Australians, New Zealanders and citizens of 40 other visa-exempt countries must disclose five years’ worth of social media history to visit the US, under a Trump administration plan.
Applicants would have to submit other “high-value data fields” including phone numbers from the last five years, email addresses from the past decade, personal details of family members and biometric information.
A number of legal and policy experts told The Washington Post the enhanced vetting measures are the latest attempt by the Trump administration to clamp down on critical online speech.
This sounds rather dictatorial, don’t you think.
I am sure many wanna-be visitors will no longer choose the US as their holiday destination.
I find this a disturbing turn of events, as a semi-frequent visitor to the States and isn’t it something which is contrary to the concept of free speech written into the 1st Amendment? So what is it that someone posts on social media that is going to disqualify someone from obtaining ESTA? Surely all you have to do is search your own postings on whatever forum and simply delete them.
I understand that if the authorities have access to your account they can often recover deleted posts. This would certainly be the case for social media owned by companies favoured by Trump - so Facebook. Also, via Palintir surveillance efforts, they probably already have incriminating posts and accounts - they just need to align these accounts to the individual who has helpfully just arrived at a US airport.
It seems the only way around this issue is to buy a disposable phone, load new & clean accounts not linked to anything you’ve previously / currently held and create fake and tidy activity (in order to present a good enough history of usage). Have no reference at all to anything you’ve done or said elsewhere … unless you are a rapid Trump fan and all your posts have been in defense of his actions.
The USA are making themselves more isolated than ever from the rest of the world under this president I for one will never go there again having been twice in the past. It is what the American people voted for so that is what they wanted.
My guess is that many Trump / GOP voters do think that the US can manage with complete isolation. Either they do no understand the connectivity and interdependence of the world’s different economies or they do not care. I suspect they think the US is sufficiently large to continue without other countries - no exports, no imports, no tourists, no financing or buying US treasury bonds. And I suspect that Trump is one of these who hold that view.
Well I would ban them straight away if they had no, or very little history…Very suspicious!
Isn’t that how ‘credit ratings’ work. If you’ve never borrowed money you get a very low score.
People with loads of money have actually been refused credit cards or loans.
I have a problem with the privacy invasion, but I am all for increasing the requirements for entry. Come on over and enjoy our free speech!
The answer is to return to a more rigorous visa system. I have no problem doing likewise when visiting other nations.
Domestic tourism has been at record highs the last two years here in FL, so the sky has definitely not been falling.
The only notable difference is aren’t as many Canadians, because they aren’t telling constantly us where they are from in the form of, “Well, in Canada, we do ____ better”…or “It’s better in Canada because…”
It sounds a ridiculous amount of info to ask of someone visiting a country for a holiday - email addresses over the decade?! I have lots of them, for different uses. I would not even be able to remember all the “junk mail” addresses I’ve used for online activities and got rid of over the past 10 years!
I’ve completed forms for various tourist visas for other countries and never been asked to supply so many details. Personal info about myself and my travel plans, destination, duration of stay and the usual travel document info is fair enough but details of family members who are not travelling with me or details of social media history, past email addresses etc. is too intrusive.
To be honest, USA used to be on my list of countries I would like to visit. My friend and I were planning to take a trip there when we retired but when Trump became President, I changed my mind. I have no plans to visit now.
@Boot , you are a smart and wonderful lady. I have encouraged my friends overseas to stay in their own warm, friendly, inviting countries where they don’t live in daily fear of what the government officials are going to do to discourage anyone, citizens or tourists, from walking out their front doors.
A daily activity such as food shopping, or going to a mall with a friend for the afternoon is becoming iffy. In my small town ICE raided a roofing business last fall at a family park where children felt safe playing! The roofing employees were not the scary part, and never were. It was ICE agents.
If it happened here once, it can happen anywhere we go, at any time. Think about it!
Not all, the true Americans are waiting for the day when we can have our country back and Trump is in jail! I never, ever thought I would say this about a president who is entrusted with keeping our country safe, healthy, happy and functioning with Americans as a whole their sworn duty, but this …person… has no conscience or morals. And it’s my first amendment right to say this!!
My son works for Australia’s biggest berry farmer. When applying for the roll, they went though his social media activities. I don’t know how common that is, nowadays.
Edit to add: when he got his aussie citizenship, he was awarded a jar of vegemite.
Oh, well now that you mention that, they can go through all the details on my phone, including my accidental selfies and long-ago, racy texts reminding my children to wear their seatbelts.
I’ll encourage them to visit when we have a beautiful nation again free of fear.
Why would a person wish them to come only to be detained by ICE, shove to the ground, handcuffed and beaten because they are from a foreign country??
Enough said.
Are you sure?
Rather hyperbole (thanks for reminding me of that word) let’s see what the Global Terrorism Index says. This rates both threats and actual events to come up with a score per country. So a very safe country (in terms of terrorism) is perhaps Norway with a score of 1.20. A country viewed as a high risk from terrorist attacks might be Syria (8.02) or Somalia (7.61).
Countries with some risk but mostly viewed as really safe day to say could be the Germany (4.75) or Turkey (3.97).
The score for USA is 3.52. Certainly there are many countries with a lower ranking - but the US is very much middling when it comes to terrorism.
