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DHS Plans To Gather Social Media Info
- coldcode 9y agoI wonder when it will start doing the same (overtly anyway) from US citizens and visitors.
- vinnycoyne 9y agoThe current ESTA Visa Waiver form [0] (for non-residents visiting the country) asks for social media usernames, although they're currently marked as "Optional". [0] https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/
- quirkot 9y agoIIRC this started last summer edit: Actually Dec 2016 / Jan 2017 https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-border-patrol-social-media-account-facebook-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-bord...
- jaymzcampbell 9y agoYep, it looks like this https://i.imgur.com/ssoelQz.png https://i.imgur.com/ssoelQz.png. The tooltip helpfully suggests: > Enter information associated with your online presence, including the types of online platforms, applications and websites that you use to collaborate, share information, and interact with others, as well as the username(s) associated with those accounts. (OPTIONAL) With the length of time and the amount of sites I use I'd be here hours filling this in. I love NYC and have family in the states but I really can't imagine willingly going there now. Though the UK is hardly going the way of anything better.
- kogepathic 9y agoCool. Well since us non-Americans have zero rights when travelling to the US, and government/corporations can't be trusted to keep secrets safe, I guess I won't travel to the US anymore. Sucks, because they've got some nice nature, but I can go somewhere I'm not hauled over a barrel for every detail of my life upon entry.
- leichtgewicht 9y agoI am searching for a Coyote because I would like to see the Grand Canyon without HS invading my personal space ;-)
- KGIII 9y agoWatch one of the many documentaries on a good television. It's mostly just a big hole in the ground with nice colors that don't last very long because the light is constantly changing. On top of that, depending on where you go, it's either full of tourists or has no facilities. Tourists are the worst part about the Grand Canyon and, while strictly an opinion, there are more interesting things to see. If you do decide to go to the bottom, bring a lot of water with you. The climb back out can be labor intensive and hot. You're fine, so long as you remember to bring water. You might as well bring extra water, because there's almost always a tourist sitting there on the edge of the trail and slowly dying of thirst. So, you'll feel obligated to share your water. You might as well just bring a few extra bottles. You'll get far better, and more comprehensive, imagery from a good documentary. It's hard to get a permit to raft the whole thing, for example. But, you can live vicariously through others and not have to deal with the tourists. If you can't guess, I've been a half-dozen times. It hasn't once been my preferred destination. I've gone because I was in the area and at the behest of others. My first visit was on a family vacation. It's nice, but there are many other options that I personally enjoyed more. I'd just watch a documentary and make the trip a little longer so that I could go to Taos instead, but that's just me.
- nerdponx 9y agoGo to the North Rim. You're missing out.
- KGIII 9y agoThere's a nice hotel outside of the official park. I forget the name but it was quiet and comfortable. So, there is that. On the other hand, as you go to Taos, coming up out of Santa Fe, you can see stuff like this: https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g47224-d281481-i183748032-Rio_Grande_Gorge_Bridge-Taos_Taos_County_New_Mexico.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g47224-d... It doesn't even attract, comparatively, a whole lot of tourists.
- kerpele 9y agoDoes this include visitors or just immigrants? Or were visitors already targeted by preceding rules?
- seppin 9y agoand what is prevent locking down accounts to private (the way you should be doing anyways) ?
- jelly 9y agoMany social media sites are headquartered in the US, so private accounts there are completely open to an NSL (or the DHS' equivalent). Information-gathering doesn't have to comprehensively cover every site to yield results.
- seren 9y agoThis is the slippery slope argument, but if this is done for security reasons, once the infrastructure is in place for immigrants, I don't know why it should not be applied to visitors.
- kerpele 9y agoNo argument, just a question. The answer will affect my decision whenever I'm asked to travel to the US next and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
- 086421357909764 9y agoTo play devils advocate, it's highly likely multiple countries are already looking at this information, this is just a formal way of asking for it to add non-compliance to justifications. It's almost akin to the US state of Tennessee having a marijuana tax despite not allowing legal sale of the substance. It becomes another thing to use on charges / justifications.
- mzs 9y agoAnyone non-native born and anyone (even native born US citizen) that has communicated with such.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ptero 9y agoI hope at least Western Europe reciprocates quickly (targeting American visitors). Comparably annoying American citizens may be the best method to stop this madness.
- quirkot 9y agoCan we leave the innocent bystanders out of this? As a US citizen this new rule is garbage
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- AHatLikeThat 9y agoIndeed, as a US citizen it is obvious this policy will soon be expanded to everyone.
- kbart 9y agoAs US citizens you (collectively) knowingly voted for government that implemented such laws and it is up to you to vote for government that doesn't pass such insane laws. So sorry, you are not a bystander here; I'd say equally demeaning and annoying border controls for US citizens in other countries would be logical consequences one could expect.
- quirkot 9y agoThis is not a law, it's a regulation, developed by a governmental body whose head is appointed. There is no Senator a small fish like me can call to stop this madness
- kbart 9y agoI'm not much into US politics, but as far as I understand, Trump was personally involved in many recent bans/regulations. Furthermore, isn't that "head" appointed by president, senate or other elected governmental body?
- neverminder 9y agoSo if my only "social media" accounts are on Stackoverflow and Github, would that count?
- Jonnax 9y agoHackernews is social media. You've got an account, you make posts and interact with people.
- alanbernstein 9y agoSo any site with comments is social media?
- Jonnax 9y agoIf you were the US government defining what "Social media" means, then there's no real difference between Hacker News or any other similar site and Twitter.
- neverminder 9y agoYeah, not sure they would appreciate the "hacker" part though.
- ptero 9y agoI suspect they would, but I doubt one would appreciate their appreciation.
- Chirael 9y agoI would define social media as having "friends" or "followers" - something that could be used to construct a "social network" or "social graph". IMO HN is just a "message board" (for those who actually post - I suspect the majority just visit the front page for some interesting articles and move on)
- mzs 9y agoyes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15338640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15338640
- PakG1 9y agoSo I'm guessing foreign social media won't be tracked, or will there be bridges between each country's intelligence agencies where they track their own country's apps? There's already intelligence sharing among those countries anyway, right? :) What about countries that don't have such intelligence sharing agreements with the US but still make big apps? I imagine it's possible that those apps would have bigger treasure troves anyway. Bleh.
- Jonnax 9y agoWell if it's public then they don't need any special access to your data.
- PeterisP 9y agoThey don't really need any cooperation with the apps or the countries where the apps are hosted, they'll just ask the immigrant to give full access or be automatically denied.
- dan1234 9y agoWhat happens if you don't have one of the accounts they ask about? It's mad that you could be denied entry for not having a Facebook account.
- itchyjunk 9y agoUSCIS has considerably more information about me than any other single agency. I've used my regular college email and other alias and emails on my college network. Part of me feels like I have nothing to hide so this is okay. Part of me suddenly feels naked and being looked at. Oh well, i'm all for terrorizing people as long as it stop terrorists. (I wrote this comment and deleted it twice because i've used HN on campus and this can be linked back to me now. lol, maybe I am just paranoid.)
- ionised 9y ago> i'm all for terrorizing people as long as it stop terrorists. Please tell me this is sarcasm.
- jankotek 9y agoThat is pretty racist. US Homeland Security should just collect people on other continents, and bring them to US without any checks whatsoever... It works great in EU.
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoSearch Results as well eh? Interesting.
- throw2016 9y agoEvery human has a fundamental inalienable right to visit every single part of the earth unhindered if they wish - not a right to make it their home - but to see and appreciate the planet they live on without constraints. This is basic humanism. People are happy to point fingers at Russia, China and feel smug and superior and look the other way while totalitarian ideas like searching people's personal effects that attack the core of human dignity and dehumanize individuals are legitimized with little to no pushback.
- k-mcgrady 9y ago>> Every human has a fundamental inalienable right to visit every single part of the earth unhindered if they wish - not a right to make it their home - but visit without undue constraints. I like the idea but is this actually written somewhere (a treaty perhaps) or just an opinion? If an opinion I don't see why you would draw a line between visit and live.
- shados 9y agoSo people can have a right to visit the inside of your home? Or did you not actually mean every single part?
- golergka 9y agoSo you don't mind if I visit your bathroom or closet then?
- chinathrow 9y agoSometimes, it feels like an endgame. But by whom?
- ar0 9y agoIsn't the excitement a bit overblown here? What I understand from the rule change is that it would allow the DHS to search for you on Google and look at your Facebook and Instagram profile before granting you a greencard. Frankly, every potential employer will most likely do the same. I'm not at all anti-immigration, but this seems to be reasonable "vetting" even in my book. Or am I missing something here?
- dudul 9y agoThis also applies to naturalized Americans. Why do they need "vetting" after being granted citizenship?
- mtgx 9y agoOr for the permanent citizens. Isn't the so-called "vetting" supposed to happen before they arrive to the U.S.? If they do post-arrival vetting, for how long will they be allowed to do it? 1 year? 5? 20? It's just another BS excuse to use mass surveillance against as many people as they can. They start with immigrants, then they invent some other reason for some other category of Americans, and so on. This is the "problem" with surveillance technology getting ever cheaper. It gives them an irresistible desire to apply it more and more, even where it's not absolutely necessary, as the cost is no longer an impediment, so "might as well." I have the same opinion on killer drones or killer robots for that matter. The cheaper they will become to use, the more they will be used. Eventually they'll run out of "real targets" and start sending them after less important targets, too. Killer drones are not "the same as an airstrike", as I've seen many say on various forums, for this very reason, just like mass surveillance done today is not the same as the targeted surveillance done decades ago against real targets, as some were implying immediately after Snowden released his documents.
- tosstossy 9y agoYou don't see a problem with the results of a search in something trivially manipulated like Google and Facebook potentially limiting an individual's mobility and freedom?
- 9y ago
- tmp123112 9y agoThe actual data collected is not likely to be very valuable, but these things definitely make people think twice before they post "wrong opinions" to social media.
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoBad actors will now just create patriotic fake social media accounts?
- dudul 9y agoThe fact that it applies to naturalized citizens is quite scary. This is essentially creating 2 classes of Americans. Up until now, the only difference I know of between "born Americans" and "naturalized Americans" was the right to run for President. I never understood the restriction, but it's not like it impacted a lot of lives.
- elgenie 9y agoThe application to naturalized citizens but not born Americans won't stand up to the barest Constitutional challenge. Specifically, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment: """ All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. """ The Supreme Court held in Bolling v. Sharpe that the due process clause of the 5th Amendment imposes the equal protection responsibility on the federal government as well as the individual states.
- AlexB138 9y agoThis is really the strongest argument I've seen of any of this being a problem. Coming to any country as an immigrant is a privilege, and it the immigrants prerogative whether or not they feel the terms are acceptable. It is, however, completely unacceptable to put a special burden on their citizenship like this. Once they're a citizen, they should be a citizen, period. If there's not confidence that they're acceptable, they shouldn't become a citizen in the first place, otherwise they should be treated with full rights. I'm not clear on how dual-citizenship works when you naturalize to the US, but are there not situations where they have to give up citizenship to their country of origin? Does that mean these people are permanently left in a degraded legal state with no home country, where they would have full legal rights, to return to should the DHS decide they've over stepped their bounds on Facebook?
- dudul 9y ago
- tomp 9y agoI think this is a bit overblown. It doesn't mention they'll be requesting passwords, only "handles, aliases, [...] search results [and] publicly available information". I mean, everything is already accessible on the internet (to the extent I want it to be), and accessible by merely a Google search of my name (which is written on my passport), so anyone (not just Homeland Security) could easily collect this info anyways (even without me being anywhere _near_ the US).
- outoftacos 9y agoOh well if it's on Google then it's fair game, who cares right? I can't believe people think this way. Google is at least as dangerous as the DHS.
- AsyncAwait 9y ago> It doesn't mention they'll be requesting passwords, only "handles, aliases > I mean, everything is already accessible on the internet (to the extent I want it to be), and accessible by merely a Google search of my name (which is written on my passport), so anyone (not just Homeland Security) could easily collect this info anyways The notion that only the info you want accessible under your name is actually accessible under your name seems a bit naive, also you may need to disclose 'aliases' as well, which means account on which you on purpose don't use your real name, probably because you want to express your opinions a bit more freely. > I think this is a bit overblown. DHS agents cherry-picking people's social media posts to deny them entry does not seem overblown to me. I think the only effective solution to this is for the EU to impose similarly annoying travel restrictions on American citizens and for companies to stop going to conferences etc. in the U.S.since they'll notice once big business complains.
- jackemupguy2 9y agoDefine "immigrant"? Honestly, that can mean any class of things in loose definition of the term. I bet some Senator on the Intelligence Oversight committee, says legally speaking if your definition is everyone that is not Native American - you are an immigrant - just to fudge the law, until someone says you can't do that. The perverse intelligence community can only become perverse, if both the public holds the government accountable, but then the body of oversight - Congress, our elective official body of representation (noting the President doesn't really count anymore) - makes it so. It's gonna eventually happen, if it hasn't already started as of a decade ago (or more).
- DrJokepu 9y agoThe legal meaning of the term “immigrant” in the United States is defined by section 101(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act: https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-101.html#0-0-0-164 https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0...
- dang 9y agoUrl changed from https://gizmodo.com/us-homeland-security-will-start-collecting-social-media-1818777094 https://gizmodo.com/us-homeland-security-will-start-collecti..., which points to this.
- jerry40 9y agoI only hope it isn't a big crime if a person doesn't participate in any social network.
- Lendal 9y agoExactly what I was thinking. I have used communication tools such as Discord and Trello, but never Facebook or Twitter. So are they going to believe me when I say I don't use social media? Do I need to start up fake social media accounts just so I can have something to make authorities happy?
- Spivak 9y agoIt's not exactly uncommon to tell people who are going through the immigration process to start curating their public image which would naturally involve some forms of social media.
- olivierlacan 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
- buro9 9y agoIs there a definition of "social media"? Does it include forums? Closed forums? Anything with a chat capability? A website that uses a third party chat widget and another third party address book? What is social media according to the US government?
- qrbLPHiKpiux 9y agoIt really should be, anything on the internet is public. If you think it's private, it just means someone hasn't found it yet.
- buro9 9y agoAh, but what do you have to declare at the border? How far back does that go? Looking at the Tinder story also on the front page, do we have to declare our fake FB profiles just for Tinder, etc? How big is that text field, and how long do they want this story?!
- cJ0th 9y ago> Ah, but what do you have to declare at the border? depends on whether or not the security person likes you ;)
- tyingq 9y agoFrom a different DHS document... https://www.dhs.gov/publication/privacy-policy-operational-use-social-media-instruction-110-01-001 https://www.dhs.gov/publication/privacy-policy-operational-u... "Social Media means the sphere of websites, applications, and web-based tools that connect users to engage in dialogue, share information and media, collaborate, and interact. Social media take many different forms, including but not limited to web-based communities and hosted services, social networking sites, video and photo sharing sites, blogs, virtual worlds, social bookmarking, and other emerging technologies."
- buro9 9y agoThat is everything. By that definition I've forgotten far more social media profiles than I have today. No idea of the usernames, emails, sites, apps, anything.
- neuro_imager 9y agoIs this even news? Is there any doubt this has been happening since the dawn of SM.
- koolba 9y agoWould this include shadow profiles?
- bcoughlan 9y agoWhat does "collect" mean? Ask me to supply links? Force me to provide my phone? Force me to export all of my personal data from the platform? Or just ask Facebook to do it for them? I'd love to visit the US again but everything I've heard about the TSA and invasions of privacy really put me off.