U.S. government begins asking foreign travelers about social media

Just last month I commented here [1] how strange it is to see America slowly but steadily moving in the same direction as the military dictatorship that I live under. And here is yet another move in that direction, because here in Thailand they have been asking foreigners for their social media account information since around mid-year this year.<p>Edit: Link to the pertinent section of the form used by Thai immigration to ask for social media account information. [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12974377" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12974377</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.khaosodenglish.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;pre&#x2F;14609779491460977993l.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.khaosodenglish.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;pre&#x2F;1460977...</a>

So it begins: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;craphound.com&#x2F;scroogled.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;craphound.com&#x2F;scroogled.html</a><p>This is an incredibly worth while read by Cory Doctrow that has only gotten more pertinent.

Claiming this is &quot;optional&quot; is utterly absurd.<p>The power dynamic at US immigration is very unbalanced and they generally treat people terribly. If you &quot;opt out&quot; of providing this highly personal information they will no doubt send you to secondary where you will be required to provide it anyway.<p>It is just normalising an invasion of privacy, and by the very nature of it they&#x27;re already hinting that they might enter those social media accounts and pull apart your life. They already read diaries and look through your files, and anything that they find they&#x27;ll use against you no matter how vague or what context it is said (e.g. don&#x27;t even think about making jokes in private, they will ignore context like their life depended on it).<p>Your choice when travelling to the US is:<p>- Provide real ones (and risk getting bounced for something taken out of context and your privacy invaded).<p>- Don&#x27;t provide any (and risk getting bounced for looking suspicious).<p>- Provide fake ones (and risk getting bounced for not providing a thorough record).<p>They actually asked for feedback when this was first proposed and I wrote to them telling them why it was a bad idea. The problem is that they&#x27;re asking American citizens for feedback about a proposal that doesn&#x27;t impact them. I just happen to care because I am a green card holder who has family come in and know how terrible US immigration can be.

So it will be interesting when you say that you don&#x27;t have any social media accounts, or point to some essentially empty accounts.<p>Immigration officer: &quot;This bjelkeman-again account on Hacker News isn&#x27;t your?&quot;<p>Me: &quot;No sir, it isn&#x27;t&quot;<p>Officer: &quot;But it has your name.&quot;<p>Me: &quot;Sorry, I don&#x27;t know who that is. Somebody impersonating me perhaps?&quot;<p>Officer: &quot;Hand me your phone. An unlock it.&quot;<p>Me: &quot;Here it is. But it is empty. I load it from a downloaded encrypted image when I arrive at my destination. The key is given to me when I have arrive. For company security reasons.&quot;<p>Officer: &quot;You have to come with me.&quot;<p>It is going to be interesting.

Source without TheVerge regurgitation<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;2016&#x2F;12&#x2F;foreign-travelers-social-media-232930" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;2016&#x2F;12&#x2F;foreign-travelers-soci...</a>

Of course the bad guys are going to have fake social media accounts, so I don&#x27;t see what benefit could accrue from such a policy.

Just a reminder that they already have this information and do not need to ask for it: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;technology-16810312" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;technology-16810312</a><p>People have been denied entry based on their online activity years ago.

This is creepy and beyond the pale. And indefensible for any pretension of democracy and free speech. What right does anyone have to &#x27;mine&#x27; your personal speech history?<p>This directly criminalises speech and brazenly places a chilling effect on open and free discourse. This US security state has become so emboldened by citizen inaction and hand waving and ordinary americans must take control of their state. Please defend basic human rights and dignity.<p>Don&#x27;t let the naive, statists and apologists come here and defend and seek to normalize this blatant authoritarianism.

Has anyone here written something online, revealed something about yourself online (are you Muslim? Communist?), or are you associated with someone or some group online (friends with Edward Snowden on Facebook? Friends with CAIR?) that might cause you to be denied entry into the U.S.?<p>As far as I know, the U.S. has denied entry to its critics, though I don&#x27;t know how consistently they do that.<p>(To be absolutely clear: I don&#x27;t think anyone should be discriminated against based on their religion or political beliefs.)

I seriously wonder if they would let somebody like Trump enter the country if he were a foreigner, based on what he posts on Twitter.

The question is, what can be done against this? With Trump soon in power, Congress in Republican hands and the Supreme Court soon too, there is no corrective element left outside Republican hands any more, except a military coup, secession of individual States or civil war.<p>And I like none of these options, especially not given that China and to some extent Russia massively try to take geopolitical influence over from the US.

Ah yes, the Theil + Palintir influence starts to show.<p>On one hand, maybe cool that you can list GitHub to show you are a professional, on the other much larger hand this data collection is terrifying and could be used for so many bad policies.

So would this lead to self-censorship on social media?

What if you claim to not have any account, or refuse to provide it? Does it default to &quot;terrorist&quot;?<p>Also, I think there would be a better solution: Just give travelers a form with one question.<p><pre><code> Are you a terrorist? [yes (default)] [no]</code></pre>

As I&#x27;ve discussed in some of my comments in the past, the only morally principled way to deal with this is simply to say &quot;No.&quot; and accept the consequences. It may suck, it may derail plans, or even alter the course of your life. But at the end, thousands of people saying &quot;No.&quot; is the only way to stop this.<p>The US isn&#x27;t the first country to do this and it won&#x27;t be the last. It&#x27;s a sadly hypocritical state of affairs, but not surprising given the way things have gone recently. I travel all over the world, and I will adamantly refuse to give any information about myself which isn&#x27;t contained already on my passport. The entire point of a passport is to provide the relevant information to determine whether or not to admit me across a border. If that is not sufficient, then I suppose you&#x27;ll have to deport me and deal with any PR fallout for doing so (if any).

The headline is misleading. I&#x27;d suggest changing the submission URL to use the original Politico post and their title: &quot;U.S. government begins asking foreign travelers about social media&quot;.<p>Not that I approve of this policy. Maybe it&#x27;s time to kill off my social media accounts.

Doesn&#x27;t seem like a problem. The fake outrage about it is laughable. This is no different than any other kind of personal interview. They want to see evidence that you&#x27;re a normal ass person, this isn&#x27;t some sort of action to de-anonymize the internet, spy on your private whatever.

The article has several mistakes:<p>The new ESTA has those fields: Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Linkedin, Youtube. No Twitter, no VKontakte.<p>To fill out those forms is optional, not mandatory.

Thanks Obama?

China doesn&#x27;t do that. The US makes China look free and friendly.

How many people complaining about this policy enthusiastically voted to elect the political party that has put into place this policy in 2008, 2012, and 2016, and insisted that even considering any alternative was a straight slide into fascism?

Does this law also make it possible to prove a negative?

Since when is Social Media participation a compulsory activity?

<p><pre><code> &gt; started demanding &gt; the request is currently &gt; “optional.” </code></pre> Law of the excluded middle

I wouldn&#x27;t tell them shit. I would tell them I have none. Prove me wrong brown shirts.

As far as I understand it, the requirement would be for foreign travelers to enter information about the social media that they use, but not their account passwords.<p>If you have a Twitter account and you provide that information (your Twitter handle), what practical difference does it make? Twitter posts are public by default. Anybody can see your Twitter posts; you don&#x27;t even have to be a follower, so I don&#x27;t quite see what difference it makes to tell the US government the name of your Twitter account.<p>Can somebody point out the error(s) in my thinking?

The upside here is that these are the sorts of measures that will allow visa-free travel to continue.<p>Ultimately, many countries that were once zero-risk considerations for entry are becoming riskier. The world is changing, people are migrating away from war in the middle east and other places and the US governments policy is to deny people deemed risky entry. Other countries require visas to deal with this sort of thing. US citizens of Pakistani origin need to jump through hoops to get an Indian visa, for example. That&#x27;s far more intrusive and harmful.<p>It&#x27;s intrusive, but why should your virtual identity be different than your physical identity?