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I made a similar comment last month after having recently moved back from living abroad for several years. I'm genuinely curious, do Americans notice how far th

by hysan 10y ago

I made a similar comment last month after having recently moved back from living abroad for several years. I'm genuinely curious, do Americans notice how far things have changed compared to a couple years ago? Or were the changes so gradual that no one's noticed? I didn't visit the States during my time abroad so the difference to me was very shocking

hashkb 10y ago
Yes, we notice. Some of us... I'd happily hand over my twitter and fb usernames because I don't post anything there. The amount of privacy you should expect on social media has not changed.
- pimlottc 10y ago
  That's fine for you, but cooperating with this policy helps normalize and legitimize it and makes it more suspicious for others to decline.
- netsharc 10y ago
  It seems like a roundabout way of squashing speech. Make the citizenry aware that they will look through your social media accounts, and it causes the citizenry to automatically self-censor themselves. Yes I know it's talking about foreign travelers, but the citizen who reads about this probably can see the metaphorical cop glancing at him saying "You're next.". Self-censorship is amazing though, before the European refugee crisis, it seems Germans were polite or tolerant towards foreigners, because it's the social norm. Now in some cities, because they know their neighbors think the same about "those people", they've also realized they're free to express their negative views. Since they'll probably say "Please kindly write down your HN username", hello to the nice immigration officer reading this!
Jtsummers 10y ago
I think most of us are pretty ignorant about how the entry actually works in the US. The majority of Americans never even leave the country so they have no contact with US Customs officials to develop even basic awareness of the processes foreigners might go through.
- sndean 10y ago
  > I think most of us are pretty ignorant This was really surprising to me a few years ago. (The first time I had left the US since I was a small child.) I had thought people were just complaining about long lines. The Customs guy talked to me for >1 hour because I didn't make enough eye contact. And I'm an average looking white male who was coming back from a country that the US has a good relationship with...
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    My GF and my friend's GF (both from poorer 3rd world countries) traveling to see us in the US had very similar yet different experiences based on one primary difference: My girlfriend is employed. So once they found that out, they had little concern and it became much more relaxed. My friend's girlfriend is not (student, finished undergrad and taking a bit of time off before starting a PhD program). They give her the third degree. It doesn't help that it can be pretty arbitrary depending on which agent you get, too. Having a similar description to yours, customs agents have always let me walk through without difficulty. Except for one time coming back from Canada.
- Periodic 10y ago
  We get special lines that move pretty quickly. It's a relatively boring but painless process if you're a US citizen. I did accidentally bring an apple with me the last time I went through customs, which added an additional 15 minutes waiting in an additional line to get approval to throw it away before boarding the plane. This was on the way back from Israel though, so I was very aware of how much easier re-entry into the US was than going to Israel. But as a US citizen, I have no idea what visitors have to go through.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    We do, but US citizens that haven't dealt with US customs have even less understanding of what foreigners will experience when entering the US.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
I think it's a case of boiling a frog: if you increase the temperature slowly, they don't notice and jump out. Or so the proverb goes.
- rubberstamp 10y ago
  Pretty sure the country would collapse on itself when it becomes too much.
kelnos 10y ago
It's actually interesting that you say that... am I reading your post right that you're a US citizen, but lived abroad for a few years? I've found re-entry as a citizen to have gotten much easier and more streamlined over the past few years. With Mobile Passport, I'm through both immigration and customs in minutes (it boggles the mind that so few people have learned of MP yet; the "manual" lines are still pretty long). Nearly all of the immigration officials I've interacted with (SFO, EWR, IAD in the past few years) have been polite and even friendly. I feel like random customs checks have actually decreased for me in the last decade, though that could just be coincidence. Of course, full disclosure, I'm a straight cis white male, so I'm basically bottom of the list of people they'd potentially harass. I have several friends who are not US citizens, so I get to hear about how much it sucks from their perspective. There are differences depending on country of origin and visa type. My friends who are from "bad" immigration countries like India, China, and Russia have a hard time, but friends who are from more "trusted" countries tend to have it much easier. My friends who are on long term / work visas find it a huge pain to deal with renewal and keeping it updated (and sometimes my friends from "bad" countries get stuck outside the US for weeks during renewal, for no good reason), but the actual border crossings aren't too bad, as long as they have all their paperwork in order. I don't really know anyone who visits the US on a tourist visa or similar, so I don't know what that experience is like. Regarding changes for non-citizens, despite my friends relating their experiences, I don't think I've seen _that_ much of a negative difference over the past few years. The onerous fingerprinting requirements are not new[1], and the idea of the anxiety-inducing chat with the immigration officer is even older and doesn't seem to have changed much post-9/11. The new social media stuff is of course ridiculous, especially if it morphs into a hard requirement (or worse, a soft one, where refusing to provide details habitually results in denied entry). Is there a timeline anywhere of changes to US entry practices in the last decade or two? It'd be interesting to see if there have been a lot of small, incremental, "unnoticeable" changes. [1] And it seems many other countries have adopted fingerprinting requirements anyway; I was just in Japan and Taiwan, and both fingerprinted me. I believe Japan has been requiring fingerprints of visitors longer than the US has.

by hysan 10y ago

hashkb 10y ago

Yes, we notice. Some of us... I'd happily hand over my twitter and fb usernames because I don't post anything there. The amount of privacy you should expect on social media has not changed.

pimlottc 10y ago
That's fine for you, but cooperating with this policy helps normalize and legitimize it and makes it more suspicious for others to decline.
netsharc 10y ago
It seems like a roundabout way of squashing speech. Make the citizenry aware that they will look through your social media accounts, and it causes the citizenry to automatically self-censor themselves. Yes I know it's talking about foreign travelers, but the citizen who reads about this probably can see the metaphorical cop glancing at him saying "You're next.". Self-censorship is amazing though, before the European refugee crisis, it seems Germans were polite or tolerant towards foreigners, because it's the social norm. Now in some cities, because they know their neighbors think the same about "those people", they've also realized they're free to express their negative views. Since they'll probably say "Please kindly write down your HN username", hello to the nice immigration officer reading this!

Jtsummers 10y ago

I think most of us are pretty ignorant about how the entry actually works in the US. The majority of Americans never even leave the country so they have no contact with US Customs officials to develop even basic awareness of the processes foreigners might go through.

sndean 10y ago
> I think most of us are pretty ignorant This was really surprising to me a few years ago. (The first time I had left the US since I was a small child.) I had thought people were just complaining about long lines. The Customs guy talked to me for >1 hour because I didn't make enough eye contact. And I'm an average looking white male who was coming back from a country that the US has a good relationship with...
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  My GF and my friend's GF (both from poorer 3rd world countries) traveling to see us in the US had very similar yet different experiences based on one primary difference: My girlfriend is employed. So once they found that out, they had little concern and it became much more relaxed. My friend's girlfriend is not (student, finished undergrad and taking a bit of time off before starting a PhD program). They give her the third degree. It doesn't help that it can be pretty arbitrary depending on which agent you get, too. Having a similar description to yours, customs agents have always let me walk through without difficulty. Except for one time coming back from Canada.
Periodic 10y ago
We get special lines that move pretty quickly. It's a relatively boring but painless process if you're a US citizen. I did accidentally bring an apple with me the last time I went through customs, which added an additional 15 minutes waiting in an additional line to get approval to throw it away before boarding the plane. This was on the way back from Israel though, so I was very aware of how much easier re-entry into the US was than going to Israel. But as a US citizen, I have no idea what visitors have to go through.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  We do, but US citizens that haven't dealt with US customs have even less understanding of what foreigners will experience when entering the US.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

I think it's a case of boiling a frog: if you increase the temperature slowly, they don't notice and jump out. Or so the proverb goes.

rubberstamp 10y ago
Pretty sure the country would collapse on itself when it becomes too much.

kelnos 10y ago

It's actually interesting that you say that... am I reading your post right that you're a US citizen, but lived abroad for a few years? I've found re-entry as a citizen to have gotten much easier and more streamlined over the past few years. With Mobile Passport, I'm through both immigration and customs in minutes (it boggles the mind that so few people have learned of MP yet; the "manual" lines are still pretty long). Nearly all of the immigration officials I've interacted with (SFO, EWR, IAD in the past few years) have been polite and even friendly. I feel like random customs checks have actually decreased for me in the last decade, though that could just be coincidence. Of course, full disclosure, I'm a straight cis white male, so I'm basically bottom of the list of people they'd potentially harass. I have several friends who are not US citizens, so I get to hear about how much it sucks from their perspective. There are differences depending on country of origin and visa type. My friends who are from "bad" immigration countries like India, China, and Russia have a hard time, but friends who are from more "trusted" countries tend to have it much easier. My friends who are on long term / work visas find it a huge pain to deal with renewal and keeping it updated (and sometimes my friends from "bad" countries get stuck outside the US for weeks during renewal, for no good reason), but the actual border crossings aren't too bad, as long as they have all their paperwork in order. I don't really know anyone who visits the US on a tourist visa or similar, so I don't know what that experience is like. Regarding changes for non-citizens, despite my friends relating their experiences, I don't think I've seen _that_ much of a negative difference over the past few years. The onerous fingerprinting requirements are not new[1], and the idea of the anxiety-inducing chat with the immigration officer is even older and doesn't seem to have changed much post-9/11. The new social media stuff is of course ridiculous, especially if it morphs into a hard requirement (or worse, a soft one, where refusing to provide details habitually results in denied entry). Is there a timeline anywhere of changes to US entry practices in the last decade or two? It'd be interesting to see if there have been a lot of small, incremental, "unnoticeable" changes. [1] And it seems many other countries have adopted fingerprinting requirements anyway; I was just in Japan and Taiwan, and both fingerprinted me. I believe Japan has been requiring fingerprints of visitors longer than the US has.