USA without privacy?

[Walter]

Apearing before a congressional panel on Tuesday, the Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly proposed requiring foreign travelers to the US to provide immigration officers with social media account log-ins.
https://www.districtsentinel.com/d-h-s-chief-kelly-floats-making-visitors-u-s-give-us-passwords/

Now it gets ridiculous. Or shall I say, bizarre?

Do I need to have a Facebook account to make a visit to the US? I have none and if I had one, theres no way I would give my passwords to any agency.

I'm personally affected as we are planning our first trip to the USA in sommer and already bought plane tickets. If I, as a citizen from a very safe country, will not be able to make my visit and will loose money from my diverse bookings, I will take this personally, like many tourists.

Due to the paranoia after 911 the USA already lost significant business. I, like many others, had invested in several servers located in the USA (running this site and other sites for me and my customers). I had them in the USA because of the great service I received and because of the reasonable prices here.
All these servers were migrated back to Europe due to privacy concerns.

You may argue, that its only me and my devisions are personal and will have no great effect to the US economy. But I'm not alone and there are many tourists and there are many businesses like mine, many of them bigger than mine.

I love the USA, but the US administration is only one step away from a border.

 

[The Scotsman]

I thought this was old news?
https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...eparture-record-forms-i-94-and-i-94w-and#p-16

 

[Walter]

I thought this was old news?

No. The form always was optional. No obligation to fill out anything.

 

[The Scotsman]

Apparently the UK immigration and border control agencies already do this. It may be that we are to blame for this.... sorry mate!

 

[dogtowner]

Silly requirement. If they are bad guys they will provide a falso account.
Besides you can find them if they're on.
Hopefully this gets nixed.

 

[Walter]

Silly requirement. If they are bad guys they will provide a falso account.

Exactly.

And all business men in Europe I know, have zero trust in US agencies. It's pretty standard amoung them that you wipe out your business notebook before you travel to the USA (so if they get examined the agencies can't extract any data) and do a complete reinstall while you are in the USA (via VPN and VM) - so much effort only to prevent industrial espionage.

 

[Walter]

Unbelievable what already is common nowadays - a joke and you are handcuffed and kicked out:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-arrested-destroy-America-Twitter-jokes.html

 

[The Scotsman]

Silly requirement. If they are bad guys they will provide a falso account.

You'd think but there are bozos out there that do put such stuff on their twitface accounts and there are people that follow them so they should expect to get questioned about it.

 

[Walter]

they should expect to get questioned

Questioned? Hm.
Handcuffed and kicked out? Definitely not.

Remember: the US was the land of the free, not the land of the nazi methods.

 

[dogtowner]

You'd think but there are bozos out there that do put such stuff on their twitface accounts and there are people that follow them so they should expect to get questioned about it.

And those are easy to find without them giving you their accounts.
It's not like NSA doesnt already have this for known baddies, finding this is what they do, why they sniff every byte that whizzes through the internet.

 

[The Scotsman]

not the land of the nazi methods.

... okay.... steady on tiger
If some jerk hasn't got the intelligence to think about what he's posting on twitface bearing mind where he's going and what's going on in the country he's going to then what does he expect?
I know its all a bit extreme and heavy handed and makes great reading in the press.... but surely the point is to have a modicum of intelligence. The usual Ibiza british mentallity sometimes gets you trouble and for this schmuck it came in spades.

 

[The Scotsman]

why they sniff every byte that whizzes through the internet.

exactly mate they work on algorythms looking for key words thus if you post crap on twitface etc. then its gonna get flagged and your gunna get hauled in.

 

[dogtowner]

exactly mate they work on algorythms looking for key words thus if you post crap on twitface etc. then its gonna get flagged and your gunna get hauled in.

Way past that these days but make no mistake, everything gets sniffed. And encryption is no guarantee of privacy.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

I know some employers are doing the same thing, and I think its pretty sad and pathetic. Also how do you look at someone's Facebook and then show that you did not reject them for being the wrong political party, faith, gay, sick, or other info they have no right to know. And I can just see , sorry kid we can't let you in without checking yoru Facebook...ummm sir I was living in a refugee camp for 2 years hoping for food and water....Im sorry I failed to keep a facebook account for you?

that said while clearly not impossible, it is hard to make a fake convincing Facebook account that would fool anyone with modest training and care.

 

[dogtowner]

I know some employers are doing the same thing, and I think its pretty sad and pathetic. Also how do you look at someone's Facebook and then show that you did not reject them for being the wrong political party, faith, gay, sick, or other info they have no right to know. And I can just see , sorry kid we can't let you in without checking yoru Facebook...ummm sir I was living in a refugee camp for 2 years hoping for food and water....Im sorry I failed to keep a facebook account for you?

that said while clearly not impossible, it is hard to make a fake convincing Facebook account that would fool anyone with modest training and care.

Law enforcement and the spooks do it all the time