Fortress America?

[JimC]

A proposal from the State Department which should do wonders for the US tourist industry:

US State Department proposes asking visa applicants for social media identities from last five years

A US federal government proposal to collect social media identities of nearly everyone who seeks entry into the country has been described as a "chilling" encroachment on freedom of speech and association.

The proposal would impact about 14.7 million people annually
The changes go further than rules instituted last year to only ask for social media identities in some instances
The ACLU believes there is a risk the changes will unfairly target people from Muslim countries
The State Department filed a proposal which would require most immigrant and non-immigrant visa applicants to list all social media identities they have used in the past five years, as well as previously used telephone numbers, email addresses and their international travel history over the same period.

The information would be used to vet and identify them, which would affect about 14.7 million people annually.

The proposal goes further than rules instituted last May. Those changes instructed consular officials to collect social media identities only when they determined "that such information is required to confirm identity or conduct more rigorous national security vetting," a State Department official said at the time.

The proposal requires approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) but it supports President Donald Trump's campaign promise to institute "extreme vetting" of foreigners entering the US to prevent terrorism.

Here is the link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-31/u ... ry/9607046

[laklak]

Man if they ever see Ratz it's Guantanamo for my sorry ass.

[pErvinalia]

The US gets more and more ridiculous as time goes by.

Honestly, they should just start again.

[Hermit]

US State Department proposes asking visa applicants for social media identities from last five years

Sick joke.

Pretending they're not already capable of discovering every social media account of every visa applicant, regardless of what pseudonyms the applicant is using, hacking into it and helping themselves to every piece of info even the stuff the applicant is under the illusion of having deleted it. Also pretending that they are not already doing it.

[cronus]

Meant to slow things down. And it will succeed, knowing how well conditioned American's are to social compliance framed with fake rebelliousness(for pride). Lame copying of Stalin's Russia. And so, for the sake of public safety this pub is now on a permanent lock-in. No one comes in, and no one gets out. Until all the lager is gone. Bolt the doors please.

[JimC]

If I were contemplating a holiday in the US, I think I might reconsider, and ask my travel agent for details on Outer Mongolia...

[laklak]

You're fine if you name isn't Mohammad.

[Scot Dutchy]

The days of Black Mirror never mind 1984 are getting ever closer.

[cronus]

I'm assuming all the undesirables will end up in FEMA camps. That's a rumor? No idea if it's true their checking your genetic ancestry for internal displacement later?

[Scot Dutchy]

You will have to watch out then.

[cronus]

You will have to watch out then.

Not so funny when the cloudy skies are getting this Biblical in their aspect.

[Rum]

Doom approaches more closely by the day.

[pErvinalia]

Don't they fingerprint everyone at the border? They should just get with the times and take DNA samples.

[Rum]

The Chinese are winning. https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/8/16990 ... rveillance

Chinese police are using facial recognition sunglasses to track citizens

By James Vincent@jjvincent Feb 8, 2018, 4:51am EST


China’s police have a new weapon in their surveillance arsenal: sunglasses with built-in facial recognition. According to reports from local media, the glasses are being tested at train stations in the “emerging megacity” of Zhengzhou, where they’ll be used to scan travelers during the upcoming Lunar New Year migration. This is a period of extremely busy holiday travel, often described as the largest human migration event on Earth, and police say the sunglasses have already been used to capture seven suspects wanted in major cases, as well as 26 individuals traveling under false identities.

The sunglasses are the latest component in China’s burgeoning tech-surveillance state. In recent years, the country has poured resources into various advanced tracking technologies, developing artificial intelligence to identify individuals and digitally tail them around cities. One estimate suggests the country will have more than 600 million CCTV cameras by 2020, with Chinese tech startups outfitting them with advanced features like gait recognition.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the sunglasses being deployed in Zhengzhou are built by Beijing-based LLVision Technology Co. The company’s chief executive Wu Fei told the publication that LLVision worked with local police to develop the technology to suit their needs.

One challenge for facial recognition software is that it struggles when running on CCTV cameras, because the picture is blurry and by the time a target is identified they might already have moved on. The sunglasses, by comparison, given police “the ability to check anywhere,” says Wu. “By making wearable glasses, with AI on the front end, you get instant and accurate feedback. You can decide right away what the next interaction is going to be.”

The sunglasses are controlled by a connected mobile unit and sell for 3,999 yuan, or $636 (though the facial recognition support costs extra). LLVision says they’re able to recognize individuals from a pre-loaded database of 10,000 suspects in just 100 milliseconds, but cautions that accuracy levels in real-life usage may vary due “environmental noise.”

But the flexibility of a device like this is worrying for privacy advocates, who say that new surveillance technology is being deployed without adequate oversight, offering considerable new powers to governments. This is especially true in China, where law enforcement can track and surveil citizens with complete freedom. William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, told WSJ: “The potential to give individual police officers facial-recognition technology in sunglasses could eventually make China’s surveillance state all the more ubiquitous.”

[pErvinalia]

This is Mission Impossible stuff!

China is also using mass surveillance and ratting out your neighbour etc to implement their bizarre Social Credit behavioural manipulation scheme. China has gone fucking mad in the last few years. Soon it's going to be the ultimate panopticon ruled by a permanent dictator.