
Border agents are checking social media, but we still don’t know how closely - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/31/20837448/social-media-dhs-cbp-surveillance-us-border-ismail-ajjawi-harvard
======
dontbenebby
I don't like this, I think it will have a chilling effect on free speech, but
if you're posting in public I think you have to expect folks may pull up your
posts.

What I absolutely hate is compelling folks to disclose their handles. I do not
labor under the delusion this handle is "anonymous" (many, many people know
who I am) but I purposefully avoid tying my legal name to it precisely because
of situations like this. I'm not a criminal or a terrorist, I just want to
have authentic conversations about matters of public interest. It's hard to be
authentic when there's someone snooping on your posts.

 _waves to any border agents reading my post history in the future_

~~~
parineum
I don't see why this is so controversial. It seems like the proper way to do a
background check in the current era.

It really all depends on _what_ disqualifies someone from entry. The worry
seems to stem from a general distrust of ICE and the current administration
rather than this actual technique.

I have to think that if someone bragging about criminal activity on
Instagram/Twitter got through the border and murdered somebody, ICE would be
criticized for not doing their due diligence.

~~~
new299
> I don't see why this is so controversial. It seems like the proper way to do
> a background check in the current era.

Because it's not normal to perform extensive background checks for people
visiting your country? I'd think it pretty weird it they wanted to interview
my family, friends, employer, previous employer.

> The worry seems to stem from a general distrust of ICE and the current
> administration rather than this actual technique.

No... I mean I find the actual technique offensive. They can find public
profiles associated with my name by googling me. Why do you need to provide
them information about which handles are associated with me? If it's because
otherwise they might mismatch profiles <-> individuals, perhaps they just
shouldn't be using this information to profile people?

~~~
ferzul
he was coming to live in the US as a student, not just visit.

It is offensive in this case because it wasn't anything he did that lost him
the visa, just social media connections said.

More generally, I know that my social media is important to my wife's visa in
a completely different country, and the government may interview our friends
and family. (I view it as offensive, invasive; but it does normal that the
government would indeed interrogate perhaps excessively immigrants, even
temporary ones)

~~~
new299
In the first case mentioned in the article. They request social media
identifiers I believe for all visitors now.

------
ada1981
Has anyone created a service where you enter your social media handles and it
scans them to flag posts / content / friends who should be deleted before
attempting entry to the USA?

~~~
lolnope2
So you want me to give some random company all of my social media account
handles so that it’s all conveniently in one single place for a nazi run
organization to access?

~~~
mises
Precisely to which "nazi run organization" are you referring?

~~~
mises
Wow, I got greyed out for that kind of question... I'll ask again: seeing as
the nazis haven't held real power since WWII, which organization (with the
possible exception of a few insignificant political parties) do they run?

------
ferzul
it's almost impossible to be a Muslim who knows middle Eastern muslims and not
have someone on your soc med feeds who posts anti American views. I have
(real, in person) friends in my soc med feeds who post anti American views. I
don't agree with them, but I somehow sympathise with them since they're
refugees who came here after America destroyed their homeland.

if that's the reason his visa got cancelled it's exactly a racist policy - he
was punished for who he was. you could pretty much say, we want to cancel the
visa of this honest young student, let's just spend half an hour on their
socmed and we'll paint them as a terrorist sympathiser.

they're my friends, they're not me. please distinguish.

ah, America: once the land of free speech, equality before the law, liberty
and justice. now, the statue of liberty has fallen to her knees, face in
hands, her tears the only thing keeping alive the tortured souls who surround
her.

~~~
heavenlyblue
I am from a small country in eastern europe. There is not way you can grow up
in there without having a few acquaintances who are either Russian nuts or
hold some sort of racist views.

Moreover, some of these people weren’t really as bad when they were younger,
so you can simply forget to get rid of them from your friendlist, too.

Besides, I keep them because it perfectly reminds me of what lack of education
could do to me.

This is just like judging a person for what they are reading - does it not get
to you that someone may be reading the opposite point of view just for the
sake of reinforcing their own opinion?

------
nraynaud
There was an operation against Chinese students around the same time:
[https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-
education/...](https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-
education/2019/08/30/chinese-students-arizona-state-university-detained-los-
angeles-airport/2169610001/)

------
tony
[https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/8/27/incoming-
freshm...](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/8/27/incoming-freshman-
deported/)

> She said that she found people posting political points of view that oppose
> the US on my friend[s] list.”

It's not known if the friend is an ISIS member or merely someone posting memes
ridiculing US policies - which can be contradicting and capricious, why? We
have discourse, we vote for people who write legal statutes and appoint
officials who makes further administrative/judicial decisions. They're subject
to change.

Judges regularly reject government motions and can even strike legal statutes
from the books. People can disagree with the law and argue about it. Laypeople
can banter, even if they don't know what they're talking about.

Of course he doesn't have full political rights in US because he's not a
citizen. And if he wanted to naturalize, wouldn't he be scrutinized on his
background and interviewed?

He's reached out to the news, couldn't he volunteer FB posts made by the
friend so we can know what we're talking about? He has to be a big fan of USA
- hopefully - if he applied to Harvard and got accepted with a scholarship!

Off topic: Did you know the student is from Tyre? It used to be an island,
[https://www.ancient.eu/image/537/siege-of-
tyre/](https://www.ancient.eu/image/537/siege-of-tyre/). This is the city that
Alexander the Great built a causeway to attack
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WkWy47ighY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WkWy47ighY)

------
aledalgrande
Sure wish I could've seen border agents before 2001, voice is the vibe was way
more chill.

~~~
dudul
I once told a younger coworker that before 9/11 kids could actually visit the
cockpit of the plane during a flight. He wouldn't believe me. A lot of things
were way more chill before that yeah.

~~~
chihuahua
I remember doing this on a flight from Frankfurt to New York in 1984 or 1987.
My mother used to be a flight attendant on the same airline so she asked if we
could go, and me and my brother and my mother could go into the cockpit
somewhere over the Atlantic ocean. I was in my early teens at the time and it
was very cool.

------
DoreenMichele
It makes me think of Google algorithm snafus where certain words or phrases
are presumed to be about some Bad Thing, so you now can't talk about sex ed or
the like without getting dinged as "clearly smut."

------
lopmotr
This seems bad seen through lens of "everyone should be treated fairly" but if
you instead look at it as "America is a private club which accepts membership
applications of people that it likes for whatever reasons" then it's quite
normal. You have to show that you fit in with whatever you think they want.
Some people might be permanently excluded through no fault of their own but
the same is true of many clubs or gangs that have all kinds of frivolous
reasons for refusing membership.

If it was a small country, that 2nd view might make more sense, but it has so
much power that people everywhere are going to alter their lives to try to fit
in because it's the most important club around, and those who miss out are
going to be very disadvantaged compared to the lucky few who make it in.

~~~
cloakandswagger
> "America is a private club which accepts membership applications of people
> that it likes for whatever reasons"

This is every nation state on earth. Of course they care about your
background, skills and likelihood of naturalization. It's hardly unique to the
US

~~~
izacus
> Of course they care about your background, skills and likelihood of
> naturalization.

How is all that relevant when you're on a week long business trip or visiting
as a tourist? Vast majority of visitors in USA are not staying.

~~~
gamedori
Afaik, for nonimmigrant visas they don't care about skills, but they do care
about any ideological background (preventing terrorism) and they care _a lot_
about the probability of overstaying the visa: they want to see evdence of
connections and plans to return from the US.

~~~
vinni2
> Afaik, for nonimmigrant visas they don't care about skills,

I am afraid they actually do. I know someone’s visitor visa was rejected
because the consular officer thought he works on AI. I have no idea why
working on AI is grounds for rejection.

~~~
vinni2
I don’t know why I am getting downvoted but I have been asked to submit my CV
even when applying for B1 tourist visa. So they do care about skills.

