I've been going to US tech conferences yearly in the last few years. As of 2016 this has stopped, since the fact that I was snowboarding in Iran in 2011 now means I can't get a visa through ESTA. I now have to take a day off work, fly to Oslo, talk to someone at the US embassy, in order to get a visa.
I took a principled stance back in 2001 of not returning to the US until the DHS was disbanded. At the time I felt it was an unnecessary invasion of privacy, and for a country as large as the united states what was needed was better communication and cooperation between local agencies, not federal integration (as I felt this was a states issue, not a federal one).
Over time, my views have gradually relaxed, and usually once or twice a year I consider returning to the US. Stuff like this puts me right off, but sadly I know the UK will no doubt follow suit.
Also if you think this is ok because it doesn't apply to US citizens, it doesn't apply right now. When it's declared a roaring success, there will no doubt be an attempt to extend it to US citizens.
Just a point of fact, the DHS was created at the end of 2002.
As far as the UK, their processes are just as stringent but less public. It is interesting that the UK allows in some radical Islamic clerics but banned an American talk show host who talked about radical Islamic clerics.
The U.K. Has some of the strictest immigration in Europe for non Europeans. I am not defending the US or DHS, I am only providing some perspective that the US isn't particularly unique, just more public about it.
"...the US isn't particularly unique, just more public about it."
I agree. I strongly dislike the US proposals discussed here, but the fact is travelling abroad means you've already given up much of your privacy.
Those of us in Europe and the US have a somewhat contradictory attitude toward privacy - opposing certain rules or regulations, while happily ignoring others. Take the UK, where the British government has intrusive surveillance laws. A self-serving and apathetic media discourages discussion or opposition to such laws. On the other hand, there was strong opposition against mandatory ID cards when the idea was proposed a few years ago, possibly more to do with the cost of the scheme and little trust in the competency of the government to carry out such a proposal.
So, yes we do have a somewhat inconsistent attitude to privacy. Even in Continental Europe (if the country is part of the Schengen area), biometric passports are common. Applying for a passport often means providing your fingerprints - something a lot of people might be uncomfortable doing.
> Just a point of fact, the DHS was created at the end of 2002.
Yes and thanks for correcting me otherwise I probably would've gone around saying that.
I agree about the UK. It wasn't always this way and I know lots of people who have headaches coming over. I deal with some of these headaches each year working on 44CON - in fact we had one speaker have their visa declined, which has never happened before.
Unfortunately the way the UK is going at the moment it seems isolationism is preferable, and I suspect things will only get worse.
I have the same, the US has some pretty places I would want to visit. The way they handle tourists like they are all a threat to the country and are not really welcome, that is what puts me off.
Even though the social media question is optional, it raises a flag that you didn't fill it in and you run a higher risk of getting questioned/interrogated at the airport.
It saves time for the agents that they don't have to search for someone on social media, but it also makes everyone aware that this is being done. (potentially hurting security because before sending the form a terrorist will now clean up his facebook if he has a dirty profile)
This is part of mass surveillance, and at what point will the form say that you have to add agent X to your friends list on social media, so they can snoop around more??
-Where does it stop? For me it stopped a long time ago, I just won't go there. Instead I enjoyed holidays elsewhere around the world.
edit- some spelling mistakes.
Yes, at some point the scale tips for a lot of people and the hype of going to the USA is outweighed by the trouble you have trough and the privacy you have to forfeit.
For people like you and me, we are aware of this before we get overexcited and commit to the holiday, giving us the freedom to easily choose another destination.
It has zero measurable impact because anyone who counts will make sure their social media profile is either sterile or doesn't exist. Only an idiot would be a member of ISIS or Al Queda on Facebook.
It likely has zero measurable impact on stopping terrorism.
It will have measurable impact on the millions of people who have to give up privacy to enter the US, some proportion of which is likely to be further negatively affected by having something "suspicious" in their profile. Like being idiots who once liked something offensive as a joke, or being friends with some idiot who is connected to ISIS on some social network.
Having to be careful what kind of jokes you like or articles you link reminds me exactly on how people behaved back in pre-1990 socialist era where liking or retelling a wrong joke got you in trouble with your boss, police or a landlord :/
if you think this is about terrorism you have not been paying attention. It is to catch money launderers. It has been shown time and time again that people are stupid and post pics of cash, cars, jewelry, etc to social media
Not really. Basically a social profile can help clear a person but a lack of one wouldn't condemn a person. There's precedent in the Single Scope Background check process for Top Secret clearances: a lack of data just means more weight will be given to other factors. You aren't punished for a lack of data. This is common when people might not yet have a credit history.
However, this policy is entirely dumb because social media profiles will be created specifically for travelers to be 'clean.'
> because social media profiles will be created specifically for travelers to be 'clean.'
I imagine that in future we will hear about travelers being denied entry because they- "fraudulently stated wrong social media accounts"... or something like that.
I agree this is a likely practical outcome, but the datapoint itself is troubling; I can just as easily imagine a binary interpretation of social/antisocial.
Last time I visited San Francisco I had border officials twice just suddenly snap at me. While getting my luggage an official just randomly approached me an asked me some random question in an angry tone. Then when in line holding a piece of paper on which I had written my ESTA number, an official came to me and just pulled the paper from my hand, demanding "what's this!?". Additionally they flipped through my entire itinerary.
Consider that this is someone's first experience on US soil and it sets the tone for the whole trip. Nothing like this has happened in any of the other countries I've been to, including India, Vietnam, Cambodia etc.
This is a very expensive change for not a lot of value. Truly nefarious folks will put in a fake handle to instill confidence during background checks. The only folks who'll pay are law abiding people via their loss of privacy....and well:
> Form: Estimated Annual Cost to Public: $26,325,300.
> Website: Estimated Annual Cost to the Public: $265,020,000.
To be clear, these estimates are based on some calculation of "burden" as a function of how the public would value the time they're estimating this will waste. These numbers aren't dollar values for the implementation of the program.
I'm actually really impressed by what they're doing there, I've never heard of a government agency doing anything quite like it before.
All legislation, regulations and bureaucratic procedures have negative externalities just by virtue of existing. Each little piece makes it just that much harder for someone to find what they're looking for, or makes a process take a little bit more time, or makes it take a little bit more effort to learn the entire thing.
Individually, the marginal cost of each little piece is small, and they're generally introduced for good reasons, but the end result of bloated legal codes, regulatory frameworks and "red tape" is undeniable. For example, "ignorance of the law is no defence", but how many people know the entire legal code? (Answer: nobody)
But what they're doing here is attempting to quantify the externalities, and crucially: taking into account that a tiny cost spread among a large number of people can produce a substantial cost in absolute terms. People are bad at doing this intuitively due to scope insensitivity, and the only real solution is to estimate actual numbers for the number of people affected, the amount of time it costs, and the value of their time, and then multiply them together to come up with a hard number.
And that's exactly what's been done here. You could perhaps quibble about the exact figures, and there are probably other more intangible and difficult to quantify externalities that haven't been taken into consideration, but other than that it's essentially a flawless application of utilitarian ethics.
Frankly, I find that utterly astonishing.
I am guessing that doing this sort of analysis is required by some sort of rules or regulation, and I would love to know when this was introduced, by whom it was introduced, and at what scope this requirement exists. Is this now a requirement for all changes to rules affecting the public by US Federal agencies?
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 as amended in 1995. The PRA requires that all federal forms be reviewed and approved by the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that they are not unnecessarily burdensome, it also requires that an estimate of the public burden of the paperwork be prepared and published. The key method here is to estimate the amount of time required to fill out the form and then multiply that by a standard hourly expense rate, so you will usually also see the estimated time required to complete a form. That estimate involves any research or calculations required, so on some forms it can be very long, e.g. the SF-86 at two and a half hours each.
While the fact that the paperwork Reduction Act created this new bureaucratic step is amusing, it served to rectify the earlier situation where a lot of federal paperwork was unreasonably complicated just because it was nobody's job to make it otherwise.
What "other languages" are you referring to? I've done a lot of US travel forms, and never saw one not in english (with the occasional spanish subs). Also I just browsed the whole 94W site and haven't found a trace of other languages besides single instructions.
I think supoort for other languages cannot ever justify significant price in US governmental affairs.
It looks like 18 different languages are provided. I don't travel internationally often (and usually to English speaking countries), but I thought I'd heard that other languages were available on request.
It's not the cost for the website. It's the estimated cost of hundreds of millions of people each needing to take a few minutes to fill in this extra bit of data.
And I'm not even mentioning "US" in my statement. It's merely one that describe an effect of the proposal. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
Edit: actually, yes it does affect US citizen. Do you know who is likely to have connections on social networks with US citizens? Non-US citizens coming or leaving the US. Kind of shocking to think about huh.
That's okay. Probably you will just be able to provide your fb login credentials, it's easy-peazy. (turn on your sarcasm detection mechanism if you are reading this)
>It will be an optional data field to request social media identifiers to be used for vetting purposes, as well as applicant contact information. Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide DHS greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case.
>optional
My question is: How is this at the #1 spot with 8 votes?
"Why did you not fill in this field Mr. Smith?" "Well, it's optional, I didn't think..." "So what do you have to hide, Mr. Smith? Did you perhaps think we will find something illegal?"
When something is "optional" but it's there so that if provided the DHS can get visibility to "possible nefarious activity and connections", how likely is it that they will start seeing failure to provide it as a sign that you need to be investigated more closely?
> My question is: How is this at the #1 spot with 8 votes?
Because Asia is going to bed and it's early Sunday morning in Europe, and it was submitted a short while ago, and hence it has little competition that hasn't started "aging out".
> how likely is it that they will start seeing failure to provide it as a sign that you need to be investigated more closely?
The rationale that I've gathered from this is that they're going to investigate you anyways by trying to find your social media profiles, etc. This is a long process, so to make the process quicker you can opt-in your social media handles.
In other words, it's already happening, but has a lot of inconveniences.
Not saying this is right or wrong, but it's just from what I've gathered.
I disagree with that sentiment. As a citizen, I'd like the government to work on my behalf as efficiently as possible and to not work at all otherwise.
So I think the real issue is that there is almost no control or transparency regarding what agencies like FBI or DHS do with the data. This should change. Once there is actual oversight (and no rubber-stamp court) I'll give them the permitted data as efficiently as possible.
Going the other way - allowing them full and uncontrolled access provided they just jump through a few arbitrary hoops to get the data - seems to me would only muddy the waters and increase costs without providing any actual advantage to the citizens.
Control, transparency and check-and-balance are all inconveniences though. Having to ask a judge for warrant is definitely inconvenient, same as proving beyond reasonable doubt (instead of just, let's say probable doubt).
I didn't say that inefficiency should be the goal for the government. However, for certain scenarios, that's the trade off we have to make.
> Going the other way - allowing them full and uncontrolled access provided they just jump through a few arbitrary hoops to get the data
Fortunately, most of the time those "hoops" involves a human in it, hopefully being able to stop bad things from happening. Again, there is no silver bullet, and shitty paper stamping process won't be helping either.
Yes, most effective checks are inconvenient but not all inconveniences are effective checks. My worry is that but focusing on "it must be inconvenient" your setting the priorities wrong. This might just result in a heap of useless labour and frustrated employees - but wouldn't shed any light on which "attack scenarios" you actually defended against, if any.
In some cases, it might make misuse actually easier if the inconveniences affect both agencies and their control instances.
I take it you're not familiar with how "optional" works. You can optionally not fill it in. They can optionally deny you entry.
My wife's grandfather was asked to volunteer for a construction project in siberia. He declined. They drafted him, then sent him anyway - and still called him a volunteer.
But is it truly optional, as in if you don't provide the information, it's no different than providing it? There are other comments on this post that point to it not being truly optional, and omitting it could cause DHS to be suspicious, essentially making it a requirement (or a really annoying optional part of the process if you don't submit the information).
So, are you saying they aren't using the information for anything? Why are they asking for it then? Or are you saying that it's optional, but supplying the information might have benefits, so, it's optional only in the sense that entering the US is optional?
From the same people who brought you the question: are you currently a terrorist or involved in genocide? They're not exactly the sharpest pencils in the box.
Interestingly, if you're a Nazi death camp survivor, you have to answer 'yes' to that question: "Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?"
Awesome, really. Either force those poor souls to lie, or force them to be questioned on that horror from their past...
The latter part of that will be basically null now, since most or all of the survivors have passed on. Not thankful for their passing, but thankful that no one will have to answer that question and dig up horrible memories... At the very least it should be a separate question.
It is getting to the point that I am seriously contemplating of deleting all my social media presence. I got nothing to hide, but I also don't want any stranger snooping in my privacy.
Wouldn't it be just as effective and faster for everyone to add a simple yes/no question to the form like: "The primary purpose of this trip is terrorism? Yes [] No []" Then the DHS can do their work and there is no further loss of privacy for visitors.
You're joking, but the Visa application does ask this already: "Do you seek to engage in terrorist activities while in the United States or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities?”
"Why yes, as a matter of fact the wife and I were planning to do a spot of mass shooting on our way through, we're really after the full experience you know... say, is there a problem?"
Facebook and Twitter are obviously social media platforms. But what else is to counted there? Gmail? Path? Github? Hacker News? Wikipedia? What about my professional society ids? And what about medical social platforms? Does anyone understand where the line is?
Which makes me think that it'll end up leading to a lot of hassle for a lot of asocial people. E.g. my Facebook account only gets logged into 1-2 times a year. Would they believe it's my real one, or suspect I was doing what you're suggesting.
Step 2: In order to assist immigration procedures, social networks will now be required to verify the identity tied to the account you're registering.
But telling the immigration official still is optional, since we already know who you are, what you buy and what por- uhm, websites, you like. (discretely fist-bumps Goomazbook) Welcome to this great nation!
> "Current Actions: This submission is being made to extend the expiration date with a change to the information collected as a result of adding a question about social media to ESTA and to Form I-94W, as described in the Abstract section of this document. There are no changes to the burden hours or to the information collected on Form I-94, or the I-94 Web site."
I can't quite understand what it mean to "extend the expiration date ...". Shouldn't it be "extend the collection process" or something similar ?
Fecebook kicked me off for being too old. I could probably find my MySpace profile riddled with mis-information and my only true friend, Tom, floating around somewhere(on a dark market site[0]). I hope this would help default my identity from 'guilty until proven otherwise' to 'not-a-terrorist' status.
DHS proposes to add the following question to ESTA and to Form I-94W:
“Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier.” It will be an optional data field to request social media identifiers to be used for vetting purposes, as well as applicant contact information. Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide DHS greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case.
I think this is a good thing. Most people are very stupid about their online behavior. Or rather, they try to pretend they are someone else "IRL", because in real life they know people are looking but online they think they are anonymous. This has been demonstrated several times that this is where social media harassment comes from. Anyone who is an asshole online is an asshole in person, they just know better to hide it when people can see their face.
We should be working to make it clear to people that--just because you have a cat photo for an avatar--doesn't mean you are off the hook for acting like a decent human being.
We print out home address on official forums, why not online addresses? Make that presence "real".
I wonder if anyone has done any research on whether/how much this is measurably affecting the US economy.