Trump wants to require US visa applicants to disclose 5 years of social media hi

I do!  I definitely have those worries.

I don't fully agree with your "background check on everyone on a flight".  There will be a check against known terrorism records, but not all criminal records.  I say this with confidence having worked in a role confirming warrants in the past and also working for the company who created NCIC.  If they were, several people on each flight would be arrested for outstanding warrants.   

It’s quite a bit more than just a check against the no-fly lists. But, as I said, it’s imperfect, particularly with third country travelers. It’s also only as good as the computerization of the records where the flight is departing. And they’d really only pull for a felony or moral turpitude. As you may know of UK records, a lot of stuff isn’t there or falls off, stuff that would come up with the paper records they require when applying to immigrate or get a work visa to enter the US. US records aren’t consistent from one state to the next or even city to city. In 20 years that may all be fixed, but till then it just is what it is.

And when some algorithm sees the imperfect but pretty good info and decides it needs a closer look, then it spits it out to a person.

I’d be the first to say the system needs a good bit of improvement, but it has gotten enormously better over time since 9-11 and is really pretty good. Also, people with felony warrants do get picked up coming off flights on a decently regular basis.


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I’m very happy to be appalled when civil liberties are trampled. I don’t hesitate to push back on govt overreach, and I do fear the potential for abuse when power increases. And I do like my privacy. But this just really isn’t that scary.


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How can you think this is 'not that scary'? No one has a right to go through my private correspondence or anyone's private correspondence. Without a warrant. The government doesn't have a right to read my post, why should they have a right to read my Facebook wall, Twitter feed, or Instagram or messages?

My facebook profile is private. I don't post things to the public at large, heck I segment my friends list for things I want people I'm friends with to see.

I am not a public figure. My online footprint is my choice and I choose to keep it as private as I am allowed.

It may not be scary to you as a white man (going by your profile pic) but it's pretty damn scary to people who aren't part of that privileged group. Your civil liberties may not be threatened but it's the height of privilege-blinded arrogance to assume that no one else's are either.

Do you imagine that I haven’t been subjected to extra searches or hailed in a room and interrogated entering a country? Cause I definitely have. And that’s without even considering developing countries.

I’ve also been through repeated versions of the most thorough background checks there are. The ones where they interrogate you, talk to every employer you’ve ever had, find one of your elementary school teachers, ask your exes about your sexual habits, follow you around, look at your browser history, and then interrogate you again looking for inconsistencies. Plus, you know, a polygraph. I’ve also been poked and prodded in every place I got, and had enough blood drawn to burst a couple vampires. It wasn’t the most enjoyable having people watching me pee in a cup every month either. But such is life.

It is not that I don’t value my privacy, cause I do, or that I trust the govt not to abuse their power, cause I absolutely do not. It is just that I know when I’m sacrificing some of those things to do something I want to be doing. I know if I’m going to be in England then I can’t have a weapon, I have limited rights to defend my wife or myself, I’ll have to listen to people add “but he’s alright” after they introduce me as an American, and I just assume I’m always on camera. Yet I want to be in England, so I have to accept all that. Just like I accept that freedom of speech doesn’t mean exactly the same thing. I don’t have to like it, but if I don’t want to tolerate it, then I have the choice to not subject myself to it.


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How can you think this is 'not that scary'? No one has a right to go through my private correspondence or anyone's private correspondence. Without a warrant. The government doesn't have a right to read my post, why should they have a right to read my Facebook wall, Twitter feed, or Instagram or messages?

My facebook profile is private. I don't post things to the public at large, heck I segment my friends list for things I want people I'm friends with to see.

I am not a public figure. My online footprint is my choice and I choose to keep it as private as I am allowed.

The Supreme Court says at a port of entry it is routine to be searched without the need of probable cause. That extends to anything you carry with you - like a diary/planner. If you unlock your phone or laptop (turn off the fingerprint feature cause they can force you to do that) then they can search those without a warrant. They can strip search you without a warrant. Unless they want to subject you to an X-ray/ultrasound or body cavity search, they don’t need anything whatsoever. They could do all that cause you were the random person in line. But probably they’d only dig further when they have good reason to suspect something.

Specifically, if you put you correspondence on the Internet or if you carry it through a port of entry in any country on earth, then they do have a right to search it. Not to get their jollies prying into your business, but to understand if you should be admitted to the country or not, and only up to the point they can make that determination.

You put that information at jeopardy of exposure when you made a choice that put it inside their reach. You don’t have to use social media, you don’t have to put anything private on it, you don’t have to travel with a diary or private information when you pass through a border. You make a choice to do that stuff, and it has consequences. There’s nothing really new about that.

I understand you are putting greater trust in the collective of Facebook, google, your isp, every cell provider, every WiFi source, etc to keep your data private and not look at it more than you trust the govt. I wouldn’t trust any of them, but at this point there’s ample evidence that trust in those other entities to protect any confidentiality is not well placed.


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Also, it does only say usernames. Not passwords. If that’s the case, they couldn’t see beyond your privacy settings without a warrant. And it’d only be a problem if you refused and they found it. That’d be lying on the visa application. It’s just a time saving measure for them. It doesn’t really expose anything that wasn’t already exposed.


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  you seem to have a lack of understanding of the best things about the US, like tolerance, free speech

British teen, Luke Angel, banned from United States for life for offensive e-mail to President Obama

"I don't remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk," he told The Sun. "But I think I called Barack Obama a pr---. It was silly - the sort of thing you do when you're a teenager and have had a few."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/british-teen-luke-angel-banned-united-states-life-offensive-e-mail-president-obama-article-1.438745

Constitutional matters aside, I am not so sure that we are doing any better as far as rooting out whoever it is we are trying to root out (terrorists, sex fiends, political agitators?).

It is true that we don't really know how well our war on evil doers is going, because we don't really know about - or don't pay attention to - the successes, even those which simply act as a deterrent.

One issue I have with this is that data trawling is a poor substitute (smokescreen?) for nuts and bolts security/intelligence. It would be great if it were so easy as to sit in an office and poke a button and some algorithm would flag up a guy before he does something really bad. No one wants to be a victim of a terrible act. I am doubtful that this will happen very often.

But is this what it is all about?

British teen, Luke Angel, banned from United States for life for offensive e-mail to President Obama

From the article:
"The individual had sent an email to the White House which was full of abusive and threatening language," a police spokesperson told the British newspaper, Bedfordshire On Sunday.

I'd guess it's the "threatening" part that is not covered by free speech or tolerance. 

I also think that more than a few people who have threatened Trump online will soon get a harsh lesson on the way the secret service works now that his visit has been nailed down.  They'll be personally visiting a lot of people who may have previously thought that stuff you say on the internet doesn't mean anything. 

British teen, Luke Angel, banned from United States for life for offensive e-mail to President Obama

"I don't remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk," he told The Sun. "But I think I called Barack Obama a pr---. It was silly - the sort of thing you do when you're a teenager and have had a few."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/british-teen-luke-angel-banned-united-states-life-offensive-e-mail-president-obama-article-1.438745

He would not have been banned for just calling the president a prick...

He doesn't remember what he said... And since he's done something to where he can't check what he said like deleted the account... I wouldn't believe a word out of his mouth. You can always check your sent messages.

I call BS.

How can you think this is 'not that scary'? No one has a right to go through my private correspondence or anyone's private correspondence. Without a warrant. The government doesn't have a right to read my post, why should they have a right to read my Facebook wall, Twitter feed, or Instagram or messages?

My facebook profile is private. I don't post things to the public at large, heck I segment my friends list for things I want people I'm friends with to see.

I am not a public figure. My online footprint is my choice and I choose to keep it as private as I am allowed.

Lyonaria, you do understand that none of that stuff is private at all?  All of those services you list, especially FaceBook are almost the exact opposite of private.  Every bit of information you post is carefully read and stored, and then sold to anyone they like. It's not even that they COULD do this, they certainly do. 

I'm not having a go at you, but you may want to rethink your relationship with those companies if you value your privacy as much as that post would indicate.   

The Supreme Court says at a port of entry it is routine to be searched without the need of probable cause. That extends to anything you carry with you - like a diary/planner. If you unlock your phone or laptop (turn off the fingerprint feature cause they can force you to do that) then they can search those without a warrant. They can strip search you without a warrant. Unless they want to subject you to an X-ray/ultrasound or body cavity search, they don’t need anything whatsoever. They could do all that cause you were the random person in line. But probably they’d only dig further when they have good reason to suspect something.

Specifically, if you put you correspondence on the Internet or if you carry it through a port of entry in any country on earth, then they do have a right to search it. Not to get their jollies prying into your business, but to understand if you should be admitted to the country or not, and only up to the point they can make that determination.

You put that information at jeopardy of exposure when you made a choice that put it inside their reach. You don’t have to use social media, you don’t have to put anything private on it, you don’t have to travel with a diary or private information when you pass through a border. You make a choice to do that stuff, and it has consequences. There’s nothing really new about that.

I understand you are putting greater trust in the collective of Facebook, google, your isp, every cell provider, every WiFi source, etc to keep your data private and not look at it more than you trust the govt. I wouldn’t trust any of them, but at this point there’s ample evidence that trust in those other entities to protect any confidentiality is not well placed.


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You've gone off on a tangent here.

I'm saying that the government doesn't have the right to my information/data without good cause and therefore anyone coming into the country should get the same treatment.

That people coming into the country aren't subject to having their post/texts/phone calls shared prior to visiting, their social media shouldn't be either.

And they don't have a right to go through my phone. I don't have to give them access. They can make my life hell, but I don't have to let them. Same as with my laptop.

The first moden day computer was built to spy; Colossus was built at Bletchley Park, the home of the codebreakers, by Tommy Flowers. Now computers can be used to spy on other computers.

https://interestingengineering.com/tommy-flowers-the-man-who-built-colossus

http://www.cryptomuseum.com/people/tommy_flowers.htm

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/1078/Tommy-Flowers/

Lyonaria, you do understand that none of that stuff is private at all?  All of those services you list, especially FaceBook are almost the exact opposite of private.  Every bit of information you post is carefully read and stored, and then sold to anyone they like. It's not even that they COULD do this, they certainly do. 

I'm not having a go at you, but you may want to rethink your relationship with those companies if you value your privacy as much as that post would indicate.

Jimbo, I work in marketing and with SEO, Facebook and all that jazz. I know what they do with my data. I have actually read the agreements and articles over the last several years where this is brought up regarding Google, apple and Facebook But that doesn't give the government right to access it.

Heck, Google is tracking me right now as I'm using my phone since it's an android phone. It's tracking me on my laptop as I'm logged into chrome. Just like Apple does with their phones.
 

Any of you watch Hunted?

It was AWESOME.  And gave you an idea of how much the government can find out about each and every one of us.  Ain't nothing a secret.

Jimbo, I work in marketing and with SEO, Facebook and all that jazz. I know what they do with my data. I have actually read the agreements and articles over the last several years where this is brought up regarding Google, apple and Facebook But that doesn't give the government right to access it.

Heck, Google is tracking me right now as I'm using my phone since it's an android phone. It's tracking me on my laptop as I'm logged into chrome. Just like Apple does with their phones.

Sorry, I forgot you may know just as much as me about that stuff.  But then how do you square the circle that you fiercely guard your privacy but post to websites where there is no expectation of privacy?  Were you only talking about the government then? 

I put my money where my mouth is and post nothing to Face Book, for a lot of reasons including privacy.