Musings —02.08.2017 12:14 PM
—Hey, Donald? You want access to what I say?
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.”
Well, how’s this: in the event I go back to the U.S. anytime soon, you’re welcome to go through all of my musings on Facebook, Twitter and this wee web site. All of it. Knock yourself out. Because what I say privately is what I say publicly: you are a racist, sexist, fascistic creep.
P.S. Barring me would send my billable rate through the roof, by the way. Want a percentage?
.. have already suggested via several modes of social media.. I might never set foot in the USA again.. but may look down from 30,000 feet enroute to the Turks & Caicos Islands at the missing Kentucky mountaintops, Niagara Falls, South Carolina etc.. and wonder how it all went so wrong.. Lead poisoning? Mercury & Mad Hatter disease? Russian chem trails?
Gord,
My wife and I noted that last week when we were surfing through the TV channels and stopped at Border Security. They asked and got the password from a lady who had just lied to them.
It is the same here in Canada too, although as a Canadian citizen I cannot be refused entry and they cannot imprison me for having an opinion they don’t like. Since I am not a US citizen and entering the country is a privilege they do have the right to refuse my entry based on this although it would look really bad. That being said I am not too worried since as long as I am doing nothing illegal there is really nothing to worry about. And yes I also agree with what you said about Trump. That doesn’t mean I hate the United States, after all I actually liked their past president and since presidents come and go probably most people including most Americans will have one somewhere along the line they hate. I also disapprove of Trudeau, although I don’t hate it, I just feel that he lacks the proper fiscal discipline we need from a PM.
Miles,
Don’t make the mistake of telling CBP if you ever smoked pot.
I actually haven’t ever smoked marijuana and don’t plan on even when legalized so I don’t have to worry about lying there although I have heard that they can ban you if you admit to trying it even if done legally.
dude, they can ban you if they do not like your shoelace colour.
Warren,
CBSA already examines personal laptops.
I’m just astonished that the All-HEncompassing-Mind (AHEM)doesn’t automatically already know all of our passwords. Maybe that’s part of making America Great Again.
Because what I say privately is what I say publicly
But in the age of social media, the difference is disappearing. One of the problems with this relentless focus on Trump the person is that more general concerns about the surveillance society are subsumed in the heated “Evil Donald” narrative. If in the past you had expressed the same thoughts on a sitting president privately with the same relentless gusto you do here, you might well have been banned, except they wouldn’t have known about it. But today we leave a permanent record. It’s become quite common in court cases for entire e-mail and Facebook records to be subpoenaed and reviewed, often with disturbing results. Employers have the right to compel access to your social media accounts and sanction criticism of them or even generally embarrassing posts. Do we really think it’s just a Trump outrage that U.S. security services are doing likewise and that Clinton would have welcomed “constructive” criticism from foreigners? Isn’t it a bit ironic that you just did a post on how comforting it is to know Trump is leaving a record of all his thoughts and motivations for courts to review?
The problem started when we bought into all the promotional pabulum of guys like Gates and Zuckerberg about how the internet and social media would let us “connect”, exchange perspectives in a civilized and respectful way and gradually bring us all together. We didn’t foresee how modern politics would descend into Twitter wars with everybody trading insults and goring sacred cows back and forth in 140 characters or less. And we were having much too much fun to notice how excited Big Brother was about it too.