
US Homeland Security Will Start Collecting Social Media Info on All Immigrants - literacy101
https://gizmodo.com/us-homeland-security-will-start-collecting-social-media-1818777094
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merricksb
Discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15337961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15337961)

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rdtsc
Direct FederalRegister link:

[https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/09/18/2017-19...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/09/18/2017-19365/privacy-
act-of-1974-system-of-records)

It looks like it covers naturalized US citizens. What if I don't have a
Facebook or Twitter account. Will that be flagged and I'll be put on a black
list. "Looks like you don't have enough of superficial social relationships
online and don't trade short 140 character sarcastic remarks with anyone that
we can see. That is highly unusual, can you explain yourself, sir".

My instinct would be to say "Oh but I have a prolific Dark Web relationship
network. That's where all my hacker friends are hanging out", but I should
know better never to make jokes like that.

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JumpCrisscross
Wait, so as a naturalized American I could be denied entry to my own country
for refusing to turn over my social media passwords?

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throwawayknecht
(I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. God help you if you're a
naturalized citizen in America today.)

AIUI, no, CBP cannot deny American citizens entry. They _can_ confiscate your
phone (and probably never have to return it) or arrest you, but either way
they also need to let you in.

(Though if you're brown, and in certain areas, that arrest can pretty quickly
turn into a summary deportation hearing where you have to prove your
citizenship without access to lawyer or paperwork. In theory everyone involved
would be in deep shit for an incident like that, but in practice they get
presidential pardons.)

Also, this article isn't about CBP policy.

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iraphael
Does this mean that I can be asked, at the border, for my social media
information? What happens if I refuse to provide or lie about having it?

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fhood
I am far more worried that they are targeting immigrants than I am that they
are collecting social media info.

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coldcode
Isn't this the same discussion from recently?

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throwawayknecht
You might be thinking of the debate over whether CBP can search your cloud
data (vs. only the data present on your phone) at a border crossing.

This is in the same vein thematically but substantially different both legally
and technically. It applies to immigrants whether or not they are crossing
borders, and it builds a permanent database of what they've found. Whether
this is illegal or not depends on the nature of "what they've found" \- it
sounds like they're "just" going to be buying up the same data sources
advertisers use, which is probably legal. (But terrifying.)

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wdn
1984 is officially here.

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krapp
Great. Does that mean we can dispense with the tedious pseudointellectual
references to it now?

And Brave New World?

And "First they came for the Socialists..."

