
U.S. now can ask travelers for Facebook, Twitter handles - sr2
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/01/us-now-can-ask-travelers-facebook-twitter-handles/102393236/
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sctb
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465534)

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jc_811
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.

~~~
kevinh
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.

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jc_811
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!

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chrismcb
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

~~~
jc_811
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!

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

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mikeash
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...."

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natch
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.

~~~
dguaraglia
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.

~~~
mattnewton
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.

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

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312)

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

~~~
mikeash
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.

~~~
Karellen
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.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
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?

~~~
khedoros1
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.

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ankushnarula
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".

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masondixon
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

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throw555555
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.

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thr0waway1239
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?

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iRobbery
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!

~~~
stevenwoo
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...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks-us-
visa-process-tashfeen-maliks-remarks-on-social-media-about-jihad-were-
missed.html)

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

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

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PopsiclePete
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"?

~~~
korzun
> "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.

~~~
mattnewton
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.

