29 ms·

German Girl Turned Away at Border Due to Private Facebook Messages

642 points by Navarr 13y ago

oyho 13y ago
A similar case is surfacing in Norway aswell, only here it is for a top lawyer: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D10104089&act=url http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=...
pyre 13y ago
Rings of this incident with UK tourists and Twitter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3533270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3533270
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ColinWright 13y ago
Yes. When asked the reason for her visit she said it was to visit family, friends, and do an English course. Her Facebook "private messages" showed that she was there to be an au pair, which means to do housework and child-minding in return for money. In short, she was lying and got caught. And after all the recent brouhaha, are you surprised that the authorities had access to her "private" Facebook messages? Added in edit, since most of the replies to this comment are saying the same thing, so I may as well reply to you all at once by adding my reply here: I put the word "private" in quotation marks. What's the odds that at least of what she posted was, in fact, public? Just how careful was she about privacy settings? Just how careful was she not to post anything at all that was publicly viewable? I'm not at all surprised that she was stopped, and given a second interview, nor that they checked social media. I guess next time I put something in "scare quotes" I should spell out explicitly that it's a term that just might not be literally true.
- nakedrobot2 13y ago
  Right, this girl was clearly a terrorist and part of the threat to the USA that these NSA dragnets were built for... </sarcasm>
- Tenoke 13y ago
  I'm surprised that the authorities are using their access to her facebook messages for something so trivial and this openly (if they actually did). Additionally, she was not even an american citizen or resident.
  - magic_haze 13y ago
    > Additionally, she was not even an american citizen or resident. In all probability, it's /because/ she's not an american citizen or resident. The fourth amendment doesn't apply for non-persons.
    - jrockway 13y ago
      Actually, the Constitution does apply to people that are not US citizens. However, it's the "law of the land" and the border (and other countries) is not part of that land.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    The USCIS reviews Facebook for those applying for long term visas, to prevent fraud. It doesn't have anything to do with the NSA.
    - winter_blue 13y ago
      Source?
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - ecspike 13y ago
GameOfTrolls 13y ago
What if she was lying on FB? That's all I ever do.
sauravc 13y ago
Is this the only news outlet with this story? How credible is this publication? Before I get worked up about this story, I'd like to know it's not bullshit.
- kriro 13y ago
  Der Westen/WAZ is usually pretty credible. However I think it's likely that they misconstructed the story (not on purpose but because they made some bad assumptions). Pretty likely that this is yet another "routine check sniffing through social media etc. after the person acted suspicious in some way" ... which in itself is noteworthy but pretty different. Not unlikely that the sources reported the story a tad wrong.
  - lukashed 13y ago
    I don't agree on the credibility part. In my opinion they quite often write sensational judgemental stories, at least on local topics. Also they rarely indicate their sources. Same with this article. No source, nothing. If a viral story (though there's no direct mention of Prism, the NSA etc, the 'related articles' are all about this and it's clear that it's the same topic) was their aim: Mission accomplished. Not only the massive traffic from HN, but also more than 3 times as many Facebook shares for this article as the next-most-shared-one. There are some critical comments on the site, which are blocked and removed quickly by the moderators (have seen this a couple of times now).
- doktrin 13y ago
  I agree. It sounds utterly implausible on just about every conceivable level.
  - 1morepassword 13y ago
    What's the "utterly implausible" part? In the past we've had verified incidents of people being refused entry because of things posted on for instance public Twitter feeds. So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. We also know that once monitoring starts for one purpose, it rapidly expands to other use case. This pattern repeats itself around the world. The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication. So you're suggesting that everything published about the nature of US surveillance until this very day, including the recent PRISM-related publications, is all "utterly implausible"? Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible, albeit suspiciously thin on concrete facts.
valdiorn 13y ago
"Finally, the officials baffled Jana submitted a printout of the entire Facebook correspondence with their host-father. " Maybe something is lost in translation, but could the officials just have received the correspondence from the family she was coming to visit??
- tombot 13y ago
  Does anyone have a link to a human translated version of story?
  - kmm 13y ago
    I'm not going to type down a translation, but I can tell you this computer generated translation is very accurate.
  - Vivtek 13y ago
    Essen. Anyone interested in traveling the US to experience everyday life there as an intern or an au pair should be careful with their correspondence. The staff of the immigration authorities appear to be happy to read along on social networks like Facebook. Two young women were put onto the next plane back to Germany right after landing. After completing high school, Jana H. wanted to go abroad to the land of unlimited opportunity – the United States of America. She organized her own au pair exchange. Found a nice family she wanted to work for and live with for a year. For agreed-upon daily spending money, Jana would take care of the children. At the same time, she wanted to take a language course to improve her English. She had regular contact with her host father through Facebook. When the high school graduate finally landed in the US, she was taken to the side and questioned at the passport control in the airport. The officials at the American immigration agency wanted to know the reasons for her travel and how long she wanted to stay. Wrong answers Jana was ready for this kind of question. She wanted to visit friends of her parents and take an English course. Was she sure of that? was the next question. Yes, she was sure. Really, really sure? Finally, the officials presented the astounded Jana with a print-out of the entire Facebook correspondence she had had with her host father. Their accusation: The young woman wanted to work in the States illegally. The authorities had obviously read along in Jana's private messages on the social network Facebook for weeks. Jana was not allowed to enter. The next airplane brought the 18-year-old back to Germany. It wasn't an isolated incident. The dream of another youth of an internship on a horse ranch in the US also never came to fruition due to snooped Facebook messages – he, too, ended up right back at the airport after the flight over the pond. 291 words.
wtvanhest 13y ago
This story seems highly unlikely to be true given the following 4 assumptions: 1) The US Government wanted to maintain the secrecy of the program. 2) Giving the data to a large number of border guards would have increased the chance of its dissemination. 3) It would be unnecessary to show her the data to refuse her admission to the US and showing her would violate #2. 4) She would not be a valuable enough target to expose the fact that the US had the data. Additionally: It is much more likely that if the border guards were using the NSA data, they would simply receive lists of those that could not enter. She would have probably been a target for that since she was trying to obtain work in the US illegally. Alternatively, and even more likely, boarder patrol could have searched public websites for her name and seen her occupation and the rest could have been an exaggeration.
- notahacker 13y ago
  The publicly viewable Facebook message theory sounds more plausible given that (i) plenty of people seem to have little concept of what is and isn't private in Facebook and (ii) the US does have a track record of denying people entry based on public social media posts: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/31/british-tourists-tweets-get-them-denied-entry-to-the-u-s/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/31/british-tourists-tweets-... Chances are they got a tipoff or she got caught by profiling or a random check as I doubt anyone bothers to check the Facebook profile pages of every foreigner entering the US.
  - killerpopiller 13y ago
    yep, I remembered that same story. Is it still far grasped to assume US agencies have a file on "everybody" digital present which gets automagically filled/flagged with US-related facts?
  - smartician 13y ago
    An 18 year old entering the country with the intent of staying longer than a few weeks alone will raise eyebrows at the border. Next question will be regarding available funds. How can she afford to travel that long? Staying "with friends" is also suspicious, especially when she hasn't met them in person before.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kken 13y ago
It seems as if she lied to the immigration officers. From the story it is not quite clear how it was discovered, but it seems probable that the story is biased and that there are no secondary sources. Also the comments suggest that. So ??
- youngerdryas 13y ago
  So? America is horrible. Especially how they won't let us in.
Vivtek 13y ago
And here's the flip side of Google Translate. German doesn't react well to n-gram statistics; too many long-distance dependencies. Also translating the city of "Essen" as "Food" is hilarious.
- trendspotter 13y ago
  true :)
- fhars 13y ago
  I prefer the transpation of "Würzburg" as "peppering castle" that babelfish did when the web was still young...
- hedonist 13y ago
  Actually it's naming a city "Essen" in the first place that I find hilarious. Just like the name for that city next to it, "Theremouth" (Dortmund).
roin 13y ago
Should we infer that the NSA or some other government organization used a FISA request to read a German girl's Facebook messages about her upcoming au pair work in the US? This seems very unlikely, and I believe would be a clear violation of FISA unless they also thought she was a terrorist or spy.
swalsh 13y ago
The bigger revelation here to me is that it would appear the information access is shared beyond the NSA for more than security purposes.
- nahreally 13y ago
  The whole story is suspect. Why now? If the US government were to use this kind of intel to address issues as small as this, and this is at the level of shop lifting, wouldn't such incidents have made it to international news several times by now?
jcomis 13y ago
Perhaps she posted her intent to work illegally in a public facebook post and not only via PM? Or perhaps her host family was under the impression she was official and triggered some sort of alert when they were arranging things (if she for example, listed them as a contact when she got to customs). The typical au pair process from Germany is quite strict and time consuming to get a visa for a 1 year stay, I've had a few friends come to the US to do it. You most definitely need a work visa to be an au pair and she was attempting to violate her tourist visa in two ways, by overstaying the 90 days allowed, and by working. A lot of things could be going on here.
- jmacd 13y ago
  My thought as well. My guess is she or he had posted something on her publicly visible wall and they just printed that off. Hardly takes a genius. A couple pages of FB wall would take you back a few weeks as well, the agent probably just hit Print.
nostromo 13y ago
It's unclear to me who provided the print-out of Jana's private messages. Obviously it seems much more likely that Jana provided the messages, not Homeland Security. I hired a Canadian once under a TN NAFTA "visa" and he had to bring some correspondence from me to the border. We had to be very careful to word things correctly and not to use specific words that could prevent him from coming to the US. It seems that this is similar to what this young woman experienced.
- ttrreeww 13y ago
  Facebook provided it. Doh.
- rl3 13y ago
  Data acquisition methods in order of highest probability: 1. ^ This. 2. Was actually public information; story details lost in transmission or translation. 3. Her phone was still logged into Facebook. 4. They gained access to Facebook via links in e-mail. [...] 10. Normal federal law enforcement powers. 11. Special federal law enforcement powers, e.g. Patriot Act. [...] 100. NSA data that requires TS/SAP + full-scope poly to access.
  - zmitri 13y ago
    They do sometimes ask to see your phone.
    - loup-vaillant 13y ago
      Do you recall any specific story where they ask you to unlock it?
      - cantos 13y ago
        All electronic devices are subject to search at the U.S. border. http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/crcl-border-search-impact-assessment_06-03-13_1.pdf http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/crcl-bor...
benmmurphy 13y ago
Maybe the border agents were in possession of her laptop and used that to get access to her private messages.
- WalterSear 13y ago
  Maybe 'private messages' actually refers to public wall posts.
manish_gill 13y ago
Heh. Saw a story where some Britishers were refused entry to US simply because they tweeted something like "2 weeks till I destroy America on my vacation". They were specifically asked stuff like "How do you plan to destroy America?" Srsly?
math0ne 13y ago
Most likely she was logged in to facebook on her computer, which they have every right to access and they simply opened it and read her latest correspondences. If you have things to hide, they are not safe on your personal devices when you cross the border.
llamataboot 13y ago
When my partner (who is from the EU) got to the US this most recent time (she visits here for 90 days at a time, as allowed under VWP rules), immigration pulled her aside with a printout of (public-facing) facebook pages on their desk. Interesting only in that her face book is not under her official name. They had pages and pages of printouts that they thought proved she wasn't simple a tourist, and that she was working here, etc. Note, it was all public (or semi-public with a lot of crawling around under alternate emails, leading to other names, etc etc) so nothing "intercepted". But still a bit worrying when you get pulled aside and someone has a folder ready full of pictures of you, your business website (freelancer), your facebook posts, your tweets, etc
- smartician 13y ago
  Interesting. Any theories on how they linked that FB profile to her real name? Maybe through the WHOIS record of her website, that got linked from that Facebook page often enough to imply a relationship?
  - llamataboot 13y ago
    Probably not even anything that difficult. If you search for her last name and city, her freelance site comes up. If you go through the freelance site you get an email. Under a search for that email, I think there is a livejournal. In livejournal info there is a link to the facebook page. Etc etc. Something like that. Just google search a few things and play "follow that link" Worthwhile not because of super spy tactics, nothing any of us couldn't do in 10 minutes of looking for a person, but because its a reminder of how much info people leave out in the open even if they are semi privacy conscious, and also whether you think it is valid or not (I don't obv) immigration is going to get anything they can to figure out why you are here if you are a "frequent tourist" and seemingly from all of our interactions with them, the thing they are most concerned about, to the point of being fanatical, is whether or not you are making any money while you are in the US. In the age of telecommuting, multinational clients, etc this makes no sense. (My partner can of course hire American clients when in Europe, but can't even work for European clients when in the US) but not exactly the first time bureaucracy is dragging behind the way we are actually living.
trendspotter 13y ago
I found this story several hours ago, as well. I found the news to be a possible sensationalist story and didn't even think about posting it on HN. Yes, it is a very interesting story. But it a speculative story. You never know if the media did their research properly or if they just wanted to have more readers. There are other more reputable and trusted news sources in Germany than this one. I don't say it is made up, but some facts could be wrong.
suyash 13y ago
If you want to come to US and work illegally and get caught, what do you expect?
- smalltalk 13y ago
  Why was this voted down? No one other than US citizens has a right to enter the US.
  - suyash 13y ago
    The girl wanted to work illegally. That is my main point of concern in case you didn't get it.
stackedmidgets 13y ago
From a German perspective, it probably doesn't matter at all whether or not this story is even true or how the messages were retrieved if it is true. The US has earned the mistrust of the world.
ivv 13y ago
DHS CIS (immigration authorities) has been using Facebook and other social networks to detect relationship fraud in citizenship applications. EFF foia-ed a memo on the subject: https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/social_network/DHS_CustomsImmigration_SocialNetworking.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/social_network/DHS_Custom...
runjake 13y ago
The United States is not going to blow the operational security of a Top Secret program to bust a teenaged nanny. There's more to this poorly-translated story.
- VMG 13y ago
  also keep in mind that this isn't the Spiegel
- Beltiras 13y ago
  Or as it turns out: less.
dhenzel 13y ago
Is this a Aprils fools joke? If not this would be unreal.
hoffsam 13y ago
It's not totally clear to me that these were private messages. I know that the Canadian Border services agency will look things up that are posted publicly on the internet to verify stories. My guess is that the messages were public and the immigration staff just looked them up and happened to see them.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Just a note of caution, a friend of mine wanted to send their daughter over to visit the US during the summer before she headed off to college. We were of course happy to let her stay at our place which is a good west coast starting point for things California. Somewhere in correspondence where she was trying to ask nicely if she could stay at our place she said "I could watch the kids or something" and later in that same correspondence we had said, "no worries, its no trouble for you to stay here." Based on that one statement she was refused entry at SFO and sent back on a plane to Paris and subsequently refused entry into the US for the next 5 years. It was insanely stupid.
- iyulaev 13y ago
  What sort of "correspondence" was this?
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    It was an email thread. In part of it we had given her our address and directions to our house and phone numbers on how to reach us when she got here. She had printed it out and was carrying it with her in her carry on. She allegedly fit the 'profile' and every woman travelling alone on her flight had their bags searched apparently.
    - joonix 13y ago
      Your failure to mention the printout in your original post is deceptive considering we are discussing internet "wiretapping." Of course possessions are searched upon entry, it happens every day in every country. If you're a Malaysian with a visitor visa and show up at customs in Australia with a bag full of resumes, you'll be turned away too.
      - ChuckMcM 13y ago
        You are absolutely correct, I was not thinking about that aspect of it, rather the fact that the merest implication in anything that you might be coming to the US under false pretenses (even when the authorities have all the information which clearly shows both the intent and motivation for the trip) is that they will deny you entry.
RockyMcNuts 13y ago
Would you like to share this status update with - everyone? - just friends and the CIA? - just close friends and the CIA? - just the CIA?
KenL 13y ago
I know I'm reading a Google translation, but the story seems weak. It's a real newspaper, but we've got an article with an unknown source, about a girl with no last name, landing in an unnamed city on an unnamed date. There's no statement from any authority and no way to corroborate any part of this. It's one step above this story that I heard from my best friend, whose cousin's mom totally said ...
DanBC 13y ago
Here's a story from 2012 where a UK subject made a twitter comment about "destroying america" and was subsequently denied entry to the US. (http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/01/30/this-is-what-happens-when-you-joke-about-destroying-america-on-twitter/ http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/01/30/this-is-what-happen...) Obviously, tweets are public. But still, this kind of stuff isn't unknown.
systematical 13y ago
Google translate needs some work on translating. It doesn't seem to understand the differences in how sentences are constructed (order of operations) in different languages.
csense 13y ago
I've read that laptops can be searched at the border. I wonder if her laptop was suspended with Facebook active, or had saved login cookies to Facebook, allowing customs guys to log onto the machine [1] to see what she's been up to. I decided long ago, when there was the initial flap about post-9/11 laptop border searches, that if I ever travel internationally, I'll wipe the HD of any laptops I'm taking with me before I cross any national border, and just use scp to transfer files as needed. If I need to use large files that are too large to upload or download with the time and bandwidth available, this strategy becomes...problematic. But that scenario's pretty unlikely since I'd be going as a software developer/tourist mostly working with Git repos, still photos and short video clips, not a documentary filmmaker producing hours of high-definition video. [1] Or pop the hard drive out and put it in another machine (assuming it's unencrypted). Which is what they should be doing if these procedures were ever reviewed by a competent lawyer (less chance of accidentally destroying evidence or the user's data this way).
brown9-2 13y ago
It's hard to know which depiction of the NSA to believe: * Amazingly competent agency that is secretly reading all SSL-encrypted Internet traffic and thoroughly concerned with the messageboard postings of average Americans * Amazingly incompetent agency that develops ground-breaking technology and shares it with low-level Customs officials to bust 18-year old au pairs
frankblizzard 13y ago
Honestly, this seems to me (German) like a very lurid headline. Article seems like more entertaining then a serious press release and does not belong on top of hacker news imho.
kleiba 13y ago
The whole story doesn't seem to add up, I have a feeling that some crucial information is missing. Apparently, the reason she was sent home was that she gave wrong information about her reasons to enter the country. That's why she was confronted with contradictory information in her messages (she claimed she wanted visit friends of her parents, while she was really going there to work). So was she actually trying to enter illegaly and was sent back because of that? That sounds like a visa issue to me (tourist vs. work visa). Certainly the NSA or Homeland Security or whoever weren't reading every facebook message just so they could check if the girl would state a matching reason for entering the country. To me it looks like something else must have triggered all of this, something that is not mentioned in the article. I understand that the main point here is that Immigration had access to her facebook chats. I just wonder: at what point in time did they decide to access her chats. Was it when the girl was already at Immigrations? Was it as a (random?) background check when she applied for her visa or ESTA? Or was it after something, e.g. keywords, in her chats triggered a check? (Please understand that I'm not in the slightest trying to defend that customs had access to the FB chats, I just find the article a bit lacking.)
gcb0 13y ago
I think this is a case of a $5 wrench and not big brother http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/ when you are taken for questioning they may put you in a cell while they go trhu your stuff. In that little cell, you are not allowed even you shoe laces!!!! so they probably got her, unlocked her iphone (either she had no password or they have backdoors) and got the messages.
smsm42 13y ago
I'm kind of confused - if US immigration authorities are so powerful and omnipresent that they read Facebook feeds of every random German girl in case they ever want to come to the US, how comes we still have illegal immigration problem in the US? Or was there something special about this particular girl that triggered the attention of the law enforcement well in advance of her visit? Or they just took her laptop, logged in to facebook and clicked "print"? Kind of unclear what exactly happened.
theojapa 13y ago
Translation there no good hard read to.
tessellated 13y ago
As a native German speaker, I just wanted you to know, that the provided translation wouldn't make any sense, if you at least didn't have a basic gasp of the German language. The original German article does not provide any information about how HS dept got to read the Facebook messages. Further, it seems a rather badly researched article out of an insignificant tabloid.
pekk 13y ago
Isn't this an outrage. We should only be denying entry to hispanics, Muslims and darkies who we suspect of wanting to overstay their visas. But you know, we don't have enough border security and we need more.
aaron695 13y ago
I find it quite unbelievable people are buying into this story. Border guards have access to private email to catch people who possibly might work on the wrong visa, sure.... And boarder guards have kept this secrete for years but the leak came from within the NSA. What is wrong with people. This is why the governmenat walks all over you, there's just no common sense amongst the masses.
mehmehshoe 13y ago
I don't think Customs needs any help from the NSA. Search incoming passenger manifests for anyone with a return ticket more than 5 months from arrival, then just search twitter and facebook pages for anyone on that list. Voila!
Eva_Peron 13y ago
Well I guess the guns and gates will still hold Nikita in. :(
namank 13y ago
I question the authenticity of this article.
laurentoget 13y ago
Whether this is true or not this is certainly not good PR for the US tourism industry and the US in general. Germans were not so long ago the people in the world who had the best image of the US.
inquist 13y ago
I haven't heard this mentioned yet: Do we really think facebook "private" messages are in any way private, or even billed by facebook to be private? I am reading the facebook privacy policy and they do mention that they "... may use the information we receive about you: ...to protect Facebook's or others' rights or property..." So we have rights to free speech, do we also have rights to private speech?
exDM69 13y ago
Here is a similar story from one year ago: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093796/Emily-Bunting-Leigh-Van-Bryan-UK-tourists-arrested-destroy-America-Twitter-jokes.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093796/Emily-Buntin... This case was public twitter messages and not private facebook conversations, but otherwise similar. There's a lot of skeptics in this thread whether the US immigration would actually snoop through social networking sites. But if these two cases are true as reported, it seems there's some level of semi-automatic filtering of social media accounts for people entering the country.
- mehwoot 13y ago
  There's a lot of skeptics in this thread whether the US immigration would actually snoop through social networking sites. But if these two cases are true as reported, it seems there's some level of semi-automatic filtering of social media accounts for people entering the country. That is completely different to what is being alleged, especially in light of events this week, that they had access to private facebook messages.
galaktor 13y ago
quite ironic that the (German) site shoves a "like this on FB" prompt in my face as I read
- qwertzlcoatl 13y ago
  You might want to look into some anti-tracking software that disables that.
mariuolo 13y ago
I wonder if this is part of a plan to deincentivise immigration.
mattront 13y ago
It could also be that her Facebook profile was public and she posted public status updates (default FB privacy setting) about what she plans to do in the US. No PRISM necessary for that, just a FB account. Just try a search on FB for a random name and open a couple of profiles. It is baffling how much personal information is publicly available.
ryan-allen 13y ago
Well, I was going to one day visit the US, but I'll never risk entering with the kind of inane (but possibly incriminating) crap I've bantered with friends over chat. What a sham.
bayesianhorse 13y ago
The US is spending billions on immigration control, and still have several millions of illegal immigrants. For me this is a sign that restrictions on immigration as they now exist don't work, don't benefit society and should be rethought.
piqufoh 13y ago
I can't believe this is factually accurate. Providing a hard copy of private facebook messages seems like a rather dumb thing to do as this would confirm that US agencies are checking up on foreign nationals intentions. Even if they checking up, implicating themselves with such a daft move seems implausible. I call bullshit!
olsn 13y ago
She was planing to get a "salary" and didn't tell the immigration office about it and didn't have the right visa for that. -> She didn't play by the rules, so why should this be any more outraging than any other illegal immigrant?
krautsourced 13y ago
First of all, the only thing that makes this story interesting is whether or not the officers had access to the _private_ FB messages, as compared to her public profile. Her being sent back for lying about her intentions to work was a correct decision. As it is, the story (I'm reading the native German version) is very vague on the Facebook issue. I find it rather unlikely that immigration officials are sitting at every point of entry into the US with a massive folder of facebook printouts of everyone arriving on a plane. I'm almost certain there's more to this story (like, maybe she applied for a Student or Work Visa, which was refused for some reason, and then again applied as a tourist immediately after, which caused her to be flagged). Without that info, and without knowing what kind of data they actually got from Facebook, this whole discussion is moot.
INTPenis 13y ago
My sister moved to America about 7-8 years ago and the school where she got a job as a teacher found her website hosted here in Sweden, under a fake name. They demanded that she take it down because she posted about something the schools lawyers objected to. I'm not sure if it was amazon links or about her BDSM hobbies. Either way I was amazed by the fact that they found it, and traced it to her. She didn't even have a computer at the time so she had to call me who worked at the hosting company where it was hosted for free, just so I could take it down for her. It's interesting how much personal image speaks to character in some societies. I'm not saying this is unique to the USA, it's just interesting how we judge people superficially.

642 points by Navarr 13y ago

oyho 13y ago

A similar case is surfacing in Norway aswell, only here it is for a top lawyer: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D10104089&act=url http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=...

pyre 13y ago

Rings of this incident with UK tourists and Twitter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3533270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3533270

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ColinWright 13y ago

Yes. When asked the reason for her visit she said it was to visit family, friends, and do an English course. Her Facebook "private messages" showed that she was there to be an au pair, which means to do housework and child-minding in return for money. In short, she was lying and got caught. And after all the recent brouhaha, are you surprised that the authorities had access to her "private" Facebook messages? Added in edit, since most of the replies to this comment are saying the same thing, so I may as well reply to you all at once by adding my reply here: I put the word "private" in quotation marks. What's the odds that at least of what she posted was, in fact, public? Just how careful was she about privacy settings? Just how careful was she not to post anything at all that was publicly viewable? I'm not at all surprised that she was stopped, and given a second interview, nor that they checked social media. I guess next time I put something in "scare quotes" I should spell out explicitly that it's a term that just might not be literally true.

nakedrobot2 13y ago
Right, this girl was clearly a terrorist and part of the threat to the USA that these NSA dragnets were built for... </sarcasm>
Tenoke 13y ago
I'm surprised that the authorities are using their access to her facebook messages for something so trivial and this openly (if they actually did). Additionally, she was not even an american citizen or resident.
- magic_haze 13y ago
  > Additionally, she was not even an american citizen or resident. In all probability, it's /because/ she's not an american citizen or resident. The fourth amendment doesn't apply for non-persons.
  - jrockway 13y ago
    Actually, the Constitution does apply to people that are not US citizens. However, it's the "law of the land" and the border (and other countries) is not part of that land.
- rdouble 13y ago
  The USCIS reviews Facebook for those applying for long term visas, to prevent fraud. It doesn't have anything to do with the NSA.
  - winter_blue 13y ago
    Source?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - ecspike 13y ago

GameOfTrolls 13y ago

What if she was lying on FB? That's all I ever do.

sauravc 13y ago

Is this the only news outlet with this story? How credible is this publication? Before I get worked up about this story, I'd like to know it's not bullshit.

kriro 13y ago
Der Westen/WAZ is usually pretty credible. However I think it's likely that they misconstructed the story (not on purpose but because they made some bad assumptions). Pretty likely that this is yet another "routine check sniffing through social media etc. after the person acted suspicious in some way" ... which in itself is noteworthy but pretty different. Not unlikely that the sources reported the story a tad wrong.
- lukashed 13y ago
  I don't agree on the credibility part. In my opinion they quite often write sensational judgemental stories, at least on local topics. Also they rarely indicate their sources. Same with this article. No source, nothing. If a viral story (though there's no direct mention of Prism, the NSA etc, the 'related articles' are all about this and it's clear that it's the same topic) was their aim: Mission accomplished. Not only the massive traffic from HN, but also more than 3 times as many Facebook shares for this article as the next-most-shared-one. There are some critical comments on the site, which are blocked and removed quickly by the moderators (have seen this a couple of times now).
doktrin 13y ago
I agree. It sounds utterly implausible on just about every conceivable level.
- 1morepassword 13y ago
  What's the "utterly implausible" part? In the past we've had verified incidents of people being refused entry because of things posted on for instance public Twitter feeds. So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. We also know that once monitoring starts for one purpose, it rapidly expands to other use case. This pattern repeats itself around the world. The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication. So you're suggesting that everything published about the nature of US surveillance until this very day, including the recent PRISM-related publications, is all "utterly implausible"? Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible, albeit suspiciously thin on concrete facts.

valdiorn 13y ago

"Finally, the officials baffled Jana submitted a printout of the entire Facebook correspondence with their host-father. " Maybe something is lost in translation, but could the officials just have received the correspondence from the family she was coming to visit??

tombot 13y ago
Does anyone have a link to a human translated version of story?
- kmm 13y ago
  I'm not going to type down a translation, but I can tell you this computer generated translation is very accurate.
- Vivtek 13y ago
  Essen. Anyone interested in traveling the US to experience everyday life there as an intern or an au pair should be careful with their correspondence. The staff of the immigration authorities appear to be happy to read along on social networks like Facebook. Two young women were put onto the next plane back to Germany right after landing. After completing high school, Jana H. wanted to go abroad to the land of unlimited opportunity – the United States of America. She organized her own au pair exchange. Found a nice family she wanted to work for and live with for a year. For agreed-upon daily spending money, Jana would take care of the children. At the same time, she wanted to take a language course to improve her English. She had regular contact with her host father through Facebook. When the high school graduate finally landed in the US, she was taken to the side and questioned at the passport control in the airport. The officials at the American immigration agency wanted to know the reasons for her travel and how long she wanted to stay. Wrong answers Jana was ready for this kind of question. She wanted to visit friends of her parents and take an English course. Was she sure of that? was the next question. Yes, she was sure. Really, really sure? Finally, the officials presented the astounded Jana with a print-out of the entire Facebook correspondence she had had with her host father. Their accusation: The young woman wanted to work in the States illegally. The authorities had obviously read along in Jana's private messages on the social network Facebook for weeks. Jana was not allowed to enter. The next airplane brought the 18-year-old back to Germany. It wasn't an isolated incident. The dream of another youth of an internship on a horse ranch in the US also never came to fruition due to snooped Facebook messages – he, too, ended up right back at the airport after the flight over the pond. 291 words.

wtvanhest 13y ago

This story seems highly unlikely to be true given the following 4 assumptions: 1) The US Government wanted to maintain the secrecy of the program. 2) Giving the data to a large number of border guards would have increased the chance of its dissemination. 3) It would be unnecessary to show her the data to refuse her admission to the US and showing her would violate #2. 4) She would not be a valuable enough target to expose the fact that the US had the data. Additionally: It is much more likely that if the border guards were using the NSA data, they would simply receive lists of those that could not enter. She would have probably been a target for that since she was trying to obtain work in the US illegally. Alternatively, and even more likely, boarder patrol could have searched public websites for her name and seen her occupation and the rest could have been an exaggeration.

notahacker 13y ago
The publicly viewable Facebook message theory sounds more plausible given that (i) plenty of people seem to have little concept of what is and isn't private in Facebook and (ii) the US does have a track record of denying people entry based on public social media posts: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/31/british-tourists-tweets-get-them-denied-entry-to-the-u-s/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/31/british-tourists-tweets-... Chances are they got a tipoff or she got caught by profiling or a random check as I doubt anyone bothers to check the Facebook profile pages of every foreigner entering the US.
- killerpopiller 13y ago
  yep, I remembered that same story. Is it still far grasped to assume US agencies have a file on "everybody" digital present which gets automagically filled/flagged with US-related facts?
- smartician 13y ago
  An 18 year old entering the country with the intent of staying longer than a few weeks alone will raise eyebrows at the border. Next question will be regarding available funds. How can she afford to travel that long? Staying "with friends" is also suspicious, especially when she hasn't met them in person before.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kken 13y ago

It seems as if she lied to the immigration officers. From the story it is not quite clear how it was discovered, but it seems probable that the story is biased and that there are no secondary sources. Also the comments suggest that. So ??

youngerdryas 13y ago
So? America is horrible. Especially how they won't let us in.

Vivtek 13y ago

And here's the flip side of Google Translate. German doesn't react well to n-gram statistics; too many long-distance dependencies. Also translating the city of "Essen" as "Food" is hilarious.

trendspotter 13y ago
true :)
fhars 13y ago
I prefer the transpation of "Würzburg" as "peppering castle" that babelfish did when the web was still young...
hedonist 13y ago
Actually it's naming a city "Essen" in the first place that I find hilarious. Just like the name for that city next to it, "Theremouth" (Dortmund).

roin 13y ago

Should we infer that the NSA or some other government organization used a FISA request to read a German girl's Facebook messages about her upcoming au pair work in the US? This seems very unlikely, and I believe would be a clear violation of FISA unless they also thought she was a terrorist or spy.

swalsh 13y ago

The bigger revelation here to me is that it would appear the information access is shared beyond the NSA for more than security purposes.

nahreally 13y ago
The whole story is suspect. Why now? If the US government were to use this kind of intel to address issues as small as this, and this is at the level of shop lifting, wouldn't such incidents have made it to international news several times by now?

jcomis 13y ago

Perhaps she posted her intent to work illegally in a public facebook post and not only via PM? Or perhaps her host family was under the impression she was official and triggered some sort of alert when they were arranging things (if she for example, listed them as a contact when she got to customs). The typical au pair process from Germany is quite strict and time consuming to get a visa for a 1 year stay, I've had a few friends come to the US to do it. You most definitely need a work visa to be an au pair and she was attempting to violate her tourist visa in two ways, by overstaying the 90 days allowed, and by working. A lot of things could be going on here.

jmacd 13y ago
My thought as well. My guess is she or he had posted something on her publicly visible wall and they just printed that off. Hardly takes a genius. A couple pages of FB wall would take you back a few weeks as well, the agent probably just hit Print.

nostromo 13y ago

It's unclear to me who provided the print-out of Jana's private messages. Obviously it seems much more likely that Jana provided the messages, not Homeland Security. I hired a Canadian once under a TN NAFTA "visa" and he had to bring some correspondence from me to the border. We had to be very careful to word things correctly and not to use specific words that could prevent him from coming to the US. It seems that this is similar to what this young woman experienced.

ttrreeww 13y ago
Facebook provided it. Doh.
rl3 13y ago
Data acquisition methods in order of highest probability: 1. ^ This. 2. Was actually public information; story details lost in transmission or translation. 3. Her phone was still logged into Facebook. 4. They gained access to Facebook via links in e-mail. [...] 10. Normal federal law enforcement powers. 11. Special federal law enforcement powers, e.g. Patriot Act. [...] 100. NSA data that requires TS/SAP + full-scope poly to access.
- zmitri 13y ago
  They do sometimes ask to see your phone.
  - loup-vaillant 13y ago
    Do you recall any specific story where they ask you to unlock it?
    - cantos 13y ago
      All electronic devices are subject to search at the U.S. border. http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/crcl-border-search-impact-assessment_06-03-13_1.pdf http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/crcl-bor...

benmmurphy 13y ago

Maybe the border agents were in possession of her laptop and used that to get access to her private messages.

WalterSear 13y ago
Maybe 'private messages' actually refers to public wall posts.

manish_gill 13y ago

Heh. Saw a story where some Britishers were refused entry to US simply because they tweeted something like "2 weeks till I destroy America on my vacation". They were specifically asked stuff like "How do you plan to destroy America?" Srsly?

math0ne 13y ago

Most likely she was logged in to facebook on her computer, which they have every right to access and they simply opened it and read her latest correspondences. If you have things to hide, they are not safe on your personal devices when you cross the border.

llamataboot 13y ago

When my partner (who is from the EU) got to the US this most recent time (she visits here for 90 days at a time, as allowed under VWP rules), immigration pulled her aside with a printout of (public-facing) facebook pages on their desk. Interesting only in that her face book is not under her official name. They had pages and pages of printouts that they thought proved she wasn't simple a tourist, and that she was working here, etc. Note, it was all public (or semi-public with a lot of crawling around under alternate emails, leading to other names, etc etc) so nothing "intercepted". But still a bit worrying when you get pulled aside and someone has a folder ready full of pictures of you, your business website (freelancer), your facebook posts, your tweets, etc

smartician 13y ago
Interesting. Any theories on how they linked that FB profile to her real name? Maybe through the WHOIS record of her website, that got linked from that Facebook page often enough to imply a relationship?
- llamataboot 13y ago
  Probably not even anything that difficult. If you search for her last name and city, her freelance site comes up. If you go through the freelance site you get an email. Under a search for that email, I think there is a livejournal. In livejournal info there is a link to the facebook page. Etc etc. Something like that. Just google search a few things and play "follow that link" Worthwhile not because of super spy tactics, nothing any of us couldn't do in 10 minutes of looking for a person, but because its a reminder of how much info people leave out in the open even if they are semi privacy conscious, and also whether you think it is valid or not (I don't obv) immigration is going to get anything they can to figure out why you are here if you are a "frequent tourist" and seemingly from all of our interactions with them, the thing they are most concerned about, to the point of being fanatical, is whether or not you are making any money while you are in the US. In the age of telecommuting, multinational clients, etc this makes no sense. (My partner can of course hire American clients when in Europe, but can't even work for European clients when in the US) but not exactly the first time bureaucracy is dragging behind the way we are actually living.

trendspotter 13y ago

I found this story several hours ago, as well. I found the news to be a possible sensationalist story and didn't even think about posting it on HN. Yes, it is a very interesting story. But it a speculative story. You never know if the media did their research properly or if they just wanted to have more readers. There are other more reputable and trusted news sources in Germany than this one. I don't say it is made up, but some facts could be wrong.

suyash 13y ago

If you want to come to US and work illegally and get caught, what do you expect?

smalltalk 13y ago
Why was this voted down? No one other than US citizens has a right to enter the US.
- suyash 13y ago
  The girl wanted to work illegally. That is my main point of concern in case you didn't get it.

stackedmidgets 13y ago

From a German perspective, it probably doesn't matter at all whether or not this story is even true or how the messages were retrieved if it is true. The US has earned the mistrust of the world.

ivv 13y ago

DHS CIS (immigration authorities) has been using Facebook and other social networks to detect relationship fraud in citizenship applications. EFF foia-ed a memo on the subject: https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/social_network/DHS_CustomsImmigration_SocialNetworking.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/social_network/DHS_Custom...

runjake 13y ago

The United States is not going to blow the operational security of a Top Secret program to bust a teenaged nanny. There's more to this poorly-translated story.

VMG 13y ago
also keep in mind that this isn't the Spiegel
Beltiras 13y ago
Or as it turns out: less.

dhenzel 13y ago

Is this a Aprils fools joke? If not this would be unreal.

hoffsam 13y ago

It's not totally clear to me that these were private messages. I know that the Canadian Border services agency will look things up that are posted publicly on the internet to verify stories. My guess is that the messages were public and the immigration staff just looked them up and happened to see them.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Just a note of caution, a friend of mine wanted to send their daughter over to visit the US during the summer before she headed off to college. We were of course happy to let her stay at our place which is a good west coast starting point for things California. Somewhere in correspondence where she was trying to ask nicely if she could stay at our place she said "I could watch the kids or something" and later in that same correspondence we had said, "no worries, its no trouble for you to stay here." Based on that one statement she was refused entry at SFO and sent back on a plane to Paris and subsequently refused entry into the US for the next 5 years. It was insanely stupid.

iyulaev 13y ago
What sort of "correspondence" was this?
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  It was an email thread. In part of it we had given her our address and directions to our house and phone numbers on how to reach us when she got here. She had printed it out and was carrying it with her in her carry on. She allegedly fit the 'profile' and every woman travelling alone on her flight had their bags searched apparently.
  - joonix 13y ago
    Your failure to mention the printout in your original post is deceptive considering we are discussing internet "wiretapping." Of course possessions are searched upon entry, it happens every day in every country. If you're a Malaysian with a visitor visa and show up at customs in Australia with a bag full of resumes, you'll be turned away too.
    - ChuckMcM 13y ago
      You are absolutely correct, I was not thinking about that aspect of it, rather the fact that the merest implication in anything that you might be coming to the US under false pretenses (even when the authorities have all the information which clearly shows both the intent and motivation for the trip) is that they will deny you entry.

RockyMcNuts 13y ago

Would you like to share this status update with - everyone? - just friends and the CIA? - just close friends and the CIA? - just the CIA?

KenL 13y ago

I know I'm reading a Google translation, but the story seems weak. It's a real newspaper, but we've got an article with an unknown source, about a girl with no last name, landing in an unnamed city on an unnamed date. There's no statement from any authority and no way to corroborate any part of this. It's one step above this story that I heard from my best friend, whose cousin's mom totally said ...

DanBC 13y ago

Here's a story from 2012 where a UK subject made a twitter comment about "destroying america" and was subsequently denied entry to the US. (http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/01/30/this-is-what-happens-when-you-joke-about-destroying-america-on-twitter/ http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/01/30/this-is-what-happen...) Obviously, tweets are public. But still, this kind of stuff isn't unknown.

systematical 13y ago

Google translate needs some work on translating. It doesn't seem to understand the differences in how sentences are constructed (order of operations) in different languages.

csense 13y ago

I've read that laptops can be searched at the border. I wonder if her laptop was suspended with Facebook active, or had saved login cookies to Facebook, allowing customs guys to log onto the machine [1] to see what she's been up to. I decided long ago, when there was the initial flap about post-9/11 laptop border searches, that if I ever travel internationally, I'll wipe the HD of any laptops I'm taking with me before I cross any national border, and just use scp to transfer files as needed. If I need to use large files that are too large to upload or download with the time and bandwidth available, this strategy becomes...problematic. But that scenario's pretty unlikely since I'd be going as a software developer/tourist mostly working with Git repos, still photos and short video clips, not a documentary filmmaker producing hours of high-definition video. [1] Or pop the hard drive out and put it in another machine (assuming it's unencrypted). Which is what they should be doing if these procedures were ever reviewed by a competent lawyer (less chance of accidentally destroying evidence or the user's data this way).

brown9-2 13y ago

It's hard to know which depiction of the NSA to believe: * Amazingly competent agency that is secretly reading all SSL-encrypted Internet traffic and thoroughly concerned with the messageboard postings of average Americans * Amazingly incompetent agency that develops ground-breaking technology and shares it with low-level Customs officials to bust 18-year old au pairs

frankblizzard 13y ago

Honestly, this seems to me (German) like a very lurid headline. Article seems like more entertaining then a serious press release and does not belong on top of hacker news imho.

kleiba 13y ago

The whole story doesn't seem to add up, I have a feeling that some crucial information is missing. Apparently, the reason she was sent home was that she gave wrong information about her reasons to enter the country. That's why she was confronted with contradictory information in her messages (she claimed she wanted visit friends of her parents, while she was really going there to work). So was she actually trying to enter illegaly and was sent back because of that? That sounds like a visa issue to me (tourist vs. work visa). Certainly the NSA or Homeland Security or whoever weren't reading every facebook message just so they could check if the girl would state a matching reason for entering the country. To me it looks like something else must have triggered all of this, something that is not mentioned in the article. I understand that the main point here is that Immigration had access to her facebook chats. I just wonder: at what point in time did they decide to access her chats. Was it when the girl was already at Immigrations? Was it as a (random?) background check when she applied for her visa or ESTA? Or was it after something, e.g. keywords, in her chats triggered a check? (Please understand that I'm not in the slightest trying to defend that customs had access to the FB chats, I just find the article a bit lacking.)

gcb0 13y ago

I think this is a case of a $5 wrench and not big brother http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/ when you are taken for questioning they may put you in a cell while they go trhu your stuff. In that little cell, you are not allowed even you shoe laces!!!! so they probably got her, unlocked her iphone (either she had no password or they have backdoors) and got the messages.

smsm42 13y ago

I'm kind of confused - if US immigration authorities are so powerful and omnipresent that they read Facebook feeds of every random German girl in case they ever want to come to the US, how comes we still have illegal immigration problem in the US? Or was there something special about this particular girl that triggered the attention of the law enforcement well in advance of her visit? Or they just took her laptop, logged in to facebook and clicked "print"? Kind of unclear what exactly happened.

theojapa 13y ago

Translation there no good hard read to.

tessellated 13y ago

As a native German speaker, I just wanted you to know, that the provided translation wouldn't make any sense, if you at least didn't have a basic gasp of the German language. The original German article does not provide any information about how HS dept got to read the Facebook messages. Further, it seems a rather badly researched article out of an insignificant tabloid.

pekk 13y ago

Isn't this an outrage. We should only be denying entry to hispanics, Muslims and darkies who we suspect of wanting to overstay their visas. But you know, we don't have enough border security and we need more.

aaron695 13y ago

I find it quite unbelievable people are buying into this story. Border guards have access to private email to catch people who possibly might work on the wrong visa, sure.... And boarder guards have kept this secrete for years but the leak came from within the NSA. What is wrong with people. This is why the governmenat walks all over you, there's just no common sense amongst the masses.

mehmehshoe 13y ago

I don't think Customs needs any help from the NSA. Search incoming passenger manifests for anyone with a return ticket more than 5 months from arrival, then just search twitter and facebook pages for anyone on that list. Voila!

Eva_Peron 13y ago

Well I guess the guns and gates will still hold Nikita in. :(

namank 13y ago

I question the authenticity of this article.

laurentoget 13y ago

Whether this is true or not this is certainly not good PR for the US tourism industry and the US in general. Germans were not so long ago the people in the world who had the best image of the US.

inquist 13y ago

I haven't heard this mentioned yet: Do we really think facebook "private" messages are in any way private, or even billed by facebook to be private? I am reading the facebook privacy policy and they do mention that they "... may use the information we receive about you: ...to protect Facebook's or others' rights or property..." So we have rights to free speech, do we also have rights to private speech?

exDM69 13y ago

Here is a similar story from one year ago: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093796/Emily-Bunting-Leigh-Van-Bryan-UK-tourists-arrested-destroy-America-Twitter-jokes.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093796/Emily-Buntin... This case was public twitter messages and not private facebook conversations, but otherwise similar. There's a lot of skeptics in this thread whether the US immigration would actually snoop through social networking sites. But if these two cases are true as reported, it seems there's some level of semi-automatic filtering of social media accounts for people entering the country.

mehwoot 13y ago
There's a lot of skeptics in this thread whether the US immigration would actually snoop through social networking sites. But if these two cases are true as reported, it seems there's some level of semi-automatic filtering of social media accounts for people entering the country. That is completely different to what is being alleged, especially in light of events this week, that they had access to private facebook messages.

galaktor 13y ago

quite ironic that the (German) site shoves a "like this on FB" prompt in my face as I read

qwertzlcoatl 13y ago
You might want to look into some anti-tracking software that disables that.

mariuolo 13y ago

I wonder if this is part of a plan to deincentivise immigration.

mattront 13y ago

It could also be that her Facebook profile was public and she posted public status updates (default FB privacy setting) about what she plans to do in the US. No PRISM necessary for that, just a FB account. Just try a search on FB for a random name and open a couple of profiles. It is baffling how much personal information is publicly available.

ryan-allen 13y ago

Well, I was going to one day visit the US, but I'll never risk entering with the kind of inane (but possibly incriminating) crap I've bantered with friends over chat. What a sham.

bayesianhorse 13y ago

The US is spending billions on immigration control, and still have several millions of illegal immigrants. For me this is a sign that restrictions on immigration as they now exist don't work, don't benefit society and should be rethought.

piqufoh 13y ago

I can't believe this is factually accurate. Providing a hard copy of private facebook messages seems like a rather dumb thing to do as this would confirm that US agencies are checking up on foreign nationals intentions. Even if they checking up, implicating themselves with such a daft move seems implausible. I call bullshit!

olsn 13y ago

She was planing to get a "salary" and didn't tell the immigration office about it and didn't have the right visa for that. -> She didn't play by the rules, so why should this be any more outraging than any other illegal immigrant?

krautsourced 13y ago

First of all, the only thing that makes this story interesting is whether or not the officers had access to the _private_ FB messages, as compared to her public profile. Her being sent back for lying about her intentions to work was a correct decision. As it is, the story (I'm reading the native German version) is very vague on the Facebook issue. I find it rather unlikely that immigration officials are sitting at every point of entry into the US with a massive folder of facebook printouts of everyone arriving on a plane. I'm almost certain there's more to this story (like, maybe she applied for a Student or Work Visa, which was refused for some reason, and then again applied as a tourist immediately after, which caused her to be flagged). Without that info, and without knowing what kind of data they actually got from Facebook, this whole discussion is moot.

INTPenis 13y ago

My sister moved to America about 7-8 years ago and the school where she got a job as a teacher found her website hosted here in Sweden, under a fake name. They demanded that she take it down because she posted about something the schools lawyers objected to. I'm not sure if it was amazon links or about her BDSM hobbies. Either way I was amazed by the fact that they found it, and traced it to her. She didn't even have a computer at the time so she had to call me who worked at the hosting company where it was hosted for free, just so I could take it down for her. It's interesting how much personal image speaks to character in some societies. I'm not saying this is unique to the USA, it's just interesting how we judge people superficially.