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US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry (bbc.co.uk)
135 points by neversaydie 190 days ago
30 comments

What of those who have virtually no footprint?

Almost the only thing I have is LinkedIn, which is always only as up to date as the last time I changed jobs, which I don't do often.

No Facebook, insta, snap, twitter, tiktok. I subscribe to maybe five channels on YouTube.

My HN account isn't linked to my main 'identity' email address so I could hide it just by having a clean phone (which I do for international travel anyway).

I feel like I'd be suspicious due to the lack of traceability. I've had work colleagues say that they couldn't find a trace of me online (although that was a while ago now, and not colleagues who are adept at online sleuthing).

My age may be just enough to be believably not terminally online.

> What of those who have virtually no footprint?

Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway.

Some people have to travel for work. For Canadians, lots of international flights connect through the US (especially if you're flying on the cheapest routes), and there's no way to transit through without "properly" entering the country. While the thing in the post doesn't yet apply to Canada (due to us not requiring an ESTA), it very well could become a thing soon. That would be pretty awful for everyone.
Does any country require you to have entry rights for a layover?
US does. You have to clear immigration, exit the terminal and then come back into the terminal just like a local passenger.
This is literally a data collection scam run by US intel / law enforcement to collect biometrics with some “plausible” reason. Now it’s a chance to grab your passwords and private conversations too. Act accordingly,
But they might have to.

I’m on the same boat and told management at work that I won’t be traveling to the US while Trump is in power, which they seem to be fine with, but who knows if that’ll last.

> Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway.

I fall into this camp (little to no social media besides LinkedIn) and I've had no issues traveling to the EU or UK or really any other police state for that matter. Plan to do more this upcoming year.

Wouldn't an HN account need to be mentioned, once this platform is made visible enough, so that the bozos in charge, in the US, take it seriously? A social media ICE would love to dig into such.
I don’t consider hacker news to be social media… And I wouldn’t expect others to, either.
For what it's worth, HN is on ICE's list of surveilled sites (which it pays a tech contractor to crawl),

https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-co... ("The 200+ Sites an ICE Surveillance Contractor is Monitoring")

https://archive.is/Lldzh

Here's the actual list from the article for anyone like me (404media has paywall and archive.is doesn't work from Baltics):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VyAaJaWCutyJyMiTXuDH...

I'd bet the actual list of surveilled sites is far longer, and actually kept secret.
Why not? Anything where user interaction is a primary portion of the site's content is social media. The term "social media" predates algorithmically-driven parasocial feeds, though it does postdate things like BBSes and PHPBB.
If you have advocated for Linux you must be a communist....
"It warns that if any social media information is not listed, it could lead to both current and future visas being denied."
Then just say that. Customs has some list that's automatically generated based on a Google search or something like that, and all they're doing is trying to catch you lying. Like the TSA, this screening is done by the lowest common denominator of government employee to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive.
> to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive

My guess from the outside, is that none of these actions are actually meant to "capture" or even "detect" any of those things, the methods are likely to inefficient and small to be able to do so.

What they're trying to do, is make those people not even consider going to the US in the first place, because they're scared of getting caught. Same as a lot of the ICE actions and other things going on. They're not meant to be efficiently solving some concrete issue with their action, they're meant to scare the rest of the populace into being docile and accepting more and more control over time.

They have managed to scare me off at least. So I will spend my money elsewhere.
Same here, have had to cancel meetings, conferences, events and more because me and others don't feel like taking the risk of ending up in a detention center and sent to a foreign country. I'm guessing all of this is working exactly as they intended it to work.
Good thing international tourism counts for only about half of a percent of U.S. GDP: https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-inter...
Right on, who needs those puny half percents or the jobs related to them, when we have megacorps covering for the rest of the gdp (and exporting it to Cayman).
A lot of things will be harder for the US to do if everyone in the world hates us. Letting people come here and see that most Americans aren't monsters pays dividends beyond the dollars they spend.

The Trump Administrations actions read like a checklist of things you'd do if you wanted to destroy the US's power to protect itself and its allies and promote the well-being of its people.

Who said I visit US for tourism?
No it’s meant to make sure you don’t say mean things about people Trump likes.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/15/state-department-vi...

How could this be weaponised against someone you don't like?

How easy is it to set up a <any social network> account under someone else's name, post a bunch of inflammatory opinions, AI some photos of them at a Free Palestine rally, and then sit back and await the inevitable border crossing horror story?

Mental note: Research yourself (and your traveling companions) thoroughly before visiting the US.

Yes, significant potential for such mischief with this system.
I'm going to assume it's then going to be considered suspicious if you don't happen to have any social media for at least the last 5 years ?
I wonder if they'll accept "all I have is a Hacker News account".
Hacker? Straight to jail.
No no, spend three months in an untraceable maze of ICE holding facilities, then to jail, then deported to a 'shithole' country that you didn't come from in the first place.
You only get deported to a third country if you refuse to be deported to your home country.
The information you would need to be able to state this categorically is not publicly available.
I think deporting you to Switzerland is no fun and won't teach you any valuable lesson.
My social media is full of rants about the ongoing trend of bringing fascism to the US and the authoritarian and repressive tendencies of the current president.

Am I not allowed to say that?

You are suppressing free speech of fascists by doing that. Your speech might make them feel bad and free speech is defined by your willingness to defend fascists.

As an enemy to free speech, you wont be allowed in.

"I also have a reddit account, but it was banned for inciting violence or harm against Nazis."
Considering that fascism is the de facto political ideology of the administration and the people who elected it, being against it would definitively be seen as "Anti-American" which seems to be something that is about to become illegal, and probably labeled as "terrorism" in the near future. See https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...

Edit: Ah, and of course, I forgot the most obvious pointer; being against fascism in the US literally labels you as a "domestic terrorist" for some reason, although the US traditionally been against fascism up until this point. What, why and how people are accepting the whole "If you're against fascists, you're a terrorist" charade will probably forever be a mystery to me. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...

All the cases of people being turned away at the border over social media posts that I have seen reported were about illegal work. I am afraid even the CBP agents might not be bored enough to read some rando's political screeds. But it's impossible to tell for sure as your admission is solely the matter for the officer who would be handling your arrival.
What does this link have to do with what I wrote? There is not even the word "border" mentioned in the article. This article talks about canceled visas, not people denied entry at the border.
You think the same government that will kick people out of the country for saying something they don’t agree with will let people in the country for saying something they don’t agree with?
You are allowed to say it. Unlike UK, you won’t be arrested. But you won’t be allowed in.

Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

>Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

There's a difference between saying that you disagree with the way that a country is being run, and wanting to be violent or pursue criminal activity against that country or its people.

What you're missing is that the former should be legal in any democracy (and is in the UK), and the latter shouldn't be legal anywhere (and isn't in the UK).

You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.

I know which side of the pond I'd rather be on.

'You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.'

Voicing support for the group Palestine Action has been met with quite harsh responses in the UK, even though that group is arguably non-violent in that its criminal actions are directed towards property with the aim of slowing actual violence.

There are other similar developments in UK state policy.

>Voicing support for the group Palestine Action has been met with quite harsh responses in the UK, even though that group is arguably non-violent

That was my opinion. However one of them was alleged at a recent trial to have hit and injured a policewoman with a sledgehammer.

> You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.

Free speech means the country must tolerate what citizens say; it does not mean the country can't exercise its discretion over its borders to bar entry to foreigners who say things citizens don't like.

Free speech is generally considered a human right that should apply to anyone, not just citizens.

It's the basis of democracy, and a healthy democracy does not reject a visitor just because they criticized its government.

Is it not chilling if government can proscribe the things that you say for other people, as if your position is one the government can directly oppose and call illegitimate?
That's certainly a stance you can take, but it's not one I'd expect to see from a US administration that's repeatedly (including from the president less than 48 hours ago) got on its high horse to criticise what it perceives as a government crackdown on freedom of speech in European countries.
> Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

Family, work, others in the group who enjoy it, the level of enjoyment might still be above the level of frustration, wanting to help, emergencies, etc. I could think of many reasons one would want to go to a country even though you disagree with ~50% the population + current leaders.

I've been in North Korea as an example, but I'd never claim to support the ideas and politics of their leader(s).

If I was speaking badly about you in social media, I would understand it if you don’t want me at your house.
Reductionism is the sign of a lack of nuance, I speak badly of the USA but still would like to attend a friend's wedding if they choose to have it there. It doesn't mean I don't have contempt for how the country is being run, or how its society is quite flawed, saying those things don't make me an enemy of the state nor do I hate and dislike every single person and thing from there.

This lack of nuance is exactly one of the major flaws of American society, it's either team red or blue, in-group or out-group, black-and-white thinking is rather childish...

Sure, be one-sided if that's how you want to live you life. The rest of us will continue with nuance, and talk to people we disagree about, and favor freedom of expression above conformity. But again, you do you, I'm not asking you to change your opinion, just understand that many value other values.
Criticizing fascists isn’t “speaking badly” of the US or of american people. A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on.
There are plenty of things to like about America if you put aside the politics.

Personally I wouldn’t bother though. We were considering a trip to Florida next year but decided on France instead due to the widespread xenophobia.

"Freedom of speech" i can really feel how free it is over there.

Freedom to not let people in with other opinions, and freedom to force your opinion onto other countries. Really great.

> Freedom to not let people in with other opinions

Yeah, that's more or less what it means to have a border.

> and freedom to force your opinion onto other countries. Really great.

They are free to reject it, as we have theirs. You should be happy USAID was shut down.

Crazy how china became the good guys here. Well played.
Hell, I -live- here and they wouldn't let me in.

I like plenty of folks in, for instance, Texas. I still think the government there is illegitimate in foundation and criminal in action.

Who is being arrested in the UK?
- Jon Richelieu-Booth for posting a picture of himself with a gun in the US

- Jordan Parlour for Facebook posts that were deemed ‘hateful.’

- Bernadette Spofforth for a post with a “mild inaccuracy”

- Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine, after raising concerns in a private parents’ WhatsApp group about the hiring process of their daughter’s school

- Lucy Connolly, for a post calling for mass deportation and to set fire to hotels housing immigrants

- Norbert Gyurcsik, for having “extreme right wing music”

Germany, you too.

Don't you think people should have consequences for the hate speech?
I mean, a quick search of all of these people, and you can find something which absolutely warranted police investigation. That's the police doing what they're meant to do — investigate and ensure public safety.

- Jon Richelieu-Booth was investigated for stalking and making threats. The gun photo was not part of the police investigation.

- Jordan Parlour was charged for suggesting attacking hotels housing asylum seekers.

- Bernadette Spofforth was investigated for distributing misinformation with the intent to incite violence.

- Lucy Connolly for exactly what you say, inciting violence

- Norbert Gyurcsik had and was selling terrorist materials. (Just because you pair something illegal in a melody doesn't change its content...)

(With the exception of Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine, which was an unlawful arrest and they were had restitution for it.)

> - Jon Richelieu-Booth for posting a picture of himself with a gun in the US

A quick search suggests that the photo with the gun wasn't the sole cause of the arrest, given there were stalking allegations "involving serious alarm or distress" from someone he had a conflict with, where the gun was one part of what caused the complainint to (claim to) feel threatened. Police may well have overreacted due to the gun post, but your framing leaves out rather relevant details.

> - Jordan Parlour for Facebook posts that were deemed ‘hateful.’

Appears to have incited violence by advocating an attack on a hotel, something he pleaded guilty to.

> - Bernadette Spofforth for a post with a “mild inaccuracy”

Was arrested for posting a fake name for an attacker, but released and faced no further action.

Calling potentially putting a target on the back of someone innocent by connecting them to a violent crime a "mild inaccuracy" is at best wildly misleading.

> Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine

These people did get a wrongful arrest payout, but the claim was most certainly not just raising concerns in a private parent's WhatsApp group. The claims including harassment, and causing a nuisance on the school premises. The claim was still wrong, and the payout reflects that the police should not have been so quick to believe the allegations before making an arrest. But your claim is still hyperbole.

> - Lucy Connolly, for a post calling for mass deportation and to set fire to hotels housing immigrants

At least in this one you admitted the arrest was over incitement to violence.

> - Norbert Gyurcsik, for having “extreme right wing music”

No, for buying and distributing albums whose lyrics breach terrorism legislation and intended to incite racial hatred.

I have plenty of issues with UK terror legislation, which I believe is being abused to shut down legitimate speech at times, but framing this the way you did is again wildly misleading and hyperbolic.

But even if none of your claims were wildly misleading, none of them support your initial claim:

> You are allowed to say it. Unlike UK, you won’t be arrested. But you won’t be allowed in.

... about a comment referring to criticism of the government.

None of the cases above were relevant to that. Most of them are relating to classes of speech that are not protected in the US either.

>Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

Good ol "if you don't love it, leave it" argument. Nothing beats that!

I live in the UK and have said worse than that about UK governments under full name with no negative effects.

The idea you'll be arrested for mere criticism of the government in the UK is utter nonsense.

> have said worse than that about UK governments under full name with no negative effects.

... that you know of.

This is hysterical. What actions is it you imagine the UK government would have taken to disadvantage me in secret because of what I've said about them that have been so inconsequential that I haven't noticed them?
I have to assume the real goal is just to tank tourism.
But why? Tourism is like 3% gdp for USA. That’s like hundreds of billions of annual dollars. Losing that would hurt.

https://apps.bea.gov/scb/issues/2025/02-february/0225-travel...

1: I'm guessing it's mostly in blue states? 2: I think there's a real desire to sort of go hard on eliminating globalization in all ways. "America is for Americans" and all that. I think the ideology trumps economics considerations.
Florida hasn't been voting blue recently. Tourism accounts for 8% of their Gross State Product versus 3% for California.

California does bring in more tourism money, but it's still less percentage wise.

4d chess then.
Keep foreigners out to keep Americans more in the dark about how things operate in the outside world.

Don’t want any negative comparisons being made

You're assuming the goals are to improve rather than destroy.
First climate-friendly policy.
There's no right to entry at US borders; you can be arbitrarily refused (or much worse) for any subjective suspicion.

(And you are misled by assumptions of privilege, any readers who think this could never happen to you. Your social non-conformity (rejection of social media) is quirky and geeky and completely harmless; and surely the nice government man will understand this).

I couldn't care less about that privilege. I would rather stay away.
Tying this into the Paul Krugman post about social media tech giants running the US [1], perhaps it's the US running the tech giants for mass surveilance? Especially of foreigners, of course.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46204100

Edit: Krugman

They have common interests.

Governments around the world criticise social media and tech giants but they still work with them because they want the concentration of power to enable surveillance.

Of course. And it's not just surveillance, it's censorship and narrative shaping -- doing a convenient end-run around the first amendment's prohibition on government infringing speech.
Pretty sure this is why Microsoft acquired Skype.
"Officers were instructed to screen for those "who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment or violence"."

Okay, that's your job then. It's not mine or anyone else's job to just hand everything over.

That's like saying aircraft inspections is the FAA's job and it's not Boeing's job "to just hand everything over." Entering into a country's borders is a privilege and you submit to an inspection in doing so. One of the very first things the American founding fathers did in 1789 was to create a customs service to perform border inspections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Customs_Service.
One has quite a bit more to do with privacy. And stifling free speech.
> perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment

Interesting that threats to national security and "antisemitism" are put on an equal footing and clearly above everything else; also makes me wonder what is "unlawful antisemitic harassment"- the US considers every speech lawful as far as I understand. Or, if some speech is indeed unlawful, is it going to matter only if that speech is against Jews or Israel?

Sure but they'll make your day extremely unpleasant before deporting you or if a USC letting you in.

A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP

1) Told I could not enter the country. Held up for 3-24 hours in holding areas. Officials come in and claim they will revoke my passport under "national security"-esque grounds. Lots of bluffing and huffing and puffing. Diesel therapy of being made to go back and forth to interrogating officers and then constantly prodded to be deprived of sleep. After a few shift rotations no one is left that know why you were being fucked with so you then [hopefully] get let go.

2) Dogs constantly come in, none of them alert. Eventually they get tired of finding nothing and write up a fraudulent affadavit for a warrant claiming one alerted anyway. Strip searched, hands cuffed and feet chained, imprisoned in a holding cell with people you can't speak the language of, diesel therapy again in prisoner van driven all over the state. Taken to two different private hospitals where CBP officers claim there is drugs up my ass. Cursed and touched without consent by private hospital staff (oh you can complain to the board as I did, lol, the state board just claims since CBP told them to their license isn't in jeopardy). Hospital staff rack up bills, which are sent to me privately and go to collections. Medical records state nothing was found but they "Think I'm packing drugs" anyway despite absolutely no medical evidence.

Have fun!

Wait what did I just read? This sounds horrible and pure evil and not worthy of america.

My sympathies are with you!

> My sympathies are with you!

Is there anything you can do about it?

What do you expect from them? Unless saxenaabhi is code for "US CBP Commissioner" or some position of an equivalent power, there is very little that an HN user can do about it at this point.
"What can I do alone?!", said 100m+ people.
What do you mean "not worthy of America"? It is America.
Friendly reminder not to believe everything you read online.
Yeah this is why I don't talk about it often. Because no one but my family believe it, and only after I showed them the warrant and medical records.

Fact is hardly anyone believes these things until it happens to them, because they don't want to believe we live in such a dystopia.

You wrote:

> A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP

What happened that caused you to “invoke your right to remain silent”? When you enter a country, including the US, you are asked some pretty standard questions that would be weird to refuse to answer.

What question did you not want to answer?

To clarify: CBP is Canadian Border Patrol and you are a Canadian citizen re-entering Canada when this happened?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protec...

Probably US Customs and Border Protection.

More likely US Customs & Border Protection
Yeah, it was confusing. I my circles the US one is known as "BP" and Canadian is "CBP". It makes more sense that they were talking about the Mexican border in retrospect given some other cues.
You must be misremembering, or maybe the your social circle mixed up the two by accident, which then became established. The Canadian border agency is never called CBP, because the actual name of the agency is CBSA. CBP always refers to the US agency.
Customs and Border Protection in the USA
A tourist (to any country) has no right to enter. If you don't cooperate they can simply deny your entry.
Yes, but few other countries are as draconian about this as the US seems to want to be, and it is relevant to want to discuss how it will affect the US to make itself a less attractive place to travel to.
Try travel to Europe on an African passport…
I don't doubt there are worse countries/scenarios. We're dealing specifically though with the downward slide of the U.S.
I have in-laws who do that regularly. I'm aware there are plenty of complications with that. I still stand by what I wrote.
> there are plenty of complications with that

What are some of the complications?

or try to travel to an islamic country with an Israeli stamp on your passport or an Israeli passport.
Related:

State Department to deny visas to fact checkers and others, citing 'censorship'

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46156979

What is classed as a social media? I expect they'd want to view by personal instagram, but what about my old business Xitter account that I can't even get into because something went wonky with the 2fa? What about my github? My HN account? Do they want to see my discord history? How will they find my accounts anyway? Not all of them are under the same account name, real name or email address
Laws are not enforced by machines, but by humans.

The answer to all of those is "yes" and they will not bother to find them, they will ask you to list them. Omitting information or providing false information on your visa application is a felony.

It's the same logic as behind the "Are you a terrorist?" question. Lying is itself a crime, and can be used to prosecute you in the future.

I think the point to many of those questions/requirements are to ensure absolutely everyone can be prosecuted or deported because it's basically impossible to complete the immigration process or just about any other complicated government process without doing something that could possibly be construed in the most uncharitable way as being answered incorrectly.
"You failed to tell us that you made a single post on an obscure forum 4.5 years ago that questioned if capitalism was truly a good system, have fun being deported to a random country, you communist"
I've quoted Marx on HN on more than one occasion. I'm not sure they'd like my social media profile, despite having also been consistent in arguing for liberal freedoms that the US used to like to claim to favour.

I've visited the US many times, but I have no intention of going back under the current regime.

I transited through China earlier this year, and I frankly felt less concerned doing that - despite having criticised the Chinese government online many times over the years - than I would feel about entering the US at this point.

Since when was any of this arbitrary stuff "law"? It's just rules the executive branch is making up.
You used to be asked "Are you a gunrunner?", we all had to lie about that.
What happens if you declare that you don't have any social media accounts?

There are already forms that ask for social media info, e.g. student visa applications. Surely some of the applicants just don't have any social media profiles. Maybe some of them are reading this. I'm curious about their experiences.

Then they'll do a quick lookup to confirm if you actually don't have any accounts, and if they find any, they'll reject you because you lied. US agencies already are keeping track of what individuals have what online accounts, so they're asking to confirm, not to learn.

If you truly don't have social media, their search won't show any hits, and there isn't much you can do about it. Just make sure you're actually answering the question truthfully.

How exactly are they going to link accounts with no real names, personal info or identifiable emails to a person?
Probably by the phone number used for account verification, in many cases

The anime avi posters will have to level up their OPSEC

Literally all data coming in/out of the US (lots of it, even between other countries sometimes routes in-between US network transit points) is kept, and considering the possibilities that just private companies have today by dealing with data brokers and others offering "social media protection" (or whatever they call it today), it's hard to even imagine what the government and its agencies can do.

Did we really forgot about what happened back in 2013 so quickly? Did people assume all these agencies suddenly stopped doing what they've been doing for decades? Nothing you do on the internet with regular network connections are hidden to these entities, don't live falsely under the impression that you can.

The answer to that question doesn’t change the sage advice to not lie.
>citing national security as a key reason Yes, "national security", "terrorists" or "protecting the children" and you can push any law.
The worldcup next year is going to be interesting.
Some changes in tourism numbers should be visible from US ski resorts before then.
Go have a look at Vegas right now. It’s a ghost down. Tourism across the US is down to the tune of tens of billions.
Why would tourists want to come to a place they dislike?

I don’t go to UK anymore for example.

>Why would tourists want to come to a place they dislike?

Visit family.

That's not mentioning you can dislike the current administration without disliking other aspects of the US. The US is big and diverse.

I stopped going to the US over 20 years ago. The only US family I've seen since then came to visit me.
It's not even about like or dislike. Some people dislike the UK, but I imagine that few feel threatened by the prospect of having to cross its border. It's an easier sell to make someone come to the country despite whatever they don't like to attend a big event. But with the US, who knows at this point? The system had been shaken up so much in the last year that there's no telling what's going to happen to any given entrant (especially someone from one of the "disfavored" countries), or what the rules are going to be like tomorrow. It's not preference, it's preference combined with fear.
All is ok now that Trump received the FIFA Peace Prize trophy and wearable medallion.
FIFA's comical attempt to bribe him with a bauble might be a lot about them trying to persuade him not to do this, among other things that will mean nobody will want to attend games.
The what now? Is that like the superbowl?
Soccer, just the biggest sport on earth.

North America will host the FIFA World Cup 2026 with events in the US, Mexico, and Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup

> Soccer, just the biggest sport on earth.

What's "earth"? Is that somewhere south of Texas?

Ah yes, Texas. If Alaska split in two, Texas would be only the third largest state.
And West Australia is almost 50% bigger than Alaska…
The SuperBowl is peanuts compared to FIFA.
Considering the amount of people who always go to the World Cup yet is skipping the US-specific events of 2026, I'm not sure it'll be so interesting after all. Will more or less be like how Las Vegas seems to be today, a former shadow of itself.
The proposal in question: https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-22461.pdf

These timelines are dangerously close to the background investigation I had to go through to get a security clearance as a US Citizen. The fact they want this from tourists is appalling.

Non-Americans: Do not come here. America is not safe.

Americans: The proposal is up for public comment at the moment. The document asks for comments to be sent to CBP_PRA@cbp.dhs.gov.

Well, that'll be great for the tourism industry.

What, precisely, are they hoping to learn, here?

Precisely speaking, they're looking to catch any critique of Israel because it'll provide a broad dragnet that will exclude a lot of Muslims and libs.

(I'm not just saying this to be inflammatory. We already know the administration has been going after legal immigrants on the basis of criticisms of Israel. This is a completely reasonable connection to this social media policy.)

Israel, or the US and its current admin? While it's pretty obvious that these two countries have ties like no others, it would seem weird if they were looking for criticism of a foreign state first rather than their own, despite the circumstances.
Going after "anti-semitism" gives the admin the political top-cover to systematically abridge various Constitutional rights and anyone who pushes back is "obviously" an anti-semite.

It's an extremely despicable and cynical ploy.

And why would they exclude muslim and liberal tourists?

The reason they are creating all sort of censorship and unconstitutional rules to prevent criticism of Israel is, surprise!, to benefit Israel. It's otherwise incredible how Israel happens to be always the lucky recipient of all sorts of benefits and favours that are all intended for some other purpose. Come on.

> And why would they exclude muslim and liberal tourists?

What? Because MAGA hates Muslims and libs, that's why. What's confusing about that?

Yes a lot of the policies are designed to benefit Israel, however that's completely distinct from being designed to benefit Jews. The administration doesn't care about ant-semitism on its own merits, but it does care about protecting Israel.

Do some reading on the theological love affair between American evangelicals and Israel to understand the distinction more clearly. The short version is that evangelicals need Israel to be controlled by Jews in order for their end-world prophecies to come true. Said prophecy includes all the Jews being left here on earth post-rapture to face 7 years of horror.

Yes, people do literally believe this and yes, it is a significant force in American politics.

> evangelicals need Israel to be controlled by Jews in order for their end-world prophecies to come true

No, evangelicals need all the Jews to go back to Israel for their end of the world prophecy to come true. So why don't they just pass laws to expel them from the US? It would be criminal of course, but coherent with their goals. The fact is, coherence stops when it stops benefitting zionists. They are nutters but their folly is well directed.

Also, as I just said in my previous comment, you're claiming that Israel is getting some specially favourable treatment by sheer chance. Nothing to do with the people who live there or that consider that their own promised land. Come on.

Finally, why you feel the need to specify that Jews and zionists are not the same. Nobody has mentioned Jews so far (unless for the frankly naive idea that this preoccupation with "antisemitism" is actually about Jews- the most accomplished, safe and protected group in the US- rather than about Israel).

> No, evangelicals need all the Jews to go back to Israel for their end of the world prophecy to come true

Not according to literally any evangelical I've ever spoken to, nor any mainstream evangelical in US theo-politics. Nor is that actually stated in scripture. The complete assemblage of Jews in Israel can happen during or after Tribulation via Jesus teleportation magic.

Sovereignty to rebuild the temple is all that's required for Jesus to gain his Jew-teleportation powers.

Based on your vernacular I'm going to guess you aren't from the US and have no clue what the US religious landscape is actually like.

> you're claiming that Israel is getting some specially favourable treatment by sheer chance

I made no such claim.

My claim is that they're getting "favorable" treatment as a purely instrumental means to an end. In this case (the visas) the end is to exclude Muslims and libs. In other cases it's to bring back kamikaze Jesus. None of it has to do with actually liking Jews.

> Finally, why you feel the need to specify that Jews and zionists are not the same.

Because otherwise a person literally can't parse the factual statement that American evangelicals love Israel but don't care for Jews?

A Notice by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on 12/10/2025

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/10/2025-22...

It's good to have real feeling behind the "abstract" incompatibility of EU data rights and US law.

"EU-US Privacy Shield" and similar are a crock of shit.

The greatest spy network in human history was built to sell us shitty subscriptions and other garbage.

The amount of talent wasted on building ad-networks is mind blowing.

15 years ago they already interviewed me about some tweet that I made they don't need to ask tourists anything to get their data
My anecdote is that my wife and I are the only people who live in a large condotel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp) in Florida mostly year round[1]. Everyone else who owns units see them as investments/second homes.

When the owners got together once a year or on FB you could tell that most of them were pro-Trump and I just kept quiet to keep the peace. But now every single one of them and the management company are seeing their rental rates plummet with the drop in tourism because people from especially Canada are not coming down to Florida during the winter. But also tourism has dropped from other countries.

Still none of the owners will address the elephant in the room and the property management company has to address it. But they walk on eggshells.

[1] We only leave for extended periods of time during spring break and the summer when rates are high because of spring break and summer break and we travel and I work remotely anyway.

This whole thing worldwide will lead to division in the society and to people having secret social media accounts. Only the most lazy and stupid ones will be handing over their private data to any gov security forces.
With so much browser fingerprinting and the biggest social networks being US companies, I wouldn't be surprised if already a company like Palanti has a dataset with all your history
They don't need fingerprinting, all the American social media has probably already been given a sealed FISA order to hand over account lists with ip access logs.

I feel like it's the same as the "I am not a terrorist" declaration check-box. You know your socials, they know your socials. They want to see if you lie.

What do you mean, secret? Your every action online is stored in massive data centres either operated by the US government or American mega corporations.

I can’t believe people STILL believe there is anonymity left online!

Unless you take some “enemy of the state”(great movie btw) level actions, they know everything worth knowing about you.

Sounds like a good plan to improve the tourism industry of other countries.
It's a win-win, the way I see it.

We offload the riffraff onto other countries, and they get a minor bump in GDP.

with riffraff you mean.. what exactly? All tourists?
Funny that people are mostly discussing the details of what social media would be scanned. My question is more: why would I ever want to enter US again?
Discouraging foreign entrants is a major part of the point.
We were going to visit!?

The government will be able to bury the impact of its international tourism pariah status in some sort of claim about people not wanting to fill this in. But the reality is visitor numbers are going to tank no matter what.

People from the UK in particular visit the USA because it is the USA: brash, welcoming, colourful, vibrant, thriving, free, fun. It's a holiday from being reserved and quiet. Things are louder, bigger and brighter, less apologetic, more colourful.

I guess it is low on the administration's priority list, but Trump is building a USA that no one from the UK in particular will want to visit. You should see the comments on the increasingly desperate attempts to advertise discount flights on Facebook. We'll go elsewhere.

Ironically, anyone else face random hostility recently from American tourists? Made me not want to go there for a long while.
> who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment or violence

The regime will simple classify pro-LBQT, anti-MAGA, and anti-Trump comments as "threats to national security" or as supporting terrorism.

Also funny how anti-Semitic harassment is emphasized, while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not.

> Also funny how anti-Semitic harassment is emphasized, while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not.

That's because they're using "perpetuating antisemitism" as code for "being mean to Israel". It's not really about fighting discrimination, that's just a cover framing which sells better than mandatory allegence to a foreign state.

It's the same as when they say "the free market".

The free market is the one with the winners they've chosen. And the winner is Israel and the losers are all the other minorities.

I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-killing-in-general; I'm anti-collateral-damage; I'm anti-kidnapping-of-anyone-especially-children. I could go on.

There's a lot of bad on both sides. Only acknowledging the bad on one side is a denial of reality, and denying reality is never a sustainable position.

> while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not

probably because they don't have their own AIPAC.

> The regime will simple classify pro-LBQT, anti-MAGA, and anti-Trump comments as "threats to national security" or as supporting terrorism.

Did they not already?

Antifa, which doesn't exist as a formal organization, literally means "anti-fascism" and is now a terrorist organization. Of course these are the same people who want to arrest people for treason when they said "You do not have to follow illegal orders"

It's just mental gymnastics of Olympic-level proportions.

Another buckwild measure for absolutely nothing. Since being directly affected by this in my real life, my resentment for these measures has grown ten-fold. These enforcement agents are costing my family friends everything in real value and real sentimental time.

Because of recent anti-immigration measures in the new Administration, a great Mexican family friend of mine has a dying uncle here in the States - with only a few months to live. And with a vast majority of his relatives in Mexico, almost none of them can get visa approval to see him and say goodbye. Not even Humanitarian Parole program visas are being accepted for ANY one of the family members; and they are good, upstanding people who took the process seriously.

I have absolutely nothing nice to say about the rule-writers for immigration in this Administration - and most past ones, and I have nothing mean to say about otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants in America - until the process for legal immigration becomes necessarily easier.

Coming from the people that keep lecturing Europe about Free Speech: Speech-based harassment at the border.

Can't make this shit up...

no thanks
This is excessive.
Mr. Trump, tear down this wall!
Yet another reminder that "I have nothing to hide" is a bad argument.

Data remains, but the moral interpretation changes over time. And more and more data will be used against you.

So, hypothetically, if I were to say that the Israeli government is committing genocide and Trump is a fascist, would they not let me in? Well, I don't want to travel to the US while it's reigned by a fascist government anyways, so let's go: The Israeli government is committing genocide and Trump is a fascist.
Yet another reason to not travel there... :/