THOUGHT POLICE: US Border Control Wants to Study Your Facebook, Twitter Accounts

Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire

If this latest proposal from the US becomes policy, it will be a major triumph for the international police state, allowing governments to not only to profile, but to target and even exclude individuals of any political or intellectual persuasion from traveling internationally.

The US Federal Register states, “Collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide Department of Homeland Security (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.”

So who are these arbiters of political thought and social discourse?

According to this reported filed yesterday by The Guardian, the initial ‘deciders’ are likely to be hourly wage earners working for the TSA, or contractors working under the banner of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS):

US Customs and Border Protection’s proposed change would add a line on both the online and paper forms of the visa application form that visitors to the US must fill out if they do not have a visa and are planning on staying for up to 90 days.

The following question would be added to both the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (Esta) and I-94W forms: “Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier.”

Thus far, the DHS claim they are only running a limited “pilot program”, and one which the agency is keeping confidential and out of the public eye. Officials claim that the secrecy surrounding this program is because they do not want to reveal their methods for identifying a potential “terror threat.” How they expect border workers to properly vet and verify the information in question before a traveler passes through border security is hard to ascertain.

Millions of visitors disembark in US each week (Photo: Flickr user Tom May via Fast Company)

In practical terms, with 10 million visa applications and over 77 million visitors annually – what we are seeing here is a giant ‘big data’ capturing exercise that will quickly generate an additional column on your database – alongside standard personal, facial recognition and biometric ID information, travel history, anchored by an already existing RFID chip embedded in most international passports.

Eventually, processing such a scale of data will likely be farmed out to intelligent, or A.I. computer systems. Undoubtedly, similar high-end, algorithm-based analytical surveillance programs like PRISM is already being used by US and UK government agencies to trawl through masses of public online activity, so it only stands to reason that A.I. will eventually perform the job of flagging-up any undesirables.

The battle cry for this new program is definitely last December’s apparent ‘ISIS-inspired terrorist event’ in San Bernardino, and the subsequent controversy over the FBI’s ability access to one of the suspect’s encrypted iPhone 5C.

In short, what’s more likely to be driving this grand ‘security’ directive is not necessarily an effective plan to “keep people safe”, but rather, highly lucrative commercial interests.

CIA is investing in firms that specialize in sifting through social media postshttps://t.co/nDVBvKt0bz pic.twitter.com/jiWZgQhYDX

— RT America (@RT_America) April 15, 2016

No Private Spaces

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this story has to do with the relationship between the individual and the government and the expectation of privacy in a so-called democratic or ‘free’ society. In this case, the government is adopting a blanket policy of “guilty until proven innocent.” By ceding this expectation to the government, an individual consenting to this arrangement by forgoing his or her right to privacy and due process.

In a BBC interview this week, Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Centre for Democracy and Technology points out one of the fundamental flaws in the government’s new regime, as he explains:

“It’s very hard to see travellers not filling out this item – even though it’s optional – as they may fear not getting entry into the country.”

“Democracy in general requires having spaces free from government scrutiny and increasingly social life happens online.”

“We would have a poor society if people were chilled from participating in social activity online so I really hope they rethink this.”

This is what technocracy looks like. It’s brutal, unforgiving, and ultimately unresponsive to common sense and reason. Worst of all, it pretends to be driven by the public interest of safety and security, but in reality the only security that’s ever achieved through such measures – is secure profits for a select number of corporate firms fortunate enough to win corporate contracts in the ever-expanding security theatre that is Homeland Security.

Author Patrick Henningsen is also founder and editor at 21st Century Wire, and an independent foreign and political affairs analyst for RT News International. He is also the host of the SUNDAY WIRE talk radio program which airs live every Sunday on the Alternate Current Radio Network.

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