Immigrants Should Give Their Twitter Passwords to the US

[ClydeR]

People who want to visit the United States could be asked to hand over their social-media passwords to officials as part of enhanced security checks, the country's top domestic security chief said.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Congress on Tuesday the measure was one of several being considered to vet refugees and visa applicants from seven Muslim-majority countries.

"We want to get on their social media, with passwords: What do you do, what do you say?" he told the House Homeland Security Committee. "If they don't want to cooperate then you don't come in."

More... (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-visitors-may-have-hand-over-social-media-passwords-kelly-n718216)


This plan will certainly go smoothly. There's no way a terrorist could fake that.

[Fallen]

Social media should obviously be reviewed during immigrant screening. Why do they need their passwords, though, rather than just asking for what handles/online services they use?

[Gelston]

Social media should obviously be reviewed during immigrant screening. Why do they need their passwords, though, rather than just asking for what handles/online services they use?

Because some stuff is marked private.

[Whirlin]

Social media should obviously be reviewed during immigrant screening. Why do they need their passwords, though, rather than just asking for what handles/online services they use?
It's easy to set privacy settings to hide all of your pro-ISIS facebook public posts... or private twitter accounts to your terrorist cell leader?

I dunno, I definitely think it's an invasion of privacy.

[Fallen]

I suppose that makes sense. It raises the question, do immigrants seeking asylum deserve a right to privacy? If it meant getting out of a hellhole like Syria, i'd be willing to give up any piece of personal information asked. I can definitely see where that'd be seen as exploitative, though. Does it end once they've been accepted, or for safety reasons, should all their dealings be made available to some sort of post-approval monitoring agency?

[Kembal]

How would the US know that they've received the password to the actual social media accounts of the person seeking a visa? (or what happens if the person says they have no social media accounts?) This plan has to presume that ISIS is run by a bunch of complete idiots, which I'm pretty certain they are not.

[Fallen]

How would the US know that they've received the password to the actual social media accounts of the person seeking a visa? (or what happens if the person says they have no social media accounts?) This plan has to presume that ISIS is run by a bunch of complete idiots, which I'm pretty certain they are not.

You wouldn't, but it creates an opportunity to catch them in a lie. Keeping your lies straight to a government agency over a prolonged period of time is trickier than it sounds.

[Gelston]

I really doubt anyone would be personally going through this stuff. Probably search keywords with a bot, and accounts with enough flags get sent for further review.

[Fallen]

I really doubt anyone would be personally going through this stuff. Probably search keywords with a bot, and accounts with enough flags get sent for further review.

I'd imagine the current administration is quite keen to put into place more stringent/intensive screening techniques.

[Whirlin]

I suppose that makes sense. It raises the question, do immigrants seeking asylum deserve a right to privacy? If it meant getting out of a hellhole like Syria, i'd be willing to give up any piece of personal information asked. I can definitely see where that'd be seen as exploitative, though. Does it end once they've been accepted, or for safety reasons, should all their dealings be made available to some sort of post-approval monitoring agency?
I understand the argument, but I think it's shitty to say that people don't deserve rights unless/until they're citizens when we made a pretty strong statement in our declaration of independence that all people are created equal.

[Gelston]

I'd imagine the current administration is quite keen to put into place more stringent/intensive screening techniques.

There is a matter of stuff taking way too long. How much crap does the average person put on social media? How long to you devote to one person's social media history, when you have hundreds of thousands of people a year to go through? It just isn't feasible.

[Whirlin]

There is a matter of stuff taking way too long. How much crap does the average person put on social media? How long to you devote to one person's social media history, when you have hundreds of thousands of people a year to go through? It just isn't feasible.
From what I've heard from a few old co-workers who were immigrants from China. That's the biggest problem with the current immigration system in general. The entire process is too long/complex, and typically requires hiring a lawyer to navigate the process. The reason that there are so many perceived illegals is because it's prohibitively difficult to go through the legal process.

There are some parallels to gun control, and some of the arguments apply. If people want to illegally come into the country, they'll find a way, especially if they have malicious intent. Those that begin to seek the legal venue to come into the country are probably not the problem. Kind of like how if a criminal wants to get a gun, they'll get a gun, so more gun regulation won't hurt.

I'm not opposed to reform to re-evaluating and strengthening the current processes, but just adding additional controls on a broken process won't magically begin to catch these ghosts.

[Parkbandit]

How would the US know that they've received the password to the actual social media accounts of the person seeking a visa? (or what happens if the person says they have no social media accounts?) This plan has to presume that ISIS is run by a bunch of complete idiots, which I'm pretty certain they are not.

WHA!???

I thought ISIS was JV league?

[ClydeR]

I just hope no foreign countries require President Trump to give them his Twitter password when he goes overseas.