Trump administration approves tougher visa vetting, including social media check
reuters.com
reuters.com
>The State Department said earlier the tighter vetting would apply to visa applicants "who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related visa ineligibilities."
This sounds like it authorizes them to ask for social media handles (usernames) for up to 5 years into the past.
This doesn't mean everybody coming into the country has to turn over all of their social media logins and passwords.
Still ridiculous.
> Still ridiculous.
I mean, at what level does it becomes not ridiculous to have deeper vetting?
I'd consider it "not ridiculous" if the vetting was limited to ensuring:
- That my visa application is valid: If I'm coming to work, I'm doing it for a real job and I really do have all the necessary qualifications and my travel plans match my intent.
- That I'm likely to leave the US. I think it's fine to ask whether I have ties to my home country or to the US and whether I've broken the terms of another visa.
- That I'm not already a criminal. It'd be fine to be asked for a police report.
I consider the following ridiculous:
- Anything related to potential future terrorism. If I wanted to enter the US to kill people, why on earth would I get a visa when I could just cross the border illegally or use a fake passport?
- Compelling disclosure of any information a citizen could deny a police officer who lacked a warrant.
Then again, I understand that the US considers visas to be a privilege and I respect its choice to deny them to whoever it wishes. If it decides I'm not good enough, I'm more than happy to take my economic output elsewhere (and I will if they ever ask for details regarding my online presence).
I'm not sure how many terrorist attacks are done by fugitives. Some stuff is easier to arrange when you have legal status.
Also, cross which border illegally? The Canadian? People who need a visa to enter the US probably need one to enter Canada too.
I really don't get why getting our Fb accounts is so important, given they already have it (or should, if NSA/CIA did the job they were assigned to).
> Respondents: Immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related visa ineligibilities.
Very interesting how Reuters doesn't mention this only affects 0.5% of people who apply and whose regular information is deemed to warrant further investigation. Doesn't sound as sensationalistic when you leave that little detail out.
From everything I've seen so far, the only people who are going to get the "additional scrutiny" are Muslims, starting with the ones from the countries listed in the travel ban. The administration added the "national security" language in order to protect themselves in court, but it reads the same as any other instance of government abuse throughout American history. The people in the group being targeted will be required to jump over increasingly higher hurdles (like 15 years of biographical history) while everyone else gets to just step around it.
Not just students and scientists - it will discourage everyone from coming to the United States, as if it wasn't unappealing already.
Tourists will go elsewhere. It's good for tourism in other countries.
Important to remember though that these Trump decisions are the will of the people - democracy in action.
I wouldn't say his decisions are the will of the people but rather the result of the political system in action.
Watch while China reciprocates and see how much US business travelers like that.
Also, does email count as social media?
Net effect: Not safer as a whole, but we'll see how deep the social network surveillance actually goes and how good the pseudo-anonymous attribution algorithms really are.
People won't include the social media accounts they don't want to call attention to.
And that's your best case scenario.
Ergo, the second part of my comment about how well those "hidden" accounts can be uncovered.
So in a way this policy nudges me to patronize the business of particular named corporations.
I know jokes aren't allowed on HN, but this is great :)
They often wonder why so many people don't visit any other countries, to see how other people live, gain understanding, experience and love.
I could try to figure it out via my passport stamps, I guess, at least for those countries that actually still stamp.
> The Trump administration has rolled out a new questionnaire for U.S. visa applicants worldwide that asks for social media handles for the last five years and biographical information going back 15 years.
Including social media handles is quite different than what the title implies with "accounts"
Edit: Yay the post title was fixed!