US Customs and Border Protection Wants To Know Who You Are On Twitter (eff.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electronic Frontier Foundation: U.S. border control agents want to gather Facebook and Twitter identities from visitors from around the world. But this flawed plan would violate travelers' privacy, and would have a wide-ranging impact on freedom of expression -- all while doing little or nothing to protect Americans from terrorism. A proposal has been issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to collect social media handles from visitors to the United States from visa waiver countries. The Electronic Frontier Foundation opposes the proposal and has commented on it individually and as part of a larger coalition. "CBP specifically seeks 'information associated with your online presence -- Provider/Platform -- Social media identifier' in order to provider DHS 'greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections' for 'vetting purposes,'" reports EFF. "In our comments, we argue that would-be terrorists are unlikely to disclose social media identifiers that reveal publicly available posts expressing support for terrorism." They say this plan "would unfairly violate the privacy of innocent travelers," would cause "innocent travelers" to "engage in self-censorship, cutting back on their online activity out of fear of being wrongly judged by the U.S. government," and would lead to a "slippery slope, where CBP would require U.S. citizens and residents returning home to disclose their social media handles, or subject both foreign visitors and U.S. persons to invasive device searches at ports of entry with the intent of easily accessing any and all cloud data."

Comments

Double Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how the summary says that it's acceptable to demand the Twitter and Facebook handles from foreigners but that it's unacceptable to do the same to US citizens and residents.

Re:Would they believe

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's possible, but whether they'd believe it or not, that's an interesting question.

It's just a small slide down from...

Gov't: Give us your password.
Me: I don't remember.
Gov't: We're throwing you in jail till you cough it up.

...to...

Gov't: Give us your account name.
Me: I don't have one.
Gov't: We're throwing you in jail till you cough it up.

Re:Going to have to side against the EEF on this o

[NatasRevol]

This is what happens when you DO have full documentation going to the UK.

https://medium.com/@rachelnabo...