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US To Seek Social Media Details From All Visa Applicants (bloomberg.com)
According to Bloomberg, the State Department wants to require all U.S. visa applicants to submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses and phone numbers. From the report: In documents to be published in Friday's Federal Register, the department said it wants the public to comment on the proposed new requirements, which will affect nearly 15 million foreigners who apply for visas to enter the U.S. each year. The new rules would apply to virtually all applicants for immigrant and non-immigrant visas. The department estimates it would affect 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education, according to the documents. If the requirements are approved by the Office of Management and Budget, applications for all visa types would list a number of social media platforms and require the applicant to provide any account names they may have had on them over the previous five years. It would also give the applicant the option to volunteer information about social media accounts on platforms not listed in the application. In addition to their social media histories, visa applicants will be asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, international travel and deportation status, as well as whether any family members have been involved in terrorist activities. Only applicants for certain diplomatic and official visa types may be exempted from the requirements, the documents said.
Guess I won't be travelling to the US anymore.
thank you
That's 41,000 per day, every day. No one is even going to follow up to see if the first alias listed even exists, let alone have time to verify its authenticity. This isn't even security theatre, it's security elevator music.
What if they arenâ(TM)t on any social media? Iâ(TM)m a naturalized US citizen and not on any.
the country that drops the most bombs and kills the most people acts like it's the most vulnerable and always under threat. Pathetic.
14,710,000 new Facebook accounts. Problem solved.
The UK already bans people from entering based on social media accounts.
Canada googles citizenship applicants and questions people based on it.
So frankly I see nothing new in what the U.S. is doing.
So many people here on Slashdot seem to want more government. This is more government - congrats, you go what you asked for.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What if I don't have a twitter... or facebook... or w/e?
How about you apply for a job at the Trumpet administration. Your ideas seem as fucked up as his.
It's funny how US citizens and 'foreigners' are put into 2 groups here, with completely different sets of norms for what rights they should have. The assumption being: foreigners are some implicitly greater threat than US citizens? Seems there's plenty of threat at home... Or they just don't have the rights Americans do, somehow lesser or something, by virtue of where they are born?
So with that, it's ok to ask for all that big-brother info? Ok :)
We've set a few records there - 75 million tourists in 2014, according to this:
https://share.america.gov/75-m...
I guess we don't need any more.
I don't understand the purpose of these changes. Supposing that applicants are forthcoming with the information, what does that get you? What does it tell you that you didn't already know? How much effort are you going to spend looking at these things? Then we get into the issue of whether they're up front about all of it - and perhaps not for nefarious reasons. What about forgetfulness? The issue is that they could pluck anybody out to grill them about their visa status and information. Maybe they did spend some time on a platform 3 years ago but don't remember much about it. If they say they have no accounts, what are you going to do about it? Is this going to be a crime? What about private/locked or otherwise obscured accounts?
And in the case of familial terrorists, what are you expecting the answer to be? A terrorist might say yes, but somebody that has no interest in terrorism at all might say yes as well. You might need to worry a bit about one but not the other. This question does nothing to disambiguate.
This seems like a waste of time and money to me and for very little gain. It increases the barrier to entry to the country and not in a useful way.
Perhaps because some of them come here as tourists and spend money.
You're a fool if you believe social media privacy settings mean anything.
You know that it is required to have a B-2 Visa (Tourism and Visit) to enter the US as a tourist, right? Now, don't you feel stupid? Or do you intend for all foreign tourists to be replaced by domestic tourists, since we all come and "steal your jobs"? I guess that the tourist industry don't want customers over there. Well, with the people like you around and laws like these, I sure have crossed off the US from my list of countries to visit (again).
Look at the statistics of your own State Department (PDF) and note that the visas for business visits or tourist visits far outnumber any other visa by at least one, if not two or three magnitudes.
So stop being a racist moron and get your head out of your ass!
...Unless unemployment is 0% , there are Americans willing to do the jobs.
Too bad US business owners are too fucking cheap to pay a decent living wage to Americans, which is the exact reason they prefer hiring foreigners.
Try not to avoid the more obvious problem next time you start bitching about unemployment.
There is no point to this. Apart from dissuading anybody from coming, it would not really affect people with nefarious purposes. After all, they would just omit incriminating accounts from their responses.
I don't remember all of the social media accounts, phone numbers, and email addresses I've used in the last 5 years.
Many of them are one-shot-throw-aways that I use to fill in online complaint forms. Their sole purpose is to receive the reply to the complaint - usually nothing more than the automated "your complaint has been registered" reply.
If this becomes a standard worldwide, I'll be forced to stay at home.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
We're going to force people to turn over their information simply to see if they said anything wrong while our so-called president hides what's on his tax returns.
Who do you think can do more damage?
You're a fool if you believe social media privacy settings mean anything.
Agreed. The information on Facebook is NOT yours. It is Facebook's. They can do with it what they want. Sure they could try to require a court order for every request, but I rather suspect facebook would streamline the process for them. Maybe a National Security Letter would be required but I doubt it.
If we must have a Facebook it should be something decentralized based around strong cryptography where the user agreement protects privacy legally. Perhaps everyone would run a "Facebook" node. Sure all that already sort of exists with Tor and such, but perhaps it is time it becomes mainstream.
You still need a company behind it and people to make sure it stays secure, only has real people. Accurately shows the country of origin of those real people, takes down propaganda and disturbing crap, etc, etc...
I am a bit old in internet years. I remember back then that registering in forums,emails,etc you usually used a nickname. And you usually tried to make it sound cool. If at registration there were fields about personal stuff you just put there random strings(or fake ones).
Somehow, everyone decided it is cool to use their real names when signing up in social media. Why?
So my question is what if you use a nickname on social media, and on your visa application you just say "I don't have any account"?
How are they going to find it anyway?
(assuming you haven't connected it with your phone number or the email address you present in the visa form)
I think I might be able to dig up my ICQ account number.
But what about all of those through away emails that I created on hotmail, let alone all of the ISPs that I have had email through?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
...I always have, and I always will.
But I don't have to like their government, and most of the Americans I know, don't like them very much either, but it's theirs - and right now, all they got, they got to deal with it.
Sadly, because of the draconian laws and orwellian rules bestowed on travelers and tourists to the U.S. I won't be spending my tourist money there either, and that's sad - because I spend a lot. Just the last vacation, I spent roughly 4000$ in just one month, Four thousand dollars may not sound like a lot, but it's still money to some, the year before that I spent nearly 6000$ there.
I still WANT to go, because I love to meet my American friends in person, and they have roots in our countries too (as you may know, most of America consists of immigrants), and a lot of them stem from Scandinavia. But I'm a stickler for freedom - and I believe strongly in my rights, and no way - no how - will anyone force me to give up my entire history, no matter what excuse they hide under.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
They are far better at protecting for information compared to bank cards. Don't leave home without it.
You don't need a Visa for vacation, you need a passport from your country of residence. Visa's are required for school or working in the US.
Correct, as long as your country of citizenship (not residence) is in the visa-waiver program. Otherwise you need a visa to visit the USA.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Guess what the thing they stamp in your passport is for.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
How about we just stop accepting visa applicants entirely?
Well, that's one way to increase unemployment. For instance, the professors who offer classes to foreign students won't have them anymore. And of course the follow-on jobs. Even if you discard the student visas, there are still American citizens employed supporting foreign workers. From people pouring them coffee to people selling them clothes to people renting them apartments... gone.
Unless unemployment is 0% , there are Americans willing to do the jobs.
Wait, what? It works the other way around. As long as unemployment isn't 0%, there are clearly Americans unwilling to do the jobs.
"Oh no... he found the
No more people visiting your country. You're gonna be safe. Splendid idea.
For countries that participate in the visa-waiver programme, such as the UK, just an I-94 is required to be filled in before landing.
At least, that was the case the last time I travelled there. If this new nonsense gets enacted, then that will have been the last time...
Of course, this will serve no useful purpose - anyone trying to get in with malicious intent will have prepared an innocuous set of social media content, but anyone sensible who eschews FB and their ilk will get pulled out of line for some special questioning...
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Pretty sure the information will also be required for ESTA Visa Waiver forms. It's just an electronic visa anyway.
It depends on your country of residence.
Residents of countries - like the UK - that participate in the visa-waiver programme don't need a visa.
Everyone else does.
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You have to have a visa to be a tourist in the US? That's news to the 15+ million Canadians that drive into the US each year.
What's the value of a worthless request like this? If someone simply says they have no such account, how is the government going to refute him/her?
Don't worry, there are plenty of other countries where they can spend their money.
Being able to travel all over the world w/o substantial scrutiny or barriers is a relatively modern event, and was perhaps simply a temporary anomaly resulting from a brief period where long distance travel was easier than getting detailed information about travelers across borders.
In any case, this isn't a USA specific issue.
As an American with conservative political beliefs, I would not feel safe traveling to the UK or Europe. The UK just imprisoned a US Traveler for 3 days just because they didn't like his/her political beliefs. Europe is worse, who knows what laws I might break by speaking my mind?
No country is perfect, and now that countries are engaged in the modern fad of encouraging only politically correct speech - all of them are taking advantage of the influx of information about travelers.
Facebook used to be a fun little website where you can keep in touch with friends you hadn't seen for ages.
Now it's part of an Orwellian spy system.
Time to delete all social media. It was fun, but this is why we can't have nice things.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Unless unemployment is 0% , there are Americans willing to do the jobs.
That's one hell of an assumption.
...you do realize that the MONUMENTAL majority (over 95% in fact) of visa applications are for TOURISTS, right?
I remember the American outrage when Brazil announced they would be fingerprinting Americans entering the country - Just like the U.S. had begun fingerprinting everyone entering the U.S.. Now this. Hell I couldn't even list my past phone numbers and E-mail, don't have twitter or facebook accounts. This is getting ever more excessive.
From the novel Space Viking by H. Beam Piper and unhappily seeming more and more applicable to his homeland the U.S.A.
Canadians are granted a B-1/B-2 visa at the border (depending on business vs. pleasure); they just don't have to apply in advance.
Source: being a Canadian who has travelled to the US a great deal.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
... Mailinator FTW! How many email addresses would you like me to list? ROFLMAO
> the State Department wants to require all U.S. visa applicants to submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses and phone numbers
the State Department wants to promote people not visiting the U.S., to spend their business, tourism, education, etc money elsewhere and to collaborate and innovate without us.
FTFY
Doesn't everybody keep multiple sets of social media accounts, one for letting employers and customs know about, and another under a false name for personal use? Also, what can they do if you just say, "I'm a Luddite, I don't have any social media accounts!" If you still keep a Facebook account on your phone, then you're an idiot.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Canadians are granted a B-1/B-2 visa at the border (depending on business vs. pleasure); they just don't have to apply in advance.
Source: being a Canadian who has travelled to the US a great deal.
You're going to need a better source than that; I also have travelled to the US a great deal and, AFAIK, the only time I've had any kind of visa is when I've had to stay there for a few months. Every other time I've just chatted with the border agent for a minute and then driven through.
This is fucking stupid. For any number of reasons, but the main one is that there are countries which will reciprocally put the same requirement on US citizens visiting them. And then if I go to one of those countries, I'll have to admit that I have a Google Plus account. Embarrassing.
Can confirm: am international tourist, and I avoid the USSA like the plague because of the ridiculous immigration system and widely accepted human rights abuses.
Just because we aren't US citizens doesn't mean we aren't human beings deserving of basic rights, respect and protection under the law.
Fuck Trump and fuck white nationalism.
Both are destroying our great country.
Fuck them with a wooden spoon.
America is better than that and them.
We are and always have been a nation of immigrants.
Just like our diverse ancestors beat the Nazis we will beat the whiny spoiled loser alt-nazis.
Fuck them.
Everyone just trades their accounts around with others every few months. Delete the old contacts and insert your desired contacts. That would screw up FaceBook psychographics and anybody else who wants to use the data.
This. It's laughable how Americans will bang on about rights and liberties for Americans. The rest of the world though, nah they can go screw themselves. Your nationalism disgusts me.
I'm sure I'll be fine, unless they track me down on Usenet, which no one even knows exists anymore. Oops, already I've said too much.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-visit/visitor.html
Generally, a citizen of a foreign country who wishes to enter the United States must first obtain a visa, either a nonimmigrant visa for temporary stay, or an immigrant visa for permanent residence. Visitor visas are nonimmigrant visas for persons who want to enter the United States temporarily for business (visa category B-1), tourism, pleasure or visiting (visa category B-2), or a combination of both purposes (B-1/B-2).
You may want to look up the meaning of the word "generally".
Or you could try scrolling further down on the page you linked, to where it says:
"Citizens of Canada and Bermuda do not require visas to enter the United States, for visit, tourism and temporary business travel purposes"
...here is asking for telephone numbers from the past five years. Most people fail to appreciate how much of a unique, useful, and ubiquitous, the telephone number is for tracking people. Once you have scraped all the data, running a query on a telephone number will reveal an awful lot of information about a person.
Personally, to minimize my traceable footprint, I no longer claim to have a telephone number. When asked I politely say I don't have one, and despite the odd look, it's never really a problem. On the few occasions I've been forced to provide one (strange concept, hey?) I provide "local country code + local area code + 111 111..." to meet the local telephone number rules.
If my work wants me to travel to the US,I think my answer will be a firm "no".
Do they really think terrorists are going to hand over their social media details?
Honestly, the only reason I'd want to visit US is to watch an NBA game, and I can happily give that up.
This is just information gathering by the government. It doesn't add any real security
Let us begin with "ebil 'muricans".
If you are the type of person who would type something like this, you already are an embarrassment to your country, your family, and humanity in general.
While I don't agree with the "twitter length" post by the AC before you, your response is precisely what makes America "the land of the under achiever".
My European family was sent to the gas chambers while my American family could not sign up to fight. An unfortunate side effect of being short, fat, and Jewish. Afterwards, much of my family went to Israel to become some of the worst of the Zionists. Those left behind supported legally, vocally, and financially the establishment of the most racist government ever.
I believe truly that in WWII, your even more primitive ancestry stormed the beaches of Normandy and 75 years later believe the world should pay homage to the dependents of all those great people, and their neighbors, and their dogs.
But if you understood why WWII happened, you would realize that all those people died not because of Hitler, but because of the English and the French driving the German people to the point where supporting Hitler made sense.
1) Unless you are a 100 WWII veteran or a 80 year old who lost their father to the war, you need to move on. The world and its people have changed.
2) If the last positive contribution you can cite or feel is suitable to cite was the performance of your club wielding adolescent ancestors and their performance wielding said clubs against the teenage children of the other side until a team of German immigrants managed to create a bomb that when unleashed burned 129000 (mostly civilians) alive while Truman made empty threats like "I can keep doing this all day".... you truly are some of the worst humanity has to offer. At least cite the Marshal plan.
3) No one outside of America has any point of reference to even attempt to understand what "ebil 'murican" is. I, as an "ebil 'murican" required assistance from Google to decipher such gibberish.
4) Once the war ended, the people would likely have noticed difference. People rarely do notice much in that sense. We wake, we work, we eat, we sleep. The Nazis weren't trying to kill everyone in the world as you suggest. They aimed for the most obviously different groups. This is similar to what your brethren do with Muslims ad Hispanics.See, if you can accuse people who look different than you of trying to take unfairly what you covet, you can blame them for you not having more. The Nazi would have ruled, but if you consider China, a country united though force by a military leadership who preaches pure blood propaganda... of the 1.4 billion people who they govern...maybe 10% would notice if they had democracy tomorrow.
I think what I'm trying to say is that the behavior of your ilk is precisely the reason why wars based on patriotic nonsense occur. Consider that the many great people contributed to the ending of WWII, but it took far more fools like you to start it.
What if they aren't on any social media? I'm a naturalized US citizen and not on any.
Exactly. Why do governments assume that people can't live without a social media account just like they can't live without a vital body part (like a heart).
Also, why is the US government taking applications for credit cards?
Put a red maple-leaf on your backpack and enjoy life. -T
As a scientist that has recently had to go through the visa process to go to a conference in the US, I wouldn't have done it under these circumstances. It was already painful enough to reply to the question "which countries have you visited?"
Your loss.
What can I say: the american relevance in science is already STEADILY DECLINING (I can clearly see this in my research field) and this is going to make it much worse!!! Good luck people. I've loved doing science in the US in the past, and I thank you Americans for hiring me at MIT multiple times, but it will not be the future.
countries from which visas are required?
You see, many countries are sufficiently friendly to the US and have sufficient terror warning systems interfaced with the US so that the US can know their citizens are safe visitors. These countries have agreements with the US to allow their citizens to visit without a visa.
Countries with no government, or a very shaky government, or a hostile government who cannot [or will not] provide info to the US about the safety of their people are not allowed to send their people to the US without a visa. It is this latter group that will now be subjected to more thorough scrutiny. Contrary to previous arm-waving and wild speculation, the US will not require passwords to online accounts etc even from these people and will require a less intrusive data set like e-mail addresses and user names recently used (which will help the US government more rapidly and reasonably look a little deeper at these people whose own governments cannot or will not adequately do it.
The US has been repeatedly sneak-attacked and its people finally got pissed enough to demand that their government, which has spent TRILLIONS of tax dollars and many tens of thousands of lives over a span of decades defending other people, finally get more serious about defending its people BEFORE they get attacked.
You like to complain about how many bombs the US has dropped (you probably complain about Hiroshima and Nagasaki too) and how many the US has killed, but you do not discern between those acts comitted on behalf of the US building a biug empire by absorbing other nations (no recent example) and those acts comitted to save others or defend after the US or a US ally was attacked. This is as morally bankrupt as equating the deaths of people murdered by criminals with the deaths of criminals killed by the police.
"US To Seek Social Network Details From All Visa Applicants"
There fixed that for you.
You're willing to give this data to Facebook/Instagram/Tinder/etc., who would happily provide it to the US government for a "processing" fee, but the minute the US government openly requests it people are outraged.
You've already chosen to give up your data. You've surrendered your privacy. You chose to do that freely. Why the outrage now?
no taveling to usa now....you fucking retards are out to bankrupt yourselves aren't ya
You may want to look up the meaning of the word "generally".
Or you could try scrolling further down on the page you linked, to where it says:
"Citizens of Canada and Bermuda do not require visas to enter the United States, for visit, tourism and temporary business travel purposes"
You may think and it feels like you don't require a visa, but trust me as a Canadian who travels somewhat frequently to the US, you *do* get a rubber-stamp temporary visa.
You might think you didn't get it or need it.
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
and know in a couple of minutes if the accounts were legit and look for the obvious keywords.
Not like you'd have a room full of people reading names and passwords from a piece of paper
and logging into each account to check,
Uh, rest of the world do have rights... in the rest of the world! Right now, you have Leftist activists campaigning to give voting rights to non citizens, which no country in the world allows! Yet in CA, illegal immigrants (I refuse to use the euphemism 'undocumented' since they brazenly broke the laws while coming here) have more rights and protections than both citizens and legal immigrants.
GP can go tour countries like Pakistan or Yemen and admire how wonderful they are, that it's an outrage that anybody would think of preventing their people from coming here
You have to have a visa to be a tourist in the US? That's news to the 15+ million Canadians that drive into the US each year.
Canada is the worst example one can use when talking of immigration, since Canada has a pretty special status in the US as a comparable neighbor. Use countries like Belgium or Honduras or Turkey as a better example
Only terrorists have something to hide!
N/A
There is at least one country that sometimes allows non-citizens to vote in local elections.
unixisc lies.
just a friendly reminder that US is a shithole
The intent is to discourage people from immigrating here while providing new methods of kicking people out the regime thinks do not belong here. The failure to disclose some dumb account someone registered for and forgot about will likely be used against them when it's convenient.
What happens if someone doesn't have any social media accounts? Are you just refused entry? Or, what if I just tell them that I don't have any accounts (even if I do)?
It really is a very, very pointless requirement. It kinda reminds me of how tech companies write their job descriptions with impossible experience requirements so they can exclude U.S. citizens and hire only H-1B slaves.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, techies.
The sad thing is, reading the summary, I half expected it to say that they would be required to furnish their account names *and* passwords. Sigh. Just shows how low my expectations are.
The UK just imprisoned a US Traveler for 3 days just because they didn't like his/her political beliefs. Europe is worse, who knows what laws I might break by speaking my mind? ...
You are an idiot
Hello, Mr. Boiling Frog. How is the water?
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-43393035
Citation needed on the "imprisoned for 3 days for beliefs".
How is the water?
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-43393035
So let's see. On the one side I have:
1. My own experience.
2. A US government website saying Canadians don't need visas.
3. Official government stats showing that the US issues around 11 million visas per year, but Canadians make 30 million cross border trips every year.
And, on the other side I have:
1. You. Saying "just trust me".
K. Way to sell your case.
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." --Winston Churchill
Casteism
Fuck, what rock have you been living under that you didn't know China has the largest and fastest growing middle class ever. And that they just about alone are responsible for the massive increase in international travel, plus they spend on average much more than other countries too.
You are an idiot !!
Who in their right mind would want to visit the USA? As someone living outside the USA, I have long thought there is nothing worth seeing there. Many years ago, I visited Canada and the USA and saw many wonderful NATURAL sights. A highlight of my trip was walking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up again in a day. The cities were nothing special. The people were not all that friendly. There was little attraction there for me. These days there is only bad news coming out of the USA, hardly ever anything good or positive. The impression given is that it is bordering on a fascist police state, if not already there. This article reinforces the appearance of a place only someone desperate would want to visit.
To all the Americans who will respond to this and say I am welcome to stay out, don't worry, I have no plans to ever visit the USA again. There are many places in the world where a visitor is welcomed with open arms, and where there is much to see and experience, more than enough places for a lifetime.
You can't back up any of your claims. And are are too stupid to realise how completely absurd your comments were.
Thanks for playing, better luck next time.