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This is alarming considering many people have multiple handles. Anonymous speech is a major reason America exists[1] and is a constitutional right[2]: >In Watk

This is alarming considering many people have multiple handles. Anonymous speech is a major reason America exists[1] and is a constitutional right[2]: >In Watkins v. United States (1957), NAACP v. Alabama (1958), Bates v. Little Rock (1960), and Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (1963), the Court protected the anonymity of members of controversial groups to ensure their First Amendment right of association. Imagine a visitor has handles not tied to their real name. (Maybe they don't feel comfortable criticizing their government under their real name) Should the visitor be forced to list these sensitive identifies in order to enter America? Keep in mind that lying to border officials is pretty much always a reason to be permanently barred from any country. I hope our allies lead by example and don't respond in kind - I'd hate to have to get turned away at the Peace Bridge because I wouldn't lie and wouldn't endanger my privacy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers [2] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/32/anonymous-speech https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/32/anonymous-speech

saltedshiv 7y ago
Do nonresidents that are not presently in the United States have constitutional rights?
- dontbenebby 7y ago
  Yes. There's been Supreme Court cases that say you still get due process, can't be beaten into confessions, etc. I don't know if that applies to 1A specifically, but they absolutely have some rights: https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/255281-yes-illegal-aliens-have-constitutional-rights https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/255281-ye...
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    America believes that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, as long as they're a couple of generations removed from immigrants and #BackTheBlue.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - refurb 7y ago
    Your article talks about illegal aliens. By definition they are present in the US, or they wouldn't be illegal or aliens. The OP asked if non-citizens outside the US have constitutional rights. The answer is no.
  - imglorp 7y ago
    Unless you're declared an enemy combatant, or terrorist, whatever those things mean. Cf: everybody tortured or just waiting for disposition at Guantanamo since 2002. Oh and that's for citizens too. See sec 501 - https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-fact-sheet-patriot-act-ii https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-fact-sheet-patriot-act-ii
  - rayiner 7y ago
    US Citizens have rights everywhere in the world, and everyone has rights when on US soil. People who are neither US citizens not in US soil have no rights under the constitution.
mirimir 7y ago
> Imagine a visitor has handles not tied to their real name. (Maybe they don't feel comfortable criticizing their government under their real name) I have used at least 100 personas over the past decade. But I've gone out of my way to avoid associating any of them with my meatspace identity. I compartmentalize by VM, Internet connection path via VPNs and Tor, contacts, activities, interests, and language. > Should the visitor be forced to list these sensitive identifies in order to enter America? I wouldn't. Because I'm confident enough that they couldn't be associated with me. Not without concerted effort by the FBA and/or NSA. Also, I have retained no records of all but ~10 of them, so I couldn't disclose them if I wanted to. So bottom line, if you have sensitive identifies that you wish to keep private, they had better be thoroughly compartmentalized. Nobody who knows you in meatspace should know anything about any of them.
- throwmex 7y ago
  What if I don't have my face as my profile picture ? Will I be denied entry at the border because the officer cannot "verify" that the FB profile belongs to me ? I can forsee many idiosyncratic incidents waiting to happen in the near future with this.
  - dpau 7y ago
    It's similar to a problem i had a few years ago when signing up for Airbnb. At the time I didn't use social networks, so there was no way for me to verify my identity except for a baroque, unoptimized process in which i sent a scan of my ID, and even then i wasn't successful. At what point will it become recommended and then inevitably required that people applying for US visas have active profiles from one of the accepted providers?
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  I mean this is solid logic if you're older and experienced the advent of the internet. But keep in mind that we have an entire generation of people coming up that are growing up during the age of the internet. Kids aren't going to be concerned about using the internet as themselves and obviously they'll do or say stupid things as they age. So while you may become more concerned about privacy, everything you did as a kid is on the internet. Forever.
refurb 7y ago
To me this is no different than the question on the US citizenship application form.[1] Have you ever committed, or assisted in committing, or attempted to commit, a crime for which you were NOT arrested? For me this translates into "Have you ever committed a crime that we are unaware of?". Of course you answer no. There is no one in the US who could honestly answer that question with "no", but yet they ask. On the flip side, it also covers the gov'ts ass because if they find out you did, you can have your citizenship revoked because you lied on your application. [1]https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/archive/delete/n-400.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/archive/delete/n-40...
- closetohome 7y ago
  Having a social media account is a crime?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - refurb 7y ago
    No, my point was if the government has no knowledge of X, you’d be crazy to volunteer it.
  - dang 7y ago
    "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Not necessarily, but lying about having one is a crime.
mortenjorck 7y ago
I'm curious how this is supposed to work for Facebook, or an Instagram or Twitter account set to private. What good is a username if no content is publicly available? Naturally, it would seem to follow then that if all the State Department is asking for is the username, and this isn't just for show, they must have some other method of access, presumably an agreement with social media companies, clearly spelled out somewhere down in section 27b.6 of the TOS. But then what about WeChat? I somehow doubt Tencent is going to have the same relationship with the US State Dept. that Facebook does.
- sjcsjc 7y ago
  +1 for 27b.6

saltedshiv 7y ago

Do nonresidents that are not presently in the United States have constitutional rights?

dontbenebby 7y ago
Yes. There's been Supreme Court cases that say you still get due process, can't be beaten into confessions, etc. I don't know if that applies to 1A specifically, but they absolutely have some rights: https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/255281-yes-illegal-aliens-have-constitutional-rights https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/255281-ye...
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  America believes that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, as long as they're a couple of generations removed from immigrants and #BackTheBlue.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- refurb 7y ago
  Your article talks about illegal aliens. By definition they are present in the US, or they wouldn't be illegal or aliens. The OP asked if non-citizens outside the US have constitutional rights. The answer is no.
- imglorp 7y ago
  Unless you're declared an enemy combatant, or terrorist, whatever those things mean. Cf: everybody tortured or just waiting for disposition at Guantanamo since 2002. Oh and that's for citizens too. See sec 501 - https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-fact-sheet-patriot-act-ii https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-fact-sheet-patriot-act-ii
- rayiner 7y ago
  US Citizens have rights everywhere in the world, and everyone has rights when on US soil. People who are neither US citizens not in US soil have no rights under the constitution.

mirimir 7y ago

> Imagine a visitor has handles not tied to their real name. (Maybe they don't feel comfortable criticizing their government under their real name) I have used at least 100 personas over the past decade. But I've gone out of my way to avoid associating any of them with my meatspace identity. I compartmentalize by VM, Internet connection path via VPNs and Tor, contacts, activities, interests, and language. > Should the visitor be forced to list these sensitive identifies in order to enter America? I wouldn't. Because I'm confident enough that they couldn't be associated with me. Not without concerted effort by the FBA and/or NSA. Also, I have retained no records of all but ~10 of them, so I couldn't disclose them if I wanted to. So bottom line, if you have sensitive identifies that you wish to keep private, they had better be thoroughly compartmentalized. Nobody who knows you in meatspace should know anything about any of them.

throwmex 7y ago
What if I don't have my face as my profile picture ? Will I be denied entry at the border because the officer cannot "verify" that the FB profile belongs to me ? I can forsee many idiosyncratic incidents waiting to happen in the near future with this.
- dpau 7y ago
  It's similar to a problem i had a few years ago when signing up for Airbnb. At the time I didn't use social networks, so there was no way for me to verify my identity except for a baroque, unoptimized process in which i sent a scan of my ID, and even then i wasn't successful. At what point will it become recommended and then inevitably required that people applying for US visas have active profiles from one of the accepted providers?
fzeroracer 7y ago
I mean this is solid logic if you're older and experienced the advent of the internet. But keep in mind that we have an entire generation of people coming up that are growing up during the age of the internet. Kids aren't going to be concerned about using the internet as themselves and obviously they'll do or say stupid things as they age. So while you may become more concerned about privacy, everything you did as a kid is on the internet. Forever.

refurb 7y ago

To me this is no different than the question on the US citizenship application form.[1] Have you ever committed, or assisted in committing, or attempted to commit, a crime for which you were NOT arrested? For me this translates into "Have you ever committed a crime that we are unaware of?". Of course you answer no. There is no one in the US who could honestly answer that question with "no", but yet they ask. On the flip side, it also covers the gov'ts ass because if they find out you did, you can have your citizenship revoked because you lied on your application. [1]https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/archive/delete/n-400.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/archive/delete/n-40...

closetohome 7y ago
Having a social media account is a crime?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- refurb 7y ago
  No, my point was if the government has no knowledge of X, you’d be crazy to volunteer it.
- dang 7y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mirimir 7y ago
  Not necessarily, but lying about having one is a crime.

mortenjorck 7y ago

I'm curious how this is supposed to work for Facebook, or an Instagram or Twitter account set to private. What good is a username if no content is publicly available? Naturally, it would seem to follow then that if all the State Department is asking for is the username, and this isn't just for show, they must have some other method of access, presumably an agreement with social media companies, clearly spelled out somewhere down in section 27b.6 of the TOS. But then what about WeChat? I somehow doubt Tencent is going to have the same relationship with the US State Dept. that Facebook does.

sjcsjc 7y ago
+1 for 27b.6