(Context: I'm currently looking into renewing my US visa. I've been to the US many times before both for shorter and longer periods of time and on many different visa – so far without any problems whatsoever.)
The Trump administration recently made it mandatory for all visa applicants to disclose any social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Reddit, LinkedIn, …) they have had in the last five years.[0]
I'm scared shitless and don't know what to do. (Not visiting the US is not an option, unfortunately.) I don't think I have ever posted anything controversial or of relevance through any of my social media accounts but I just don't want anyone in the world to have that kind of data about me, particularly my private messages. Who says that once they know all my social media accounts, CBP officers won't start checking my messages whenever I cross the border in the future? Who says they won't abuse that access at some point?
Look, I am aware CBP officers can already search your phone without a warrant, and three-letter agencies probably get first-class access to all social networks, anyway, but consciously handing over your data as part of the application process is… a different level.
Where's the outrage here? I know non-citizens basically don't enjoy any rights whatsoever at US borders, so I've long given up on hoping someone would fight this in court but still… where are the public campaigns, the diplomatic notes & retaliation?
[0]: In fact, they require social media profiles to be made public for the duration of the application, apparently so that the State Department can access and review the accounts. (Which would be funny since we all know what the NSA can do – if it didn't also open up the social media accounts to crawlers and stalkers…)
People are being awakened to that reality by the proliferation of data center projects where their local leaders green light projects that people feel will negatively impact their community.
They knowingly facilitate the nudge nudge wink wink.
I asked one of my nurse friends if they can see gory (figurative or literal) medical details for anyone who has been in their hospital or parent medical system. She said that in Epic, access is logged and audited so it would become a problem if you were just searching for local celebrities. Just as a warrant canary is a good thing to have as an early commit in your social network, "who saw what and when" is a feature that needs to exist early in any tool for authority figures.
Qualified immunity gets thrown around a lot, but it's not iron clad. Cops can still be prosecuted for behavior that is a constitutional violation and outside the scope of what a normal cop would consider reasonable.
The real reason cops face no accountability is 2 fold.
1. Prosecutors refuse to prosecute cops because they need a working relationship with the department.
2. Police unions make any sort of accountability nearly impossible to enforce as they stop all tracking of misdeeds. (As you touch on).
"Defund the police" was an unpopular slogan but it's what we should actually do. We should stop paying this criminal organization and instead do a different public policing structure. Ideally you don't have the same people responding to a domestic dispute as you have responding to a robbery. As it currently stands, police departments are where the government goes to violate civil rights.
paimapi•51m ago
the problem is that usage of this system with enforcement is not law. Police Departments opt-in and are the ones responsible for whether or not individuals are charged, fired, or simply disciplined, and they also choose whether or not to disclose this to the public. and the other problem is that it's not just Flock - other companies are stepping in like Axon and Motorola and are essentially eating the cake that is Flock's recent public infamy [0]
and law enforcement skirting of accountability is essentially a legalized thing now under legal mechanisms like qualified immunity. not to mention the boy's club that are police unions - my FIL is a former sergeant and has many stories of how he was blackballed by his union because he wouldn't cover for bad cops to the extent that they were pursuing taking away his pension and insurance coverage until just a few years ago
[0] https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/search?location=&technol...
binarymax•37m ago
synkarius•31m ago
doctorpangloss•22m ago
mingus88•10m ago
As a society we either loudly reject this or we tacitly accept it
If Snowden wasn’t enough to cause heads to roll with a generation outrage then flock is small beans in comparison and we are stuck with it
krogenx•8m ago
https://consequence.net/2019/07/juggalo-makeup-facial-recogn...
conartist6