I don’t see how denying a visa constitutes infringing on someone’s freedom of speech at the level of a human rights violation.
> infringe the privacy of others
These are public social media posts. Not private messages.
Privacy is one of those analienable universal human rights recognized by the UN, and demanding to see the social networks of other is infringing it, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. It's not only a faceless government employee(s) probing and ogling your social life, social networks allow private messaging, which becomes non-private after these unreasonable demands.
Don't normalize the erosion of human rights.
[0] I'm assuming there's some kind of 4A-equivalent bound on government behavior in the Calvinball soup that is the UK 'constitution'
Is every other country going to follow suit? Would you have the US disband their military as well? Or should they just deploy it without any sort of intelligence gathering?
I do think we should not have these specific agencies, because they've proven themselves too corrupt, and we should consider a "defund" strategy for our entire military industrial complex, completely dismantling the existing systems and replacing them with something a little less... evil? Certainly scaled back by a few orders of magnitude.
But then the only reason these agencies act the way they do and get away with it is because the government wants it that way. So maybe just burn it all down, I don't know. I'm starting to think Thomas Jefferson was right and we should at least try to shoot all the politicians, rip up the Constitution and start over every 20 years.
So not a realistic suggestion, no.
> Would you have the US disband their military as well?
Honestly I think the world would be better off if the US only had the national guard and a small purely defensive coastal navy like Japan. Maybe not randomly fuck up Asian or Middle Eastern countries every few years in the name of oil or Jesus or kickbacks to Lockheed Martin.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's a good one.
Admittance to the United States is not a universal right. If I wanted to move to Europe right now, it is a lengthy painful process just like an alien trying to move to the US.
Applicants will be screened. Reviewing what you say publicly about the United States as part of that process is not a privacy violation. If you are making statements that you want to blow up buildings or steal nuclear secrets, it is very reasonable to deny you entry.
Moving permanently is one thing, but Europeans have to go through that bullshit even for tourist visas, while all y'all need is your passport because our dumbass politicians didn't insist on reciprocity.
[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...
Most Europeans get to use the quick and relatively cheap shortcut of ESTA/VWP rather than needing to apply for a full tourist visa, though indeed there are exceptions based on nationality or personal history.
> while all y'all need is your passport because our dumbass politicians didn't insist on reciprocity.
The EU has been working on their own version of ESTA called ETIAS for many years now, which has been repeatedly delayed for EU-internal reasons that as far as I've read have nothing to do with US pressure, like technical/IT delays and a request from France for the related Entry/Exit System not to begin before the Paris Olympics. ETIAS is currently expected to begin operation in 2025 and will apply to US citizens just as it will to every other Schengen-visa exempt third-country nationality.
Since you said "Europeans" rather than "EU citizens" or "Schengen citizens", I'll recognize that the UK is still in Europe and note that they're preparing to do the same kind of thing, with their system to be called ETA and also intended to include US citizens once fully implemented.
So that will bring approximate reciprocity, again with the exception of those Europeans who don't qualify for the US ESTA/VWP system.
You still need to pass the CBP exam, have your social media profile scanned by them, or you can be rejected at the border because the CBP agent doesn't like you got convicted for pot at 18.
You Americans don't have to endure any of that to enter the Schengen area.
> ETIAS is currently expected to begin operation in 2025 and will apply to US citizens just as it will to every other Schengen-visa exempt third-country nationality.
I have zero reason to believe ETIAS will be ready by that date.
We agree that the US government border rules for noncitizens are far too invasive and harsh, especially as to drug rules - though the core of that harshness comes from laws passed by the elected legislators, with only part of it coming from agency regulations and culture.
Much of that awfulness is not about a lack of reciprocity for the visa exemption: what you describe applies even to people who do need visas, not only to those who qualify for the Visa Waiver Program.
Even Canadians, who normally are truly exempt from needing any kind of pre-approval at all to show up at a US port of entry with a Canadian passport, can still be interrogated and refused for all the same reasons as any European - they can just skip the advance approval, aside from any waiver they might need due to previously having been found inadmissible, but they are still rolling the dice at the border as with any other visitor.
By contrast, people who need US visas have far more expense and hassle to deal with than the still-bad bullshit that the US puts most European tourists through - on top of most of that bullshit, not instead of it.
> You Americans don't have to endure any of that to enter the Schengen area.
Very true, but again, this difference between the systems is far more pervasive than just any lack of reciprocity. The European immigration and border control systems are just plain more humane and less broken than the US equivalents, regardless of which countries exempt which other countries from which documentation requirements.
> I have zero reason to believe ETIAS will be ready by that date.
It’s true that it’s been delayed an absurd number of times so far and could get delayed again. But the biggest reason for the duration of the latest delay is just a short-term political matter rather than anything technical: France wants to delay the Entry/Exit System until after the Paris Olympics, and ETIAS depends on that working well for some months.
From what I’ve read, the IT side of things is close to ready. We will see. I would not be surprised by further small delays, but I do expect these systems to begin operating within a few years instead of beyond that time.
That was a strong Kool-Aid. There are universal human rights, there is no need to grant applicants USA constitutional rights to respect the former. It's a matter of decency and honesty, you are not free to infringe the privacy of others just because they weren't born in a different soil than you.
Of course, human rights are constantly abused at several degrees all over the world, but geez, at least try to be discrete about it.