when the evidence emerges.

So, for example, let's say a foreign national living in the US is found later on to be apparently plotting a terror attack, but they haven't yet followed through with it, so there is nothing to prosecute them with.

The authorities could dredge up deportation-worthy crimes by going back and doing a detailed look at the person and finding that they had committed the crime of providing false or incomplete information.

That's kind of the "gotcha" question they ask you when getting a passport in an overseas office: "have you ever been affiliated with a terrorist organization or performed terrorist acts in another country?" At face value the question is ridiculous, but they put it there just to make sure they've got you on record lying to a government official if you are ever found out to have lied.

Now, the problem with the Facebook/Twitter thing is that the really bad guys are not going to be stupid enough to have Facebook and Twitter accounts where they say they'll be committing terrorist acts, and they won't worry about being caught lying later on. So all in all, this sounds like posturing for posturing sake.

Yeah sounds like a way to entrap some stupid but ultimately harmless teenagers for the crime of speech supporting organizations the United States consideres terrorists.

Or for the kind of stupid shit that young people do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312

More important: what happens when someone refuses to tell or claim not to have one?

For US citizens, they may hassle you a bit but they have to let you in. For non-citizens, any refusal to cooperate will likely result in being refused entry and immediate deportation back to wherever they came from.

I actually don't have, and have never had, a facebook or twitter account. So, if I ever try to go to the US it's likely that that will be seen as "refusal to cooperate"? And I'm likely to be denied entry because of it?

Wow.

I don't know what would happen there. If you can convince them that you truly have none, you should be fine, but they may be hard to convince. Immigration officers can refuse non-citizens entry for almost any reason.

I'm the same, may be we would be advised to create a Facebook and Twitter account, but then would you be required to keep updating it and actually using it?

I've had one for a long time, but I don't post publicly. Without friending me, it's difficult to tell that the account's in use.

Does this actually apply to US citizens at all? All the reporting I've read suggests this is solely visa applicants, which of course will never include US citizens.

I don't think there's any official policy, but nothing stops them from asking when you go through customs. It's rare but it happens. For example: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/american-citizens-u-s-bo...

This US policy doesn't apply to US citizens, but there is nothing to prevent non-US countries from reciprocating and requiring social media accounts from US citizens as part of their visa processes.

> For US citizens, they may hassle you a bit but they have to let you in.

This does not apply to U.S citizens. The very first paragraph of the article covers this.

This specific policy does not apply to US citizens, but the general act of being asked for social media passwords and similar certainly can.

Subject you to more searches, seize your luggage with few means of appeal, and deport you. More and more reasons not to bother traveling or doing business with the US if it can be avoided.

Or, like myself, really truly doesn't have one.

Then you don't get a VISA. Pretty simple.

Simplistic answer to complex issues. The trademark right-winger approach.

whatever happens to people when states assume they have things to hide.

to shreds you say

Just under the surface, this policy seems like a long play to reduce the global virality of radical online tendencies. While it might aid in US national security, it's a small part of a broader plan to transform national and global culture away from collaboration (horizontal growth) towards competition (vertical value). This is the essence of "Make America Great Again".

Every headline on this story has been misleading.

When I read it I thought to myself - this is the first thing I really disagree with Trump on...but reading on:

> The supplemental questionnaire will only be given to “a fraction of 1% of the 13 or so million people who apply for a visa to visit the United States each year

Oh no !. Now I have to create twitter,facebook and instagram accounts to travel to US ? Because I dont have any. If I declare in my visa form that I dont have any account, they are not going to believe it anyway.

US is isolating themselves & getting funnier day by day.

Hmm.. this is way too much friction. I call upon the tech giants to brainstorm and make the process more seamless.

For example: why can't the govt take your picture and upload it to their servers at FB/Google/etc and get all the relevant info in a jiffy?

for real? i mean isn't that something those secret agencies should have done so already by fancy machine learning and stuff?

And i remember, if you ask something, like a phone-number (of a girl in a club), you don't always get the proper information!

They missed the San Bernadino female's online posting of support for jihad on Facebook, pre-immigration to America. It's seems as if it's the case of scouring the wrong data/too much data (i.e. NSA collecting every telephone call in the USA at this time, while vetting did not look at immigrant social media background so the machine learning would never have helped if it wasn't pointed at the right data source or able to choose the data source) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks...

My wife was filling out ESTA forms for her parents, and they ask this stuff. Yuck.

Do people who travel to other countries REALLY have the gall to post something threatening to the country they are traveling too?

I don't think this is what concerns most people at all - a bigger concern is how broadly defined whatever measure they use for "anti-American" social media posts is.

There's no shortage of harmless anti-Trump social media posting throughout the world - how long before we read a press story covering someone who tweeted a tame criticism of the president being denied entry? Twelve months ago I'd have found the idea hard to believe; today, not so much.

I absoultely agree that this is a horrible ivasion of privacy and that thinking of this happening sounded crazy months ago, yet now i wouldnt be surprised, my appologies if my tone was off in the original comment, the point i was making is that this is only going to hurt the people who have done no actual harm

Define "threatening". It's a slippery slope. Yeah, maybe "Allahu Akbar death to America" is an obvious one, but what about "Fuck Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate accord" - is that "anti-American"?

I agree, thats why this is a horrible way to check intent as its purely subjective 90% of the time, this is really only going to hurt the people that have done nothing wrong

> "Fuck Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate accord" - is that "anti-American"?

Name one country that will grant you VISA if you start yelling similar things about their president.

The United States needs dissenting opinions to function as a democracy. I don't care one iota what other countries do in that situation.

If we start seriously saying "but it's okay for China to do it, why not us!" we've already reached terminal velocity sliding on that slope.

Most if not all European ones will, in fact. First, they wouldn't even know you were "yelling" that on Facebook, second, the border guards who can barely be bothered to make sure your photo matches your face definitely won't care either.

They're not insecure about themselves, as societies, the way America seems to be lately. So sensitive!

Assuming you agree that this would be a valid reason to deny a visa to the US, are you able to provide examples of other phrases that should get you denied entry to the US?

And phrases that might be critical of the President, but not enough to deny entry?

I'm curious to know where you see the line between acceptable and unacceptable...

Any European country will

You can say that about the UK Prime Minister and still get entry.

Not all countries have a president.

Ireland

No, but US customs rejects people all the time for shit like... you admit to smoking weed once 15 years ago.

There's all sorts of "harmless" things that could be on your Facebook profile that could get you rejected.

I agree, and thats horroble, the idea of this requierment is only going to hurt the people that have done nothing wrong is the badly worded point I was trying to make

Sure. I never found it a issue to post my opinion about democratic western countries openly. Surely I wouldn't do that with Thailand or other developing nations with slightly unstable political situation

I already posted this, but the San Bernadino female did. We just missed it. The Obama ordered review of the process probably revealed this social media by fiat was inevitable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks...

I don't post anything public on facebook. What will they say? Or will they breach my privacy right away and have a look anyways? From the outside it is not even clear how old the acc is.

Facebook alone is a poor example as private accounts are the norm, at least among most folks I know.

Twitter on the other hand is used far more widely with public accounts, and is commonly used as a platform for political discourse. The few "hate speech" style cases I've read (great example is the infamous "twitter joke" trial in the U.K.) have almost always stemmed from Twitter accounts. Instagram is similarly much more commonly used with public accounts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial

Let me correct this, the idea of forcing checks is a horrible idea mostly because it only hurts the people that have done nothing, and is a massive invasion of privacy

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