The United States is not Israel.
We have different values, different morals and different privacy laws.
It is one thing to ask for such info from visitors or immigrants coming into the country, it is a whole different thing to demand the info from US citizens. If there is verbiage about all citizens communicating with aliens being subject to this requirement, it is likely designed to circumvent the discrimination issue.
This is even more troubling:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/28/politics/facebook-anti-administration-activists/index.html
This kind of stuff should concern everyone.
Your civil liberties are being chipped, chipped, chipped away based on trumped up fears and biases.
I worry that this could be something much deeper and darker than that, even, @doschicos.
I am going to edit my response, because I just read the CFR (previously, I had read the article). I don’t know that it’s saying that the government can retroactively collect anything (unless I missed that part). The CFR authorizes record-keeping that includes social media handles and aliases. It does not say anything about collection methods. I am the school officer for student visas, and I knew there was talk of collecting social media info from people applying for visas - those would not be citizens and therefore would not be provided the protections a citizen would expect. I don’t know if that would be asked of someone going through the citizenship process, if that info had not previously been collected - it could be. And I suppose the record would remain in the federal database after the person had become a citizen.
So where is your red line then @doschicos? How do we balance public safety with civil liberties?
Were you okay with our last president renewing the Patriot Act?
doschicos was simply expressing their concern. This should make everyone sit up and pay attention whether you support it or not. How much privacy is the US public willing to give up for a “safer” country?
To be fair, where is your red line @fractalmstr? What amount of intrusion into citizens/non-citizens lives are you ok with? Are you willing to separate it based on race or national origin?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/28/politics/facebook-anti-administration-activists/index.html And social media information from other individuals is being actively sought. I don’t want the government, no matter what political party it represents, to be this intrusive.
“Were you okay with our last president renewing the Patriot Act?”
Actually, I do have issue with parts of the Patriot Act - both in the climate of its creation, its initial content and henceforth it’s continuation.
Second @sciencenerd’s questions: where is your red line @fractalmstr? What amount of intrusion into citizens/non-citizens lives are you ok with? Are you willing to separate it based on race or national origin?
These issues are much bigger to me than a song and a piece of multi-colored cloth which are purely symbols instead of the basis for our freedoms. Our civil liberties matter to me a heck of a lot more than nationalistic rhetoric.
@BunsenBurner that gave me chills last night. This slow chipping of civil rights and surveillance of protesters is the beginning of every single authoritarian regime in modern history.
When the government- any government- starts making lists, it rarely ends well.
I have frequented and donated to the DJ20 site/cause. I will continue to do so despite these attacks.
I would probably draw the line at infringement of privacy where communications with others is not involved, as well as limiting communications surveillance to phone and internet only. I’m fine with the Patriot Act. I am on the fence with this latest social media collection issue… If it’s limited to just a computer algorithm that flags people’s accounts when any friends/conversations/connections involve terrorists or terror suspects, then I’m all for it. If it’s some person physically looking through people’s profiles, then no. I don’t know enough details about how this social media thing will be implemented (if it even is implemented).
Some other examples of my personal red lines: Speed limit cameras, location tracking of citizens without a warrant, video surveillance on or of my own personal property, etc, etc.
There’s software (has already been sold for about 10 years now to political police and secret groups in dictatorships - there was a scandal because democracies sold them to Libya and Syria…) that can monitor a person’s email communications, including your location and what’s in your emails, your facebook posts, who you share things with and what you like. It can also be used to “snare” all people who communicate with you if there’s a wish to “widen the net” (in dictatorship this can be used to kidnap and pressure the “other person” or to eliminate a “resistance cell”. “resistance” might just include people who criticize the government online or do things deemed “subversive”, which can include all kinds of things).
Don’t think the current intelligence agencies would balk at that wrt citizens.
It’s one of these things where everything or anything can be used against you, where you can quickly accumulate quite a nice, thick record that will justify further surveillance (perhaps you read too many articles that are negative about the government, perhaps you tweet jokes about the government, perhaps you can be accused of blasphemy thanks to one tweet or post that was monitored…)
An algorithm does the grunt work but humans are the ones going over the information, compiling data, making decisions, etc. These humans look for whatever their agency/group wants them to look for, and no one knows they’re monitored or what is being looked at. There’s very little oversight even in democracies about who uses the surveillance systems and whether the purpose is justified or not.
(I know of an officer who was quietly fired for using said systems to monitor his wife.) Obviously dictatorships have no restrictions.
There ARE restrictions in the US to when it’s acceptable to “widen the net”.
But just think: how would you feel if somebody decided they’re going to review all your FB/twitter/instagram/snapchat histories? Add to this that now internet companies can sell your data, your search history, or browsing habits, to anyone willing to pay.
(And keep in mind, actual terrorists don’t use those - they use Telegram, the crypted system.)
I wholeheartedly agree with above, it’s kinda scary. I sometimes wonder how far away are we from people who gain power and want to interpret the Constitution literally by having them point out that nowhere in the Constitution does it actually say you have a right to privacy. I believe this right stems from a Supreme Court decision (Griswold v. Connecticut) and with enough loons appointed to the Court, maybe Griswold gets overturned. Then what, open season on citizens?
^Consider that there are those who are quite concerned that “whites” will be the minority in America. How do you prevent that? How do you reverse that trend? Get rid of all the undocumented immigrants, but maybe it takes more than that. Maybe you have to get rid of some of the ones who are here legally as well. If you can claim that they are somehow subversive and therefore “dangerous”, then you can revoke their citizenships and out they go.
You also want to shut up any and every opposition (dissidents) in any way possible. Sometimes this is done by making a very public spectacle of shutting down a particular individual or group to show everyone else what happens if they don’t tow the line.