US visitors must hand over Twitter, Facebook handles by law – newbie Rep starts ball rolling A newbie congressman has floated his first ever US law bill – one that demands visitors to America hand over URLs to their social network accounts. House Rep Jim Banks (R-IN) says his proposed rules – dubbed the Visa Investigation and Social Media Act (VISA) of 2017 – require visa applicants to provide their social media …
"create brand new, fake accounts"
yep. that's the weakness of doing these *kinds* of things. And "the bad guys" would have been doing that already.
What I think Customs and Border Patrol will be looking for, however, is your REACTION to the question. You'd have to be a convincing liar to get past them.
"What mean is "I don't have any".
Now what? Smart bunch these republicans."
Now they say:
"I'm sorry sir/madam but you are not allowed into the US. By the way, you'll have to pay for your own flight home."
And then you have to explain to the kids why they don't get to go to Disneyland.
"I'm sorry sir/madam but you are not allowed into the US. By the way, you'll have to pay for your own flight home."
And then you have to explain to the kids why they don't get to go to Disneyland.
That's a nice tourist industry you have there, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
All because they didn't get to see me calling out Mark Clattenburg for being a shit ref or Facebook for not enabling U2f unless you tie a phone to your account. No doubt I'm some sort of threat to the republic.
They're welcome to go search but I won't be telling them.
I don't have any social media accounts, unless the ability to comment on ElReg qualifies.
The bright spot is that any blockhead can propose any blockheaded legislation he pleases, and they do. Good Lord, they do.
But most of those proposal die an ignominious and obscure death, as will this one. We hope.
Why go to the USA at all? That place is getting nuttier and more random for every year that passes.
Passing the border of the DDR during the peak of the cold war was a much more relaxed undertaking than meeting the USA security circus in 2015. With the DDR goons, one didn't have this feeling of "These people are *on* something. Reach for your handkerchief too quickly, drop an iPad with a loud noise, and thousands of rounds will instantly go off in ones general location clipping all the bystanders."
Allahu akbar? Oh that just means "y'all have a nice day now"
I've had this really bad joke running around my head for a while.
"Aloha ak-bar, aloha akbar, it's time... to say... buh-byeeee! *BOOM*"
OK, that was bad. really bad. heh.
(is there an icon for *BAD JOKE ALERT* ???)
it pretty much means "praise $deity" in a lot of contexts and is as harmless as "thank god I got to the station on time and caught my train". the media (and the xenophobes) have done a good job of taking it and making it into a trigger.
As a non-denominational Minister I actually use it on occasion - which must look weird as I'm a 115kgs, 1.85m tall, bearded, bald headed, tattooed white guy who usually rocks up to ceremonies on a Harley. This weekend I'm officiating an interfaith, same-sex (Sikh and Christian) service ... been an interesting experience working with these two to come up with the service and learning to pronounce some of the Sikh passages correctly!
The idea of devices being scanned is a little worrying for me as I have a number of religious texts on my iPad that I use for reference and while I hope my Ministerial credentials would at least cut me some slack the paranoid IT side of me that's my day job means that all that stuff lives in the cloud and I just disconnect from that before crossing the US border (have been doing that for some years now as I worked a lot in China for a while). My Facebook and Twitter however does include some anti-Idiocracy sentiment which may upset Trump supporters, so Anonymous it must be!
It means a lot of things apart from "some atrocity is imminent". It can also be used in much the same way "we" use "fuck" - As a generic expletive meaning both good or bad things.
For example, when a westernized muslim drops her iPhone on the cement, she might say "Allahu akbar" with a "down"/"ironic" tone on the "akbar" bit.
Allahu akbar? Oh that just means "y'all have a nice day now"
Pretty much does. It is as casually used as "Howdy" and "G'day". It is simply that the public have been brainwashed into believing it is indicative of something far more sinister.
It has been such effective propaganda that false media reports these days of someone shouting "Allahu akbar" is enough to have most people blaming Muslims for whatever happened. Even when it turns out to be a Le Pen loving white extremist murdering Muslims in Quebec.
Mr Coward, you clearly suffer from multiple personality disorder. Although some of your personalities have expressed their undying love for our president, others have called him a pussy grabbing loon and far worse. Your disparaging comments on the Department of Homeland Security were not welcome. Until it time for you to return home, will be staying at a Trump prison, which serves only the best luxury water at $5000 per glass. Now please hand over your online banking credentials my colleague, who will take out a loan in your name so you will be able to pay your bill promptly on your departure.
Please enjoy your stay in the US and return to us as soon as you can afford it.
, they'll just create a fake id full of fluffy kitten pictures.
Thats what "They" want us to do, because then there is evidence of Deception. In my opinion, is downright retarded to believe that "They" do not already have full and complete records on-demand of every digital thing we touched in the past. Wonder why one must register first with these guys https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta and pay with a personal credit card?
Once cheating is detected, then they can really put the screws on the idiot who tried this, not just the normal messing about with "civil asset forfeiture" and other stuff, that one would maybe expect in say Russia or Angola. One could become the next Boston Bomber.
No, no, no, Mr Border Patrol Officer Bubba, I am the Microsoft employed Anonymous Coward in charge of monitoring foreign owned tech publications, not the Communist Anonymous Coward inciting the use of anarchist open source! Please let me back in! Please check with my boss in Seattle!
What? No, no, no, I have nothing to do with our data centre in Ireland!
How many of us have "fake" accounts or multiple accounts depending on the site? How many of us would acknowledge that we have social media accounts? And lastly, how many have a full-blown, comprehensive, truthful, social media account?
I think the Congressman has been out playing with the unicons again.
While I'd tell HR what my Facebook account is (given that they could find it themselves if they were half-way competent), I wouldn't give them a password or other access to it so they'd be stuck with the public posts. If they insist on more access then clearly it's not the sort of place I'd want to work and I'd tell them that as I got up to walk out.
Personally I'd tell them I don't have a facebook account. I use a fake name on facebook, good luck with them associating it with me. I only use facebook for a few special interest groups and have no desire to share my life history with the world at large. However, there are lots of people with the same real name as me on facebook, so I'd probably be guilty of something by name association.
Had this come up in an interview for a security job (at a bank no less).
He couldn't understand the concept of not having a social media account. The penny only dropped when I told him the I frequently have in my possession documents that could be used to compromise the company I'm working for and that announcing what I did to the world+dog, who I'm doing it for at the moment, and just when I'm on holiday so you can come round and nick my laptop etc. would be a *really bad* idea.
Seriously, he was gobsmacked and had never even thought about it before.
Don't you just love it when total morons have any kind of say in your life :)
... When people not hindered by any factual knowledge get to propose new laws. Many man hours (and therefor money!) is spend over something which will only affect the illiterate and won't reveal those who who have a little more brain capacity than a peanut. Which I think this guy has.
It is as much about power, control and compliance as it is about information gathering. You are either with us or against us, and if you can't demonstrate you are with us ...
The very fact people here are talking about lying, hiding accounts, using false names, complaining, indicates they know they aren't the people America wants. They know they aren't compliant, don't belong. It's working as intended.
Are you with us or against us?
It seems to me that rather than build a physical wall, ostensibly to keep people out, they are doing everything they bloody well can to build a virtual one. I've always regarded America as a fscked up place full of nutjobs, but it's clear now that the loonies really are running the asylum. This bill may fall, but you can bet your ass/arse that just like the No.4, there will be another one along in a minute.
Unless the congressman is smart enough to specify US English, you could probably convince a judge that 'English' is by default what's found in the UK with the extra Us and a deficit of Z.
You'd need more than one DHS person at each embassy - there is already a visa interview for each applicant, so having to add an extra person would double the staff required to handle that part of visas. I guess they might have less background paperwork than the regular staff.
I look forward to all other countries requiring US visitors to disclose their social media passwords - that might have more effect than complaining - it was funny to hear US citizens complaining when Brazil decided it was going to fingerprint them on entry.
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Actually, you can legally own a machine gun. It does require a thorough background check and a hefty license fee. There's a place in Arizona (Big Sandy...Google and Youtube it) where people come in from all over the US to play with their toys. Not just machineguns but tanks, and artillery.
Did the Senator not learn about logic, proofs, and the impossibility thereof in some cases?
You've not come across the US education system, then? And this man was such an Einstein that before politics he was in the US Navy Supply Corps.
Jim Banks:
He Knows No Fear
He Knows No Danger
He Knows Nothing
What do you think this is?
Oh, I pity the poor, semi-literate US official who has to trawl through the posting history of any active Reg commentard, especially mine. For one thing, they'll need a dictionary. But at the end of the process (if it's someone else) they might have educated themselves into an IT job. After trawling through mine it'll be Xanax.
I simply explain the the chap or filly behind the desk that I am one of Her Gracious Majesty's loyal subjects and that I expect, nay demand, swift ingress into the colonies whensoever I deign to visit.
On my last visit, one of them even demanded to see inside my luggage: "my good man," I told him loudly and forcefully, his comprehension and intellect clearly lacking, "I'm not having your rough workman's hands ruining my Savile Row cloth and my Lobbs. Step aside, let's have no more of your grubby nonsense. If I let you into my luggage, you'll be wanting the vote next, and we certainly can't have that".
As far as social media is concerned, surely even their libraries have a ready copy of Debrett's to hand.
As if timing it, i received a mail from facebook today (legit email source too) saying someone had been trying to my account.
I closed my account in 2009 after tinkering with it for a couple of weeks, but only did a deactivate action in the settings and forgot about the whole thing.
My hosts file directs all facebook links to 127.0.0.1, and I don't have the app, was a bit surprised.
So, I checked it out, and it turns out my account came back from life as was in 2009. The cheeky bastards. I heard about this, but you'd think that after 8 years it would have been cleared...
Anyways, if you really want to get rid of the bloody thing, they promise they will remove all your data and your account when going here, after no further login for 2 weeks:
https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
Just need to log in one last time.
Now, as for the US asking for my account details though... We'll just see.
Possibly slightly more that Facebook and Twitter, Shirley?
If you do most of your on line posting on web fora and Usenet then there might be a very long list.
I do have a Twitter account but I think my only tweet was "O.K. What happens now?". There was no reply.
I may have a Google+ account as well. Don't you get one with a Gmail address? Hmmm....list of all my Gmail addresses and passwords?
They won't bother to check the accounts. This is just a form of gratuitous electronic rape to let you know that you are sub-human trash with zero rights.
"Banks did not say how his bill would prevent hopefuls from deleting or simply not listing any accounts that may be unfavorable. This bill is Banks' very first attempt at crafting legislation, as the congressman was eager to point out."
Rough translation: "I've never made a law before, so it's completely shit, but let's hope my laws don't get passed until I know what I'm doing."
that America has a tourist industry?
Getting in to Trumpistan is already a deeply unpleasant experience due to a combination of inadequate border staff and what staff they do have apparently graduating summa cum laude from the Rosa Klebb Charm School.
And they want to make it worse still.
I have a Hotmail A/C which is mostly used for people I expect to be spammers (hello Tickemaster) or in situations where it's likely to be harvested. It frequently gets a few emails sending me "invoices". My son may have to go the the US later this year. I may let him have the password for it and hope they try to download and open a few of those nasties. I'd just have to move them from Junk to Inbox...
And this is the point of terror - it makes its victim (the USA) into the enemy of its own citizens and allies citizens - as that is easier for the victim state than really dealing with actual enemys.
Mind you it is said here and there that even Napoleon preferreed to make war on his allies, so much easier.
I have no objection to handing over the URLs of my website, FB account (set to have nothing public anyway), my Instagram account (pretty pictures!) or my LinkedIn profile (yawn)... because all of these are on my business card anyway.
Now being asked to hand over the PASSWORDS to these accounts would be something different again...
An awful lot of Americans still think the next state along is a bit too close to the edge of the world for safety. An awful lot of them seem to believe that vaccinations give you Autism. And that the dinosaurs lived alongside humans, since the Universe is only 6000 years old.
So a measure that keeps non-Americans out as a matter of principle may well go down very well with the supporters of Donaldskai Trumpski.
(As to translation, just put the word "awesome" in at random intervals and you'll be fine)
"Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State Requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary."
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