The problem as I see it is your are presumed to have one of these things in the first place. If they wanted to get publically available information, there are search engines and facebook's search, they should just do that. But by asking you to find yourself the onus is on you personally to produce a result- and what if you don't have one? Will they believe you? Should we de-facto require everyone in the world to get social media accounts with American companies that look presentable should they ever want to visit?

There's a lot of value inherent to the ability to remain anonymous on the internet. This essentially strips that away because to retain that anonymity you have to commit a felony.

Innocuous example: for a while people wanted to know who horse_ebooks was, and there was some allure to that. Under this rule some low-level government employee can essentially leak it to all of their friends, or worse — blackmail.

Now we're creating two groups of people:

A. Those who are not anonymous

B. Felons

No, It is not public info, you can have social media accounts that are not obviously / publicly "your" accounts.

I don't think the ability to lie to government agents is a good argument against a law that allows them to ask for that information. At best it gets you enhanced scrutiny, at worst you go to jail.

Right, I see your point. But I'm saying - they are asking for public information that ANYONE can search for. When you enter the country obviously they have to ask certain questions (or get info from your passport, ie name, DOB, country of origin, etc) - but I feel people get extra worked up for social media simply because it's digital.

If you have public information out there I have no problem with anyone asking for it - it's public after all!

Sure anyone can search for jc_811. I don't get a lot of useful data. It I can search for Joe Conner, but that isn't going to get me to jc_811s posts. Just because something is public information didn't mean YOU have to provide it

This is the most relevant answer (to me) in this thread, I see what you mean - I wasn't thinking that way and I'm glad you changed my mind.

When I originally posted I was working under the thought process of "My name is Mike Smith, my handle is @mike_smith (or something similar/easily searchable), so no big deal"

Considering the totally other side of "public" social media handles (ie, "my name's Mike Smith, but my handle is @xyz123, it's public as I want to get information to the public, but don't want my identity tied to it") - I definitely now see why this could potentially be a huge issue.

Thanks for the constructive explanation!

It's OK, they're only asking because they already know!

"could someone please let me know why this is so bad"

thought police

unconstitutional (wouldn't it be nice if the USA followed its own laws?)

chills free speech

data linkability

i could go on

"If they were asking for passwords"

news flash https://www.wired.com/2017/02/guide-getting-past-customs-dig...

"Your social media info is Public"

false

"while you can easily say you don't have accounts"

do not pass go, go directly to jail. don't lie to DHS/CBP

This probably would have happened no matter who was President as a consequence of the review of the visa process started under Obama after San Bernandino massacre. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks...

> Your social media info is Public.

Information posted on say Twitter may be public but the link between me as a person and my Twitter account is not.

If I run a satirical Donald Trump Twitter account, I certainly don't want it on my visa application, even if the tweets I post are public.

And if you're not a US Citizen/LPR you have no 1st amendment protection at the border. And if US ICE/CBP discover you haven't listed all accounts, that alone could be a disqualifying issue for entry.

Most US citizens will shrug this off and say no big deal, until the very small minority of them try to head to a country practicing reciprocal visa requirements.

Yeah I'm mixed on this. Obviously from your social media accounts they can find nearly everything about you. However giving address & phone number probably links you too and that is just normally accepted.

People don't usually publish their thoughts on bulliten boards outside their homes and phone calls (of citizens who are comfortable giving these to the government at least) have a reasonable expectation of privacy, so that data is gated behind warrants from the judiciary.

Good point.

BTW did I mention I <3 Putin! Trump family forever! North Korea the best Korea! Chinese Communists #1.

Going to be a lot of legwork to update that if any of those countries experience drastic regime change ;)

I mean, the govt claims that even citizens only own their emails for 6 months. Seems like great, relatively clean training data to match identities.

Is this a legitimate claim they make? If so, is there a source?

So, why do you use jc_811 and not "Matt Smith" or whatever? Isn't it all public?