U.S. Customs and Border Protection Wants to Know Who You Are on Twitter—But It’s a Flawed Plan
U.S. border control agents want to gather Facebook and Twitter identities from visitors from around the world. But this flawed plan would violate travelers’ privacy, and would have a wide-ranging impact on freedom of expression—all while doing little or nothing to protect Americans from terrorism.
Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, has proposed collecting social media handles from visitors to the United States from visa waiver countries. EFF submitted comments both individually and as part of a larger coalition opposing the proposal.
CBP specifically seeks “information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier” in order to provide DHS “greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections” for “vetting purposes.”
In our comments, we argue that would-be terrorists are unlikely to disclose social media identifiers that reveal publicly available posts expressing support for terrorism.
U.S. border control agents want to gather Facebook and Twitter identities from visitors from around the world. But this flawed plan would violate travelers’ privacy, and would have a wide-ranging impact on freedom of expression—all while doing little or nothing to protect Americans from terrorism.
Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, has proposed collecting social media handles from visitors to the United States from visa waiver countries. EFF submitted comments both individually and as part of a larger coalition opposing the proposal.
CBP specifically seeks “information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier” in order to provide DHS “greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections” for “vetting purposes.”
In our comments, we argue that would-be terrorists are unlikely to disclose social media identifiers that reveal publicly available posts expressing support for terrorism.