
DHS Plans To Gather Social Media Info - Futurebot
https://www.buzzfeed.com/adolfoflores/people-are-worried-about-dhs-plans-to-gather-social-media
======
dudul
The fact that it applies to naturalized citizens is quite scary. This is
essentially creating 2 classes of Americans. Up until now, the only difference
I know of between "born Americans" and "naturalized Americans" was the right
to run for President. I never understood the restriction, but it's not like it
impacted a lot of lives.

~~~
AlexB138
This is really the strongest argument I've seen of any of this being a
problem. Coming to any country as an immigrant is a privilege, and it the
immigrants prerogative whether or not they feel the terms are acceptable. It
is, however, completely unacceptable to put a special burden on their
citizenship like this. Once they're a citizen, they should be a citizen,
period. If there's not confidence that they're acceptable, they shouldn't
become a citizen in the first place, otherwise they should be treated with
full rights.

I'm not clear on how dual-citizenship works when you naturalize to the US, but
are there not situations where they have to give up citizenship to their
country of origin? Does that mean these people are permanently left in a
degraded legal state with no home country, where they would have full legal
rights, to return to should the DHS decide they've over stepped their bounds
on Facebook?

~~~
pmontra
> there not situations where they have to give up citizenship to their country
> of origin?

One such a case is China. If a Chinese citizen gets the passport of another
country they lose their original Chinese citizenship (if China knows about the
new passport.)

I wonder what happens if they are born in countries like the USA that give
citizenship at birth. Do they have to forfeit one of the two citizenships? And
when, at birth by decision of the parents or later on by their choice?

~~~
srinathrajaram
I do not think you need to be a US citizen just because you were born there.
There are countries that allow a child born in the US to acquire the
citizenship of its parents.

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ptero
I hope at least Western Europe reciprocates quickly (targeting American
visitors). Comparably annoying American citizens may be the best method to
stop this madness.

~~~
quirkot
Can we leave the innocent bystanders out of this? As a US citizen this new
rule is garbage

~~~
kbart
As US citizens you (collectively) knowingly voted for government that
implemented such laws and it is up to you to vote for government that doesn't
pass such insane laws. So sorry, you are not a bystander here; I'd say equally
demeaning and annoying border controls for US citizens in other countries
would be logical consequences one could expect.

~~~
Thriptic
Actually collectively we voted against the government. Trump lost the popular
vote but won specific states which is how he got elected.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Obama started this policy, Trump just continued it.

It is very easy to point fingers at one figure or political party, in this
case though the waters have been slowly rising since 9/11 through Bush Jr,
Obama, and now Trump.

Until American citizens are impacted (either through loss of tourism money or
more directly) I don't see much happening.

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tmp123112
The actual data collected is not likely to be very valuable, but these things
definitely make people think twice before they post "wrong opinions" to social
media.

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olivierlacan
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect)

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jerry40
I only hope it isn't a big crime if a person doesn't participate in any social
network.

~~~
Lendal
Exactly what I was thinking. I have used communication tools such as Discord
and Trello, but never Facebook or Twitter. So are they going to believe me
when I say I don't use social media? Do I need to start up fake social media
accounts just so I can have something to make authorities happy?

~~~
Spivak
It's not exactly uncommon to tell people who are going through the immigration
process to start curating their public image which would naturally involve
some forms of social media.

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ar0
Isn't the excitement a bit overblown here?

What I understand from the rule change is that it would allow the DHS to
search for you on Google and look at your Facebook and Instagram profile
before granting you a greencard. Frankly, every potential employer will most
likely do the same. I'm not at all anti-immigration, but this seems to be
reasonable "vetting" even in my book. Or am I missing something here?

~~~
tosstossy
You don't see a problem with the results of a search in something trivially
manipulated like Google and Facebook potentially limiting an individual's
mobility and freedom?

~~~
danschumann
You assume it's trivial. What's the threshold? If they post things that say
they are glad when Americans die, is non-trivial enough for you? Or are you
concerned facebook and google would post things 'for' them that make them look
bad?

~~~
tosstossy
Imagine someone is attempting to immigrate to escape a hostile family
intolerant of their ideals. Like an atheist attempting to leave a Muslim
environment. If the contents of their "social network" may prevent their
entering another country what's to prevent their family from filling their
social network with terroristic nonsense to try prevent their escape?

This is just a simple example... Social media is not an official record and is
trivially influenced and manipulated by the general public without recourse.
Any information empowered to substantially restrict individual freedoms should
correspondingly be protected from inaccuracies, e.g. court documents and
police records.

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buro9
Is there a definition of "social media"?

Does it include forums? Closed forums? Anything with a chat capability? A
website that uses a third party chat widget and another third party address
book?

What is social media according to the US government?

~~~
tyingq
From a different DHS document...

[https://www.dhs.gov/publication/privacy-policy-
operational-u...](https://www.dhs.gov/publication/privacy-policy-operational-
use-social-media-instruction-110-01-001)

 _" Social Media means the sphere of websites, applications, and web-based
tools that connect users to engage in dialogue, share information and media,
collaborate, and interact. Social media take many different forms, including
but not limited to web-based communities and hosted services, social
networking sites, video and photo sharing sites, blogs, virtual worlds, social
bookmarking, and other emerging technologies."_

~~~
buro9
That is everything.

By that definition I've forgotten far more social media profiles than I have
today. No idea of the usernames, emails, sites, apps, anything.

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PakG1
So I'm guessing foreign social media won't be tracked, or will there be
bridges between each country's intelligence agencies where they track their
own country's apps? There's already intelligence sharing among those countries
anyway, right? :) What about countries that don't have such intelligence
sharing agreements with the US but still make big apps? I imagine it's
possible that those apps would have bigger treasure troves anyway. Bleh.

~~~
PeterisP
They don't really need any cooperation with the apps or the countries where
the apps are hosted, they'll just ask the immigrant to give full access or be
automatically denied.

~~~
dan1234
What happens if you don't have one of the accounts they ask about?

It's mad that you could be denied entry for not having a Facebook account.

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bcoughlan
What does "collect" mean? Ask me to supply links? Force me to provide my
phone? Force me to export all of my personal data from the platform? Or just
ask Facebook to do it for them?

I'd love to visit the US again but everything I've heard about the TSA and
invasions of privacy really put me off.

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kerpele
Does this include visitors or just immigrants? Or were visitors already
targeted by preceding rules?

~~~
seren
This is the slippery slope argument, but if this is done for security reasons,
once the infrastructure is in place for immigrants, I don't know why it should
not be applied to visitors.

~~~
kerpele
No argument, just a question. The answer will affect my decision whenever I'm
asked to travel to the US next and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

~~~
086421357909764
To play devils advocate, it's highly likely multiple countries are already
looking at this information, this is just a formal way of asking for it to add
non-compliance to justifications. It's almost akin to the US state of
Tennessee having a marijuana tax despite not allowing legal sale of the
substance. It becomes another thing to use on charges / justifications.

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coldcode
I wonder when it will start doing the same (overtly anyway) from US citizens
and visitors.

~~~
vinnycoyne
The current ESTA Visa Waiver form [0] (for non-residents visiting the country)
asks for social media usernames, although they're currently marked as
"Optional".

[0] [https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/](https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/)

~~~
quirkot
IIRC this started last summer

edit: Actually Dec 2016 / Jan 2017
[https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-
bord...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-border-
patrol-social-media-account-facebook-twitter)

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throw2016
Every human has a fundamental inalienable right to visit every single part of
the earth unhindered if they wish - not a right to make it their home - but to
see and appreciate the planet they live on without constraints. This is basic
humanism.

People are happy to point fingers at Russia, China and feel smug and superior
and look the other way while totalitarian ideas like searching people's
personal effects that attack the core of human dignity and dehumanize
individuals are legitimized with little to no pushback.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> Every human has a fundamental inalienable right to visit every single part
of the earth unhindered if they wish - not a right to make it their home - but
visit without undue constraints.

I like the idea but is this actually written somewhere (a treaty perhaps) or
just an opinion? If an opinion I don't see why you would draw a line between
visit and live.

~~~
sk0g
Some religious places also restrict access to only allow people of specific
faiths. Is that cool?

~~~
k-mcgrady
No.

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chinathrow
Sometimes, it feels like an endgame. But by whom?

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tomp
I think this is a bit overblown.

It doesn't mention they'll be requesting passwords, only "handles, aliases,
[...] search results [and] publicly available information". I mean, everything
is already accessible on the internet (to the extent I want it to be), and
accessible by merely a Google search of my name (which is written on my
passport), so anyone (not just Homeland Security) could easily collect this
info anyways (even without me being anywhere _near_ the US).

~~~
AsyncAwait
> It doesn't mention they'll be requesting passwords, only "handles, aliases

> I mean, everything is already accessible on the internet (to the extent I
> want it to be), and accessible by merely a Google search of my name (which
> is written on my passport), so anyone (not just Homeland Security) could
> easily collect this info anyways

The notion that only the info you want accessible under your name is actually
accessible under your name seems a bit naive, also you may need to disclose
'aliases' as well, which means account on which you _on purpose_ don't use
your real name, probably because you want to express your opinions a bit more
freely.

> I think this is a bit overblown.

DHS agents cherry-picking people's social media posts to deny them entry does
not seem overblown to me.

I think the only effective solution to this is for the EU to impose similarly
annoying travel restrictions on American citizens and for companies to stop
going to conferences etc. in the U.S.since they'll notice once big business
complains.

------
neverminder
So if my only "social media" accounts are on Stackoverflow and Github, would
that count?

~~~
Jonnax
Hackernews is social media. You've got an account, you make posts and interact
with people.

~~~
neverminder
Yeah, not sure they would appreciate the "hacker" part though.

~~~
ptero
I suspect they would, but I doubt one would appreciate their appreciation.

------
neuro_imager
Is this even news? Is there any doubt this has been happening since the dawn
of SM.

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koolba
Would this include shadow profiles?

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kogepathic
Cool. Well since us non-Americans have zero rights when travelling to the US,
and government/corporations can't be trusted to keep secrets safe, I guess I
won't travel to the US anymore.

Sucks, because they've got some nice nature, but I can go somewhere I'm not
hauled over a barrel for every detail of my life upon entry.

~~~
iratewizard
There's a huge difference between someone who comes to live permanently in the
country and someone who is looking at trees for a week. Do you think the US
has the infrastructure available to screen the facebooks of all 75 million
tourists who come to the US every year? IMHO this is not an overstep and
current US citizens should have at least cursory understanding of who someone
is when they are coming to live permanently in our country.

~~~
sunir
Yes. I think it does have the infrastructure.

~~~
KekDemaga
Millions of illegal immigrants roaming the streets seems to indicate
otherwise.

~~~
AsyncAwait
They're 'roaming the streets' because despite the rhetoric, without them, the
economy would take a huge hit. Also, there's a different level of effort
required to monitor someone you don't necessarily know about versus someone
who handed you all their info at the border.

~~~
KekDemaga
"because despite the rhetoric, without them, the economy would take a huge
hit"

I think its important to note that this was Democrats justification of slavery
during the civil war as well.

~~~
conanbatt
The similarity is that the oppression is now done by the state, so its much
harder to fight. The difference is that the illegal immigrant does have a
choice and prefers to be an illegal immigrant than a legal resident of their
home.

~~~
KekDemaga
"That just sounds like slavery with extra steps"

------
dang
Url changed from [https://gizmodo.com/us-homeland-security-will-start-
collecti...](https://gizmodo.com/us-homeland-security-will-start-collecting-
social-media-1818777094), which points to this.

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jackemupguy2
Define "immigrant"? Honestly, that can mean any class of things in loose
definition of the term. I bet some Senator on the Intelligence Oversight
committee, says legally speaking if your definition is everyone that is not
Native American - you are an immigrant - just to fudge the law, until someone
says you can't do that. The perverse intelligence community can only become
perverse, if both the public holds the government accountable, but then the
body of oversight - Congress, our elective official body of representation
(noting the President doesn't really count anymore) - makes it so. It's gonna
eventually happen, if it hasn't already started as of a decade ago (or more).

~~~
DrJokepu
The legal meaning of the term “immigrant” in the United States is defined by
section 101(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act:
[https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0...](https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-101.html#0-0-0-164)

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itchyjunk
USCIS has considerably more information about me than any other single agency.
I've used my regular college email and other alias and emails on my college
network. Part of me feels like I have nothing to hide so this is okay. Part of
me suddenly feels naked and being looked at.

Oh well, i'm all for terrorizing people as long as it stop terrorists.

(I wrote this comment and deleted it twice because i've used HN on campus and
this can be linked back to me now. lol, maybe I am just paranoid.)

~~~
ionised
> i'm all for terrorizing people as long as it stop terrorists.

Please tell me this is sarcasm.

