[1morepassword]

What's the "utterly implausible" part?

In the past we've had verified incidents of people being refused entry because of things posted on for instance public Twitter feeds.

So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. We also know that once monitoring starts for one purpose, it rapidly expands to other use case. This pattern repeats itself around the world.

The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication.

So you're suggesting that everything published about the nature of US surveillance until this very day, including the recent PRISM-related publications, is all "utterly implausible"?

Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible, albeit suspiciously thin on concrete facts.

[doktrin]

> Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible

It's completely in-consistent with logic.

We're making a couple assumptions here :

1. The NSA, via PRISM, can search FB private messages at will (this is a stretch)

2. They are sharing this ability with customs & border patrol (highly implausible)

3. Customs is using this ability in routine border checks, and/or monitoring 18 year old german girls for weeks (highly implausible. seriously.)

4. Customs officials are in turn sharing this with their suspects when they have no reason to. (highly implausible)

Yes, this is utterly implausible. I expect more common sense out of HN.

[icebraining]

The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication.

No, part open to debate is whether they'd risk getting the project discovered by giving a bunch of border officers (probably without any clearance) the tools for accessing, printing out and showing to travelers their private Facebook messages, when they could have:

1. Not use it for visa clearance.

2. Use data-mining to create no-entry-lists without exposing the source.

3. Have secure facilities (rooms in some building, not necessarily Top-Secret hideouts) where the PM investigation would happen, to avoid leaks like officers showing evidence to regular civilians.

[danielweber]

officers showing evidence to regular civilians

Not even American citizens, at that.

[untog]

So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice.

By the NSA, for national security reasons. Not for visa fraud.

Don't get me wrong, it's possible. But if NSA data was being used to monitor au pair activity and provided to border control agents it would be a step beyond what we currently know.