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Comment by crb002 | Hacker News Reader

Seems a bit racist. Israel/Finland/Germany all have universal conscription so they don't get harassed like the Chinese.

As I understand it, the issue is the false claims in the visa application more than the military service. If they'd known she was an (apparently) active member of the Chinese military, she wouldn't have gotten the visa in the first place. In her visa application she admitted to prior military service and still received the visa so military service itself is not a fundamental blocker for Chinese visa applicants.

This is one reason why US visa application forms include a question which basically asks "Are you a spy?". Which might seem silly because obviously a real spy would never answer yes. But the real point of the question is that if the government finds later that someone lied on the form it becomes easier to charge them with a crime or deport them.

Edit: some of you take comments way too literally so for your benefit here is the exact question on form DS-160.

"Do you seek to engage in espionage, sabotage, export control violations, or any other illegal activity while in the United States?"

The system described sounds like a terrible idea. In order to prove someone lied on the form when they said "No" to "Are you a spy?", you have to prove they're a spy. At that point, you're free to deport them; the form is irrelevant.

No, it's not that simple. The question isn't literally "are you a spy", I'm sure it's a more relaxed version, e.g. "have you ever been employed by a foreign government" or some such. The point is to lower the barrier of proof. The government doesn't have to prove someone is an actual "spy", with the gray area that can entail, only that they lied on the form.

It's a similar idea behind the recent "Have you traded in any cryptocurrency" IRS question on tax returns. The idea is that it prevents anyone from claiming ignorance as to their responsibilities to disclose.

I'd wager there is no outright "Are you a spy?" question, but questions written that are highly likely make or break questions (Who's your current employer? Listing a foreign government as your employer on a student visa application may often be a deal breaker depending on the relationship between the countries). By giving a false answer, you've committed fraud. It doesn't even require you to be a proper spy of any sort to have motive to give a false answer.

The upfront declaration is "I have not worked for a foreign intelligence service" or something as blunt. "spy" wouldn't be used because it's too specific - a good lawyer could drive a wedge in the distinction between "spy" and "employee, not a spy".

This isn't 4D chess, it's creating a reason you can detain someone once you know what they're upto without having to blow what you know about their real activities (which might lead to too many shutting down before you want them too).

> This isn't 4D chess, it's creating a reason you can detain someone once you know what they're up to without having to blow what you know about their real activities (which might lead to too many shutting down before you want them too).

This seems like a stretch. Any spy who gets detained for vague, amorphous reasons is going to assume they were detained for being a spy. Once you detain them, you have to hold on to them, and you've already revealed the fact that you suspect them. There's nobody out there going "oh look, they arrested our spy. Let's just leave everything out in the open and hope it was a coincidence."

Spies are still generally legal residents of the countries they spy on. You can't just pick them up via civilian authorities without due process.

Lying on official documents is an easy win which doesn't disclose technology and tactics. Its not apriori illegal to have worked for a foreign government's intelligence services - but it is to lie about it on official documents.

So you're saying when the government finds out a person is a spy that in itself is no big deal and that the government then still needs to find a horrendously more sinister thing they did like... lying?! in order to charge them with something?

1. Fabricating of immigration documents is illegal everywhere in the world. Try doing that in Canada, that has stricter immigration laws than US.

2. There is this national security risk with China. Just the other day, there was the top article on HN about a US firm having been hacked by China over a time period of years! This is not an isolated incident either.

3. Koreans like myself won't be denied entering even though we are same Asian race. We also have the mandatory military service, and have to mention it every time to enter US.

4. Nobody in the US California and New York calls it racism when you makes it harder for us to accepted to Harvard and Stanford because same test scores as Caucasians, we get dinged on the personality. This is a clear example of an actual racism.

5. China and Korea are both countries. Not races. NOT ALL Asians are Chinese. If I may suggest thinking a bit more before claiming to be on our side :(

The relationship between the United States and Israeli, Finnish, and German militaries is slightly different to the one with the Chinese.

Germany actually halted military service a couple of years ago. There are talks of reintroducing a more universal service but so far that has not happened.

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