5mo ago

Uncle Sam mulls policing social media of all would-be citizens

www.theregister.com

USCIS mulls policing social media of all would-be citizens

8 comments

While this is clearly Orwellian and incompatible with a free society, I've never quite understood how this kind of thing is implemented. Lemmy is the only 'social media' I use, and I don't use it under my real name. They wouldn't find anything on any social media platform for me, no matter how hard they looked, because it doesn't exist. So, would they believe me that I don't use social media? Law enforcement don't typically just believe what people say, so I'm genuinely curious how they would go about 'inspecting' someone's social media presence.
- We would be the ghosts in the machine.
  But in all honesty, it would only ever be selectively enforced against whoever they want. They'd probably create a fake profile if they needed.
- Unless you always use VPN or random public WiFi etc. It's rather trivial to trace it back to you for an ISP or government. Even VPN and public WiFi aren't perfect solutions. They can still fail you.
  
  An encrypted DNS with a no logging policy is also worth considering.
  I recommend Mullvad DNS and Control D Free DNS as seen in Privacy guides
- If they want to hurt you, they will hurt you. At the very minimum they could invade your privacy by doing things like tracing all your internet usage through your isp in the hopes of finding something. This would not only be impossible for you to notice but pretty hard for you to stop. They could also just do like what the Truman administration did during the 2nd red scare and physically track you and interfere with your life in many ways. Like the US government did this before without any consequence so what would stop them from doing it again?
  To quote a book I just finished
  Hoover’s counterintelligence program gave official sanction to “disrupt, disorganize and neutralize” chosen targets. The first was the CPUSA, practically moribund by this date with fewer than five thousand members, some fifteen hundred of whom were FBI informants. The many tactics used included planted news stories alleging criminal conduct; anonymous letters and phone calls disseminating derogatory information, real or manufactured; hang-up calls, lockstep surveillance, and intrusive photography; on-the-job-site interviews; the questioning of teachers (if the target had children) and the questioning of the parents of the children’s friends; IRS audits; and planted evidence which would result in arrests. As new perceived threats emerged—the civil rights movement, the New Left, and black nationalism—COINTELPRO grew more violent, with talk of poisoning children, the sanctioning and encouragement of assassinations, and even murder.
  Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition by Griffin Fariello
  On top of what's listed here, the FBI also did "bag jobs" which was really just breaking and entering, trashing the house and trying to find anything of value or incriminating and just stealing it. So to modernize that a bit, an agent could just break your window and steal your computer anytime you're not home without you even knowing it was the FBI that did it.
  Another thing they did was denied passports (and freedom of travel) to anyone that the was labeled as a subversive or who they claimed disagreed with the American government, and that's something which is happening right now if you are trans.
Pointing at Melania’s breasts is a very Trump thing to do.
Sadly, Uncle Sam is out back in a ditch.
Back before Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham subverted the will of the people, the Supreme Court ruled that political speech was the most protected form of free speech. I doubt that is true with the current grifters on the Court, but we used to be able to criticize our leaders without fear.

8 comments