U.S. To Collect Social Media Data on All Immigrants Entering Country
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I have nothing to hide, despise terrorism and the fanatics that commit it, and wish no harm on others with different social, political, or religious views. But I'm familiar enough with history to know how badly this can end. "Papers please" had consequences, especially for groups targeted for political reasons.
Just last night I was browsing Wikipedia articles on various Presidential/political assassinations after watching an episode of the PBS Vietnam War documentary that is currently being aired. Earlier this week I tried to sign up for Snapchat and discovered an active account based out of Saudi Arabia that someone had set up using my email address (via an unverified email address I assume - thanks SnapChat). I can't read arabic so have no idea what was being shared on that platform from "my" account but based upon the images it looked critical of America.
It's not much of a leap to imagine being accused of various things based upon your browsing history or social media, especially if actions like this (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/15/543782396/...) become more common.
The rational part of my brain keeps screaming "This is America, it can't happen here, especially if you have nothing to hide" but I also find it difficult to ignore the historical and current warning signs.
Remember, they have not stopped any terrorist attacks in the US with all the new surveillance since 9/11 (to my knowledge).
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Ben Franklin
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous...
However, I think it has taken on new life and new meaning and is cautionary in terms of "be careful what you are giving up...". 9/11 attacks were successful in their goals based on exploiting the FAA guidelines for hijackers, not because we didn't spy on these people. No one imagined them turning a plane into a bomb. I think non one believes that if hijackers tried to take over a plane with box cutters today that they wouldn't be subdued or killed within minutes.
It's also old-fashioned. It reminds me of something Trump would say.
In a modern democracy everyone deserves safety and security, even people who believe the government ought to be granted additional power to constrain "essential liberty" in certain situations or within certain more expansive limits. They may eventually be proven unwise or evil policy choices, but the people advocating them still deserve safety and security -- precisely because they live in a democracy.
You should slap it around a bit, so that it stops believing in those intrinsic, unsupported assumptions. Not like a literal concussion type of slap--slap it with a hit of salvia divinorum or a provocative essay or introspective meditation or something.
Everyone has something to hide. It doesn't even have to be anything particularly shameful. You could have the most glorious junk in the history of humanity, but you still cover it up with some form of garment when you leave the house. You could have a perfectly ordinary and treatable rash on your backside, but you don't necessarily tell anyone about it outside your doctor's office. You might be going on an awesome vacation for three weeks, but you might not want the local housebreaking crew to know that.
It can happen here, as it can happen anywhere that humans come together. This is beyond tolerable, and as we are a civilized people, we have a graduated response to such behavior.
First, we publicly announce our opposition to this policy, in the hopes that a reasoned debate will cause it to be abandoned. This is the "soap box". Second, we inform our designated representatives that this is an important issue, and should they wish to continue to hold our proxy, they will vote in accordance with the wishes of their constituents. Should they do otherwise, we do our best to replace them with someone who will. This is the "ballot box". Third, we tangle it up with formal legal challenges, requiring that the policy be measured against existing legal standards. We sit on grand juries to indict or no-bill those suspected of breaking our laws, and upon petit juries to convict or not-convict those who faced trial. This is the "jury box". Finally, we can take our tools, fashion them into weapons, and physically assault those who have already failed to yield to reason, ignored those whom they purport to represent, and scoffed at the law. This is the "ammo box"--ultima ratio regum.
It can happen here. It is always happening everywhere, and here is no exception. We must constantly work at preventing it. That is the burden of democracy. Everywhere it has happened, it was because the momentum overwhelmed the resistance, and because those graduated responses were removed Alvin York style--from back to front, so that the opposition wouldn't notice until it was too late. You can't forget that when reason fails--and it does fail against the unreasonable--you have to be prepared to instead use rhetoric, tradition, or raw force to get what you want.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Richelieu
It can stay pending for a long time, mine took forever
If they were collecting private info or browsing data, sure.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/09/18/2017-19...
See 22 U.S. Code § 6010: 'As used in this chapter, the term “United States person” means any United States citizen or alien admitted for permanent residence in the United States, and any corporation, partnership, or other organization organized under the laws of the United States.' Title 22 is the foreign relations chapter
Ask a person in Argentina, Chile, Spain, and lots of other places besides.
>I'd expect the government to be collecting all public information for its citizens and those visiting the country - why not?
Because their social media lives are not its business -- citizens or not.
This is a bit absurd. First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees your right to publish papers. But now you also want the right to prevent your publications from being read? The government has had a program collecting a vast majority of publications for a very long time i.e. the Library of Congress, so one might say the precedent has already been set.
I'm not saying they should have unfettered access to everything (far from it!), but gathering and analyzing this type of information is the very definition of their business.
The real question is what levels of information gathering are going to allow without a warrant, and who do those laws apply to?
If someone is plotting a crime while having sex with their partner in their bedroom, how is that not the government's business?
See how it gets problematic?
Bad actors like that can communicate in 200000 ways. If governments want to target "known terrorist organizations" let them target them, and follow those people, monitor their houses, etc -- not monitor the general population in the off chance they see something.
>I'm not saying they should have unfettered access to everything (far from it!), but gathering and analyzing this type of information is the very definition of their business.
So, in 1980, before Facebook, they wouldn't be able to catch anyone?
How about they monitor actual suspects with good old police work and leave the BS?
That escalated quickly. So to you monitoring information posted to a third party is the same as listening in on you and your spouse while you're bumping uglies?
> See how it gets problematic?
No I don't as I reject your example outright. What goes on within the four walls of a person's bedroom has already been established as protected. In contrast, what gets sent out to a third party has been established as not protected.
> Bad actors like that can communicate in 200000 ways. If governments want to target "known terrorist organizations" let them target them, and follow those people, monitor their houses, etc -- not monitor the general population in the off chance they see something.
Sure and this is one of the many ways they can do it. Just because there are other options available doesn't mean they can't use this as an avenue.
> So, in 1980, before Facebook, they wouldn't be able to catch anyone?
I never said that nor implied it. I'm saying that social media posts are fair game and likely a valuable source of information for identified terrorists and potential terrorists.
> How about they monitor actual suspects with good old police work and leave the BS?
That's a false dichotomy. There's no reason you can't have modern data analysis of social media posts in addition to traditional police work. Technology is a force multiplier. Back in the day people would manually examine finger prints to find a match based on a categorization system. Now a computer does it nearly instantly.
and this can also easily lead to uncovering less public information about you. More data you have about a person easier it is to triangulate anonymized data about them.
1) the people visiting the US and
2) the US public (via tax support for enforcement which is driven by this policy)
Wolfram Alpha says that 322 people visit the US in a year.
Let's assume the technologists in charge of this (who are really no different than any other corporate engineer - capable, but fairly disinterested in their work and apathetic/unaffected by the results) manage to make the process 99.9999% effective in screening out the innocent, and 100% effective in screening terrorists who enter the US.
Well, that world-class accuracy gives you 99.9999 * 322 million => 322 people a year who are caught in the dragnet (and in all likelihood, it will be multiples of this number; likely thousands of individuals).
So now we are interrogating, investigating, and suspecting 322 innocent people in order to catch the... oh, wait; there really haven't been any terrorist attacks like 9/11 since... 9/11.
The Boston Bombers were home-grown. Anti-abortion extremists, religious fundamentalists, bullied schoolchildren, and paranoid schizophrenics have all tried or been accused of trying to wage terrorism on the US, but there's not a single event[1] that it looks like this policy could have prevented. But we're investigating 322 individuals (and their families, friends, and close contacts) in order to do it.
And at what cost? We will never know, because those numbers are classified due to their sensitive nature.
In the end, none of this matters: the government was never interested in terror prevention in the first place. They just needed a new bogey man to replace drugs, the Russians, whatever as a reason to ignore the constitution.
The war on terrorism is a farce.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...
* edit: added the parenthetical note on numbers, multiples of estimate
These were Americans killing Americans, and similar to the pattern we've seen throughout the 1900s and into the 2000s, it is most likely that future terrorists will also be home grown.
As to this system, was there anything to be gained by keeping these out of the USA, for a tweet?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312
{Off-topic: Because the KKK were (mainly) killing black people and their supporters in Southern states, 'we' don't really think of them as terrorists, nor the people that still push their agenda today as terrorist sympathisers.}
Not to take away from the terror of the KKK, but 9/11 was more deadly - "The attacks caused the deaths of 2,996 people and the injuries of more than 6,000 others" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks).
9,000+ killed or wounded on a single day, massive economic impact, and a Global War on Terror that is still going on today.
I'm not sure why they don't just apply it across the board to all travelers because it seems like adding conditions just increases complexity with no benefit.
Nazi Germany asked its own citizens for papers in-country (e.g. train trips).
And you are right, context matters. Perhaps the existence of "sanctuary cities" in current day America is more relevant to yet-another-Nazi-Germany-comparison (TM).
> It's not much a leap to imagine..
But what are the facts? For example, is Snap-chat one such social media platform that will be check based on unverified accounts?
If the science community or “our industry” really want to encourage and unlock the magic of diversity we need new venues for a whole lot of conferences either in Canada or the EU.
This with data retention laws imposed upon ISP's, they already have all your data, so no need to ask.
That said, I can't imagine a more unwelcoming tourist entry into a "western" country than the US at this point in time.
For example, the EU data retention directive that Zenst mentions was struck down last year; the EU is adopting a new personal data protection regulation next year that will significantly improve personal data handling; the EU introduced the right to be forgotten, etc.
It feels different to me than "programming". But, I wouldn't be surprised if they checked my Github account or something... And if I don't want them to see my Github account, then yeah maybe I shouldn't have a public Github account.
I'd hope some or even many countries would opt out of these restrictions as an incentive to tourism and business.
Reading your other comments in this submission, it doesn't sound like you know many non-Americans who have experience with the US border.
From my understanding it's different depending on where you're visiting from. And, yes, I know non-Americans who visit people here (not sure what comments of mine you got that idea from).
wouldn't that be a form of free speech suppression?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093796/Emily-Buntin...
It is also being extended to legal aliens and citizens (naturalized - like me)
Otherwise this would be a recommendation to lie to customs/immigration officers... and I strongly recommend not doing that.
Smart, well educated individuals, all motivated by the perpetual drive for international relevance and the existential dread of possibly being taken by the wildlife at any moment.
Because it's even worse in this regard.
>Smart, well educated individuals
Well, let's not generalize.
Do you have some stories of conference speakers or attendees being treated this way in Australia?
12h if you're in the West Coast, a shorter trip if you're in Japan and that's "the closest" most people will be
I couldnt tell from reading the article if they meant viewing their wall or private messages. Did anyone have any clarification on that?
So live streaming doesn't really solve that.
Again, for you. I know many types whose primary reason is networking.
All points besides a, which is not really an argument but the point of discussion, can be done remotely, if you have to travel to a conference. It might not have your preference, but it certainly is possible and i think comparing travelling half the world, to hear somebody speak vs starting a livestream or recorded version of a conference at your convenience at home, i know what i prefer. Sure its not as interesting on birthday parties or similar, to say you watched a conference livestream vs i was in Tokyo over the weekend for a conference.
Which is a moot point. Others live in their own world -- and so can act on their preferences. Besides, even you do tons of things that aren't "required", and thus are just preferences. Even your example is one such: "watching a movie" is not required or mandatory at all --regardless of whether you watch it a home or at the cinema.
>All points besides a, which is not really an argument but the point of discussion, can be done remotely, if you have to travel to a conference.
People don't travel to conferences because it's required or because they can't get the same knowledge in other ways. They travel to conferences because they like it, and because they get something out of going (even if it's not related to the content of the presentations, like meeting other developers/founders/etc face to face).
If your question is "what makes conferences mandatory to attend", then the answer is nothing. But you didn't ask that, you wrote "i still wonder why people physically move from one part of the world to another to hear somebody speak" -- and preference is a valid answer to that.
I travel to conferences because of the reason's I've stated -- and many other people do too. What exactly do we have to explain?
>It might not have your preference, but it certainly is possible and i think comparing travelling half the world, to hear somebody speak vs starting a livestream or recorded version of a conference at your convenience at home, i know what i prefer.
Which others might not prefer.
I'd rather travel and meet people than stay at home/office if I have the chance.
If you're between 10 and 60 years old, "I don't use social media" will likely not really be an answer at the border. Even a barely-used account will not really be an answer.
They're going to be able to say you're probably just hiding your real account. That could factor into denying you entry into a country.
If this becomes common with many countries, it could become de facto illegal to keep social media out of your daily habits.
By virtue of my choice of parents and their choice of locale when I was born, this particular bit of tyranny (I use that word advisedly) won't hit me, but when every other country on earth follows suit...
Waiting for the services to pop up selling fake social accounts as cover for the Officially Socially Atypical types.
Why not? According to an article I read, only about 75% of US teens use Instagram and a similar amount use Snapchat (the only media the article gave). Quite frankly, about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media or use it very lightly. That's not particularly uncommon.
> Quite frankly, about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media or use it very lightly.
10-20% is still small enough to start by assuming everybody uses them, and treat the 1 in 5/10 persons as a weirdo that merits extra examination.
Does your number include old people? I imagine a border guard would be more willing to accept a retiree not using social media than a college-age student.
To me it’s not all about that. It’s this dragnet and the meta data (profiles of people who connect to you become fair game)
Recruiters seems to always find me somehow though, haven't figure that one out yet.
I guess at the border, I'll give them my Github account? They'll probably put me on some blacklist.
Some of us just don't need the world to know everything about us all the time.
I'm convinced there's two types of people. Those who draw energy from other people and those of us who get peopled out after a short time and need to be alone for a while to recharge. Being social _exhausts_ me so I would rather my social interaction be in real life not making some privacy invading corporation money.
Let's call them introverts and extroverts.
That is exactly the definition of extroversion in the first case versus introversion in the second case.
I enjoy getting older. It spares me a lot of drama.
Are you not posting here?
1. HN is not a place where I seek "likes," karma (I know some do though), or share gifs of cats. Since there is karma and some sort of static identity attached to comments, though, I suppose it could be considered a social site to some. OTOH, I do not hold a Swedish passport, and do not plan to travel to Sweden, so tying my passport or other ID to my identity here would not be obvious, unless you count the NSA or whoever having the ability to tie my real name to this account.
2. I doubt HN is on the DHS list of 'social media sites' with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and whatever other sites you kids are using these days.
P.S. Please don't misunderstand me: I love funny cat gifs. It is the main reason to allow the internet to continue to exist.
P.P.S. Yes, the above P.S. was included solely to influence border security when they crack my laptop / phone and find HN on my bookmarked sites with my login credentials saved and start scrolling through my comments here. Fortunately, I self-censor to avoid losing too much karma with any single comment, which should keep me safely in the mainstream of contemporary public mores and avoid arousing suspicion.
In what way do you find it is not social media, or maybe I should ask how narrow is your definition of social media?
I tried to find how exactly DHS defines "social media" because that is actually what is relevant to this discussion, but I was unable. I think someone had posted their definition in one of the other threads on this topic, if you want to try to find it yourself.
Feel free to read through Wikipedia's article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
Who said so? Border controls have right to turn non-citizens away on border if they suspect you are lying or not disclosing all information to them.
The right gets upset over insurance requirements, hard to imagine a real requirement to have a Twitter account.
The people who are affected are not voting.
EDIT: missed that it affects naturalized citizens too, but see below.
They also not make up nearly a large enough group for it to be likely to have much effect.
Crazy world.
(Might actually be an interesting project.)
This move will be heavily criticized (as it should), but there's a false sense of security out there. Outfits like Palantir exist, Facebook and others have never been shy about tracking people without permission, and through public check ins people basically broadcast their physical location. In another thread yesterday someone was saying that they were a former FB employee and FB regularly purchased customer histories from Amazon and tied that to their own internal databases. That sounds very realistic.
It's always strange how upset the tech community gets about actions like this when most of the companies people work for are doing it, and that information is getting sent to the government through things like national security letters, anyway.
Unless you have some reason to suspect the events at the end of the slope are too farfetched to actually happen, which I don't see any, this is not a "slippery slope fallacy", but a run of the mill prediction about an Overton window opening.
As a prediction it's fine, but the original post said:
> the next step is clear
and
> the average citizen will be targeted next
There was no suggestion that this was just speculation.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Also, if you know/follow/connected-with an immigrant or naturalized citizen on a social platform, then YOUR data could be covered in this dragnet.
I've been asked by public figures & businesses how to help clear their name after being involved in several negative news stories. My advice has always been to generate as many positive news stories and website posts as you can so that your negative ones are buried & hard to find.
I would imagine both of these tactics will continue to increase.
It doesn't even need to affect me directly - it just contributes to an overall impression of not being welcome.
Regardless of who the president is profitable propaganda will divide the country. The current administration validates these otherwise fringe views and magnifies the problem. DJT makes no attempt to heal the relationships between liberals & conservatives and instead really seems to enjoy driving division.
So the next time you turn up at the Canadian border and are asked to produce your facebook account details... this is why.
edit:
Taxes; Even in the EU, forms will ask about American tax status, because an American citizen living abroad must still file taxes. I must provide this information, despite never having been an American Citizen.
Extradition; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93US_extradition_trea...
I expect FB/Twitter will have a sudden growth surge of "new" users as folks make a SFW and NSFW profile. A lot of my military and government employee friends are creating twin personas, or just dropping social media completely.
Even important digital information isn’t being secured correctly (Equifax) so this is not exactly the best time to be attaching new importance to stuff that is easier to emulate or steal.
It also can’t come at a worse time from a “social media exhaustion” point of view. I haven’t used stuff like Facebook in months. I’m further from this crap than I was even last year, and the last thing I want is to have to dip back into the cesspool to appease the authorities.
Am I the only one this paranoid??
Terrorists could even force every recruit to use a common, shared profile or just avoid popular social media altogether when needing to discuss terrorist acts.
But in the real world, a terrorist doesn't just spawn at the other end of de_dust. They know others in these social circles long before they're radicalised.
The current crop of terrorists also happens to be a few landings short of a pilot's license, so to speak: the "Four Lions factor" (named for the movie) refers to the hypothesis that the aggressors' incompetence has been a major factor foiling their plans. How are they going to use a VPN if they frequently blow themselves up because they get confused by time zones?
Not that I consider this policy good in any possible way. It's one more example of that country softly proclaiming "all men are created equal / with unalienable rights", then turning around and making visitors feel like Somalian hostages. But if I were tasked with unearthing terrorist networks, I'd definitely get entirely to excited at the prospect of getting access to the Facebook graph.
I am afraid the guilt until proven innocent mindset in regards to immigrants is increasing in parts of the US. I wish everyone would settle down and relax for a minute but it seems like thing will only continue to increase as we begin to enter a new election year and then start what will be a very heated Presidential campaign.
Given the execrable ability of the US government to keep even its own top-secret confidential information secure, I have absolutely no faith that this information will be securely maintained, nor that it will be solely used to profile visitors solely at the “border”.
All of that aside, there's nothing particularly surprising or even notable. PRISM has been operational for, what, 10 years? This is pretty tame in comparison.
This is a more of a disclosure test. They already know what you do on social media. Now you just have to tell them explicitly, because if you leave something out, you'll be denied entry.
Or even worse. Don't like someone, send a public social media messaged directed at them with something like "Yeah, I got your plans. Already bought the pressure cooker and ball bearings". Watch them being turned away at the border and ruining their vacation.
When those in power act irrationally there will always be a new opportunity for someone to take advantage and abuse that.
Also I am not sure if it is good that I never signed up for Facebook and Twitter or bad because now I'll be flagged - "Got nothing on this weirdo, only some computer programming nonsense. Probably good to keep an eye on him".
You need to write a bot that tweets 'I love the USA but wouldn't want to live there' every day.
I have a work colleague who has a green card but lives in the UK. He gets questioned on it every time he goes through US customs.
Essentially, the very idea that someone would choose not to live in the US is considered suspicious.
> Essentially, the very idea that someone would choose not to live in the US is considered suspicious.
This is misinformation. Green card is the colloquial name for the "Permanent Resident Card". As the name implies, you're supposed to live in the US if you hold this card. Your colleague may be flying under the radar but he's probably violating the conditions required to maintain a green card and might lose it in the future:
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/after-green-card-granted/ma...
"You may also lose your permanent resident status by intentionally abandoning it. You may be found to have abandoned your status if you:
Move to another country, intending to live there permanently.
Remain outside of the United States for an extended period of time, unless you intended this to be a temporary absence. (...)"
Agreed. If caught he could get in trouble and have it revoked.
Barely a week goes by where the US doesn't experience an act of domestic terrorism without some total nutter shoots up a mall, movie theater, school, church etc. In fact the frequency of these gun violence incidents is such that they sometimes interrupt each other's news cycles. There is even a lexicon that has been invented to describe the - "sheltering in place, "active shooter" etc.
You will never hear the US media call or government call these acts of terrorism or the perpetrators of this gun violence against innocent people referred to as terrorists.
It's worth noting Donald Trump the architect of this anti-immigrant hysteria opposes expanding federal background checks for gun purchases.
Each time I see this news, the distiction isn't made clear if this is intended to be for everyone visiting the country, or part of the process when a person is seeking permanent residence.
cr1895: Thanks!
They were seeking (an important) clarification, not making a judgment whether it was acceptable.
You just assumed they found it acceptable and called that insane.
Not that it matters whether it's only people with green cards or work visas or any other category of people required to do this, but I'm hoping some precedents for data privacy at border crossings are set or overturned thanks to this ham-handed approach from the Trump administration.
We need to stop expecting social media platforms to respect our privacy. They don't. They won't. What you post on Facebook and Twitter is as good as public domain.
You really shouldn't be surprised to find something that you had posted in either a government file or a newspaper headline.
And society will still have to figure out where to draw the line. Is searching your social media a search? I mean, I think by U.S. laws, searching a large hall which only purpose is to meet with other people, even large number and by invitation, still requires a warrant.
Same goes for Twitter and Instagram etc.
It’s a mistake to believe that the information you post won’t be made public in some way, whether to a government or another private company or individual. How can we declare that a social media capture, in that case, is a “search”? It isn’t really a “search” - it’s practically there for the taking.
There's a little bit of documentation that makes sense to me, something from the country of origin and a distillation of the naturalization paperwork that confirmed it was completed. But I don't see what information beyond that would be worth keeping.
Can anyone in/validate?
https://gizmodo.com/us-homeland-security-will-start-collecti...
...and most non-American entrepreneurs will breathe relieved, loosing some of the fear that the SV brain-magnet can siphon their talent away at any moment. So yey for everyone (except the USA).
So I am horribly bothered. I will be writing Congressmen and donating to the EFF this weekend.
I was wrong then. I should start using social media as I'm not U.S. emigrant.</sarcasm>
_How_ are they going to collect that, particularly search results?
Visa Waver Program: https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/visit/visa-waiver-...
Do I want to visit a frightening, privacy invading, oppressive airport, or Japan?
I went to Japan.
I'll do my very best to avoid travel to USA if possible. Strange that this is what USA wants.
Trump has put up a wall, even if it is not yet physical.
EDIT: I get that this doesn't make Japan any better - it's still invasive, but it's pretty much the low bar these days, whereas collecting social media accounts is a massive step further.
If I get a gun permit, should the cops not look at every public aspect of my history? Should we make it easier for people to have guns? Now the next snarky comment will say "guns aren't people." Yeah. But a background check is a background check.
What happens when a terrorist gets in (surely that'll never happen again!) and we find out their social media history was full of death threats? Will everyone feel the same way?
It seems like we've gotten to a point of public debate in this country where people completely live in fantasy worlds where they can lop off anything that happens in the real world that damages their arguments. Terrorism exists. Blame whoever you want but it does exist. And publicly posted information should be the #2 (after criminal record) thing to search. I mean... we WANT to catch the bad guys, right? Are we pretending that bad people don't exist?
And a "background check" isn't a "background check". It's a completely vague concept, from some prospective employer calling one or two references all the way to the 8-months process of obtaining a security clearance.
That's really easy to see if you consider what kind of activities involve some sort of "background check": employment (see above), getting on a plane, opening a bank account, getting a loan, taking a tour of the Capitol: while each one of these is technically "voluntary", it'd be a distinction without a difference if they added this as a requirement for such activities.
I'm not talking nuclear launch codes here. It's impossible to lead a normal life without using communication services, and it's some sort of fantasy to think you could, for example, organize your social life without leaving enough clues to create a pretty accurate profile.
So I think what we need to stop doing is pretending it's realistic for everyone to run around cosplaying MI6.
Personal communications should of course be private, but social media is not a form of personal communication. It’s a form of broadcast, usually to a company’s servers you have absolutely zero control over.
You don’t need to “cosplay MI6” to be diligent with what you share and what you don’t. You should just be prepared to assume that anything you post on social media can and will appear in the future.