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US Government Begins Asking Foreign Travelers About Social Media (politico.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from Politico: Since Tuesday, foreign travelers arriving in the United States on the visa waiver program have been presented with an "optional" request to "enter information associated with your online presence," a government official confirmed Thursday. The prompt includes a drop-down menu that lists platforms including Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, as well as a space for users to input their account names on those sites. The new policy comes as Washington tries to improve its ability to spot and deny entry to individuals who have ties to terrorist groups like the Islamic State. But the government has faced a barrage of criticism since it first floated the idea last summer. The Internet Association, which represents companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter, at the time joined with consumer advocates to argue the draft policy threatened free expression and posed new privacy and security risks to foreigners. Now that it is final, those opponents are furious the Obama administration ignored their concerns. The question itself is included in what's known as the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, a process that certain foreign travelers must complete to come to the United States. ESTA and a related paper form specifically apply to those arriving here through the visa-waiver program, which allows citizens of 38 countries to travel and stay in the United States for up to 90 days without a visa. "There are very few rules about how that information is being collected, maintained [and] disseminated to other agencies, and there are no guidelines about limiting the government's use of that information," said Michael W. Macleod-Ball, chief of staff for the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office. "While the government certainly has a right to collect some information... It would be nice if they would focus on the privacy concerns some advocacy groups have long expressed."
would you mind keeping them, next to those who think it's clever to over use emoticons. Thanks.
Is this measure meant for complete imbeciles or I'm missing something here? What if I'm a real terr orist? I will either specify no social profile at all, or specify the one meant for fooling everyone.
Ah, I get it, it's not about terrorism. It's about pilfering taxpayer money. Oh, and it's about security theater as well. As if more people die of terrorism than people on the roads ... oh, wait.
nt
This will all be solved within the next four years:
With Trump as president, the entire country will be on fire, so there will no longer be a government.
If they're terrorists or involved with/sympathetic to terrorist organizations, they'll lie, or have 'clean' social media accounts to present.
If they're complete innocents and refuse to give social media information, they'll be assumed guilty until proven innocent (which won't happen -- they'll always be suspect).
If they're innocent and give social media information, they'll be suspected of giving information only on 'clean' social media accounts, and still remain suspect.
The only 'terrorists' this will catch are really, really dumb ones that either didn't think things through, or that weren't coached properly by their terrorist leaders.
Any way I look at this, it's pointless and stupid. All it'll really do is victimize innocent immigrants, who are being considered guilty until proven innocent (which won't happen; YOU try proving a negative!), and have law enforcement chasing ghosts while the real bad guys go about their business. Nice job, Washington.
The traditional sites like Facebook, etc? What about specialist sites like Ultimate Guitar, etc? What about membership in forums like Slashdot?
OPTIONAL EH, no problem, I opt out of travelling completely to that country.
Emoticon users should be in prison.
:-)
Welcome to Nazi Germany papers please!
Ask them to draw a cartoon of Muhammad. Only then are you welcome in the US.
The ones that don't give up their credentials will get more scrutiny.
Also you're vastly over estimating people's intelligence and sanity. Lots of "terrorists" are just the heavily manipulated mentally ill. For every Bin Laden there's a thousand of these guys. They're not likely to think they're at risk by giving up credentials, but they're also not all there in the head. Agents would be looking for patterns and again who they should be spending time investigating further.
I suppose we could also solve this problem with mental health services and equitable wealth distribution, but fat chance of that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
OMG!!! LOL ROFLMAO!!!
It is high time the US and others dropped this faÃade. Everyone knows Governmets arm, train and fund terrorists and use the "threat" in order to control the masses. I'd rather they just came out with it and said they want total control of your life.
Does no one else see how much by asking for social media makes foreigners feel like they have to have one? And what are they most likely to get? Facebook. They do everything they can to make a person "voluntarily" get one, even out of fear before the government relies on them even more for "terrorist" hunting. They'll make us all get one before it's over or figure out a way to use public records to auto create profiles and some how be legal. Mark is always fast to claim what FB isn't rather than what it is. It's a database full of personal information that governments around the world have access to when ever they want and Mark doesn't care because as long as he bends over, he will always be successful. They need him too much. Think about it, our gov will NOT let Facebook disappear even if the CEOs decided to get rid of the whole thing tomorrow. Twitter decides to revoke API keys to gov spy software and refuses to log Muslims and now they are in serious financial trouble all of a sudden? Bullshit.
1956-2016.
Farwell, princess.
Fuck 2016...
and web developers, them too for fuck's sake!
Is this measure meant for complete imbeciles or I'm missing something here? What if I'm a real terr orist? I will either specify no social profile at all, or specify the one meant for fooling everyone.
Both. "real" does not mean intelligent, and even "intelligent" does not mean "smart all the time," so you have increased security from detecting people who provide the information.
The fact that someone did not provide a profile may also be a flag--not a red flag, but combined with other stuff might set off someone's bump of trouble, or reallocate a few seconds of time at the border from someone who provided lots of information to someone who did not.
There are some other fairly obvious ways this could be operationally important, but while I'm against the idea for (personal, professional, commercial, etc...) privacy reasons, I'm still not going to provide the list someone can use to avoid being flagged as a terrorist.
Real lawyers write in C++
As if anyone who's involved in anything nefarious would give the nice folks at Customs and Immigration information that would incriminate themselves or lead to anything suspicious.
Why not just ask everyone coming in if they have "plans to bomb any buildings, commit a terror attack, or engage in any criminal activity"?
Those that say "yes" or "maybe" can be pulled aside for questioning and everyone else can just skip on through.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Imagine if ANY other country did this? Imagine if it was a country we are told is evil. Like today's Faux-enemy Russia. Imagine what the garbage MSM would say on their rags not fit to wipe our collective asses with.
Now imagine if the Americans, for fucking once, grew a pair and did something about it. I guess voting down this post will have to do. Go back to your pathetic troop worship instead.
... each of us should have at least two (2) accounts.
The first is "real," and contains normal chatter about kitty cats and memes to "Share if you love Jesus."
The second should be totally fake and we can let significant others know who we are.
I do that for all my social media and email.
I also have a spare iPhone I use for taking video and shit.
I'm a photographer and when I'm (rarely) asked the phone I use to take photos and videos, I hand over that one.
It can only work on WiFi and has very little crap loaded on it.
When they ask for my cell phone, I ask for probable cause regarding a phone I was not using at the time.
I recall two incidents: one at the local port where cameras are not allowed, but no signage, and the same when I was shooting a local oil refinery.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I have no social media. None whatsoever.
I recall an article from sometime around 2012, where some German psychologist made the bunk statement that (I'm paraphrasing) "people without social media are suspicious".
I've been a *nix sysadmin for almost 20 years and I've never felt the need to be on social media, have my own personal website, use Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, any of it. Call me odd, but I like face-to-face friendships. I'll text my friends or talk with them over the phone, but I detest social media and will never glom on to it.
>The new policy comes as Washington tries to improve its ability to spot and deny entry to individuals who have ties to terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
C'mon. Just say it.
>The new policy comes Because Terrorism
And yet you want my username why? There's literally no positive use for this data.
America The Beautiful (Shark-Jumper)
I know, the political hack dummies among us will spend the next few years spinning everything as the fault of our new oompaloompa overlord, but the plain FACT is that this, like the the total crackup of Obamacare, the DOUBLING of the national debt (to 20 TRILLION dollars), etc are all on Obama's watch and are direct results of Obama's policies.
Not blaming Obama for Obama policies and their direct effects is one level of denial. Shifting the blame to his successor is a doubling-down on dishonesty and denial.
And the US continues in its attempt to make it the least friendly country in the world to visit...
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
It is worse as an American....
Since post-9/11 you have been required to give full fingerprints and other identifying information/biometrics in order to work for state, nevermind federal government jobs. Additionally similiar requirements are in place for licensing as a mariner or pilot (I had a friend who just went through FAA licensing in the US, full hand fingerprints are a requirement.) California proper took the Japanese approach to it (single thumbprint for a California Driver's License, plus straight face photo, same as a passport.) Nevada on the other hand also required full hand fingerprints to get a state id/driver's license as an out of state US citizen, in addition to the normal requirements (photo, birth certificate.) Interestingly US passports, at least as of 5-10 years ago only required two forms of ID, a photo, and 40-100 dollars for normal/expedited filing to recieve. So it is actually easier to get a US passport than it is to get a state ID in many places, and at least used to eliminate the biometric requirement (which is required by almost all other forms of ID application now.)
Personally privacy is one of the most important rights for me, followed by biometrics. Given those as priorities to keep secure America is no longer the country for me to reside in. And given the popular results of the 2016 election, it is obvious that Americas have been brilliantly manipulated into two evenly matched factions who will be forever at each other's throats while those with the actual power continue to manipulate their for their own benefit while the plebs continue to fight their ideological squabbles as the major war while losing all the benefits of America that truly matter while they aren't paying attention.
> You have a few more weeks to use that.
I don't know about that. I could be mistaken since I pay more attention to your very funny posts than to your political posts, but if I recall correctly you've talked about Bush quite a bit THIS YEAR. After 8 years of Obama, you're still blaming Bush. So people who like that game can blame Obama for another 8 years.
* My apologies if I'm remembering wrong and you're not one of the "blame Bush" goofs. As I said, I think of you more as "the guy in Houston who posts really funny stuff, and also drank too much liberal Koolaid".
All I can do is say "take your tourist money elsewhere."
I used to go between RI and Ontario a lot. Coming back each time through Customs and Immigration, I felt like I was not even welcome in my own country.
There are some wonderful things to see in this country, but there are wonderful things to see in the rest of the world, and if you never come here in your lifetime, you won't be missing much.
--
BMO
I have no account on all those social medias. Does that make me a suspect?
And UX designers.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We American's love our Constitution so much, we don't want to share its protections with anyone else!
But it seems like the world would see us taking the high road if we treated everyone the way we expect to be treated.
This means at least the DHS hasn't hacked into Facebook. Maybe the NSA, CIA or FBI have and aren't sharing the data, but if they have to ask it means they don't have it. Right?
If no government agency was asking for this, I would assume they've hacked it already, which means they probably already expect me to think that. Inconceivable.
The assumption that this was ever intended for terrorism prevention rather than 5 eyes information gathering and sharing. Doing this is useful for providing that information back to the country of origin, which given the number of new entrants to ring 3 of 5 eyes in the past decade is quite large (44 countries and counting now sharing data via the 5 eyes arrangement, with lower ranked members perhaps getting less privileged data sharing than 'core' members.)
Also quite useful for state sponsored industrial espionage, which countries (even the US!) perform on a daily basis.
Is their Potassium superior to ours or something?
That was clear and concise. Merry Christmas, my friend.
Ps when I assign results (blame) in order to chart things and see what really works, I blame Bush through 2009 - it was his budget in 2009, and mostly the effects of Bush policies. That's imprecise, but reasonably close. Trump's first budget will start October 1st.
I find it interesting to come up with some objective criteria, such as economic growth rate, then chart it out for different presidents. By deciding on the criteria BEFORE I know the results, I get a true measure rather than something cherry-picked. This is the first chart I did, nine years ago:
http://bettercgi.com/tmp/econo...
Of course we know what happened right after that. It would be fair to say that based on economic growth, Bush Jr was the worst Republican President in recent history - the ONLY Republican President to leave the economy in worse shape than when he started.
Good luck!
This is no different to the Facebook "like" button on many websites, with the proviso that the receiving agency has guns and prisons. How many people will think that giving the government every detail of their life and more importantly, their children's lives, is helpful? How many people will happily (try to) prove they're not a terrorist?
ESTA: * Do you have to answer more personal question than to get a proper visa from China? check * Do you have to pay for it? Check * Do you have to provide you credit card number or paypal account? Check * Do you have to get it prior you travel? Check ESTA is not a visa waiver, this is a freaking visa process, it is just that it is fully automated (and should perform better than a human interview). Stop to make people believe that the visa waiver program exist anymore.
People tend to blame responsible peoppe beyond the time they were president or even lived. We still blame people for action taken 100 years ago like king leopold 2 and congo. Action taken by bush are still fel today. Because the oresident changed does not mean suddenly everything bush did, he is not responsible anymore
(this is not a
Right. Don't check the box, dont get the flight.
Did the TSA need an excuse to spend all of their time on Facebook, rather than actually do the job that is needed of them?
Reminds me of Good Morning Vietnam when they talk about Finding Charlie "Well, we walk up to someone and say, 'Are you the enemy? And, if they say yes, then we shoot them."
Unfortunately this is reality and someone in the US Govt. actually had this as an idea and it was approved, not just a joke.
"i post as Anonymous Coward on slashdot"
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