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Comment by MichaelGG | Hacker News Reader

This isn't to catch terrorism. Though they'll probably get a few idiot "extremists", this will mostly stop people coming in under false pretenses. It's bizarre how people don't think ahead to their border crossing and are willing to admit they are going to live with their SO, or work as a nanny -- while under a tourism visa.

It'll be very effective at this. Most people aren't going to establish a plausible social media profile after they figure out they're going to the US to live/work/whatever.

"Real" spies and terrorists and whatever can obviously afford to setup enough cover. (Though there is the case of a spy getting discovered because she used her real frequent flier number while traveling under aliases.)

At best, this might put a chilling effect on Facebook and other things like that, which is probably a net win for humanity.

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> "Real" spies and terrorists and whatever can obviously afford to setup enough cover.

> It's bizarre how people don't think ahead to their border crossing and are willing to admit they are going to live with their SO, or work as a nanny -- while under a tourism visa.

So we're not catching "real" spies and terrorists; we're catching nannies trying to get paid under the table; do you think maybe we've got bigger fish to fry? This is a bad precedent, and what are we gaining? Nothing.

Rule of Law.

Sounds more like rule by law.

Sounds like no nation wants undocumented labor because it is very problematic.

It's so obvious as to hardly bear mentioning, but you can use this to excuse any violation of rights if you want. Sometimes "rule of law" just isn't worth it.

Sure, but you've offered no argument regarding this particular situation.

The people that voted for Trump get to gain a bunch of thankless, low-pay jobs that will no longer be allocated to illegal aliens. There might be bigger fishes to fry, but given that they never get invited when salmon is on the menu, they are happy to see the sardine cans comming in.

And if they cannot or will not take the nanny jobs for themselves, at least they get to mock the uppity mothers that voted for Hillary and now are forced to dump their careers to take care of their own children.

You're gaining a more efficient CBP, enforcing visa rules and avoiding overstays like they do now, just with higher accuracy. Now if you want to argue that visa classes are silly and the US should just let anyone come in for whatever, fine, but that's a totally different argument.

And yes, it's possible that this isn't worth the gains to CBP. But the US is pretty powerful and can force quite a bit of crap on people without getting too hurt. If it stops, it'll most likely be from efforts from e.g. Facebook lobbying against it.

Business travelers have little choice. A lot of migrants have no choice (the benefits of US residency far outweigh the inconvenience for most people) -- we can test this out by looking at how many Mexicans or other Latam folks stay in the US vs, say, Canada over the next few years (confounding that is Canada removing visa requirements for Mexicans). Tourism might be hit a bit, but I'm unconvinced this is a big enough deal for people to rethink their entire vacation plans.

Enforcing visas through violating privacy seems like a good enough argument against this practice to me. What you're also gaining is a precedent to enforce more searches that look through not just your public life, but also the intimate parts that the government really doesn't have much business in analyzing.

Yep you're right and this is the kind of arguments people should be making.

The guy that had this happen to him recently was American and working for NASA AFAIK. If catching overstays is the issue why do this to citizens?

Power grows? I'd like to know what contraband CBP expects to find on electronic devices. At any rate, they can only ask citizens to comply, not force them.

> So we're not catching "real" spies and terrorists; we're catching nannies trying to get paid under the table; do you think maybe we've got bigger fish to fry? This is a bad precedent, and what are we gaining? Nothing.

A country which controls its borders gains … control of its borders. If it's illegal to enter a country as a tourist in order to live with one's girlfriend, well it's illegal to enter that country as a tourist in order to live with one's girlfriend. That doesn't mean the law is right, or good, or desirable, just that if one enters that country as a tourist in order to live with one's girlfriend, one will be breaking that country's law and is liable to be deported.

Although I tend to favour open borders, myself, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the customs police of any country to turn away people trying to enter that country illegally.

That doesn't address the question of balance between the seriousness of the illegality and the invasiveness of the investigatory technique.

It would certainly be feasible to require every vehicle to be fitted with a data/position logger so that a vast number of hitherto undetected breaches of the laws governing the road can be immediately detected and punished - but it's pretty clear that the invasiveness of this is not worth the gains in compliance.

> That doesn't address the question of balance between the seriousness of the illegality and the invasiveness of the investigatory technique.

No, it doesn't, because I addressed the statement, 'What are we gaining? Nothing.'

I don't support the policy at all; I think it's a fundamental human right to encrypt data and not have to give the password to anyone.

Living with your SO under a tourism visa isn't a crime as long as you leave before your visa expires...

And is it the role of CPB to prevent under the table employment? Surely there are better ways to address that issue if it's a concern. Building walls and inspecting social media seems like a political smoke screen for avoiding more effective enforcement measures - requiring farmers/factories/roofing companies to prove their labour is legally allowed to work in the US etc. Or we could acknowledge the reality of immigration (we need workers if we can't afford to pay Americans an adequate wage to pick fields etc).

As if it is only illegals that are being paid under the table.

It's not about being _paid_ under the table, it's about entering the country with intent to violate your entry conditions (working without a visa). CBP doesn't have much to say about legal workers not, say, filing taxes.

> Living with your SO under a tourism visa isn't a crime as long as you leave before your visa expires...

No, but it is left entirely up to the agent interviewing you for entry to decide whether he thinks you're likely to leave later when your visa is expiring.

Right, but many times, especially if you're coming from a "worse" country, the agent is not going to believe you're going to return. So people lie about it, and thus get caught out.

Yes, it is the role of CBP to make sure you're coming under the right visa. It's no different than making sure you're not coming to stay while on a temporary visa.

No whether or not this is important or just silly politics is a different question. Same to the question of is this ethical/right/whatever. But there's zero doubt that this will enable CBP to be more effective. So arguments against it should focus on "yeah, this makes their job easier, but at what cost?" instead of pretending there's zero upside.

So you're saying as someone from a "good" European country (Nordic) I basically have to not worry about any of this?

You have a lot less to prove to CBP than someone coming from a broken country. Your incentives to stay in the US are drastically less than someone from, say Mexico. Other countries do the same thing. A US citizen gets a warm welcome into Mexico. A Guatemalan gets hassled.

There's still random bad luck - as a Canadian I've been theatened deportation for not cancelling my green card despite not using it or living in the US. I've been detained because a CBP agent decided a trade show was work and I wasn't eligible for a B1. (His first words were "you're going miss your flight, I'll make sure of it".) But most of the time they wave me right by.

You're right that this is not (primarily) about catching suspected criminals or people affiliated with terrorist organizations.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had an internal profiling tool that they run similar to https://applymagicsauce.com/.

Kind of similar to what Cambridge Analytica (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-hel...) uses to target political campaigns.

You know, the Cambridge Analytica whose board of trustees includes Steve Bannon.

So the question to be asking is why does the US government want a psychological profile of every traveller passing through the border?

genuine question then: why do this on citizens then? what are they expecting to gain? are they just casting a wide net to catch dumb extremists?

A lot of metadata-oriented mass surveillance centers around who is talking to whom. If someone is identified as potentially relevant, for example, for being involved in publishing leaks, spies might be very interested in filling in as much information as possible about that person's contacts and communication methods.

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