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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Sandra E. Garcia
The State Department is asking visa applicants to submit social media accounts that they have used in the past five years under a new policy that took effect on Friday.
Such account information would give the government access to photos, locations, dates of birth, dates of milestones and other personal data commonly shared on social media.
"We already request certain contact information, travel history, family member information, and previous addresses from all visa applicants," the State Department said in a statement. "We are constantly working to find mechanisms to improve our screening processes to protect U.S. citizens, while supporting legitimate travel to the United States."
In other words, only the dull and subservient are welcome in the new, improved, one-mindset-fits-all America.
Sorry, Muhammad: your cousin once tweeted a remark critical of the U.S. No Visa for you!
Too bad, Ahmed: your math instructor complained about obviously fraudulent charts and graphs in a US Aid Public Relations Packet. No Visa for you!
Hasta la vista, Pablo: you wrote a story in your college paper about the endemic corruption at Pemex, so you'll have to live in a shithole country where we can employ you for one dollar a day instead of thirty dollars an hour. No Visa for you!
I could go on forever, but the point is obvious: I told my son, when he started using AOL Instant Messager, that he was giving the names of his friends to total strangers. I warned him how those social network maps would be used to sell him everythign from life insurance to a home. Children don't listen: I know I didn't when I was that age.
Now, it seems, the best oily bureaucrats money can rent will be perusing every Visa applicant's list of contacts: and if someone whose name bears a resemblence to the name of some public figure on a no-fly list or any other kind of watch list applies, well, a lot of aspiring engineers and accountants and other professionals who wanted the American dream will find themselves living a nightmare.
Bill Horne Moderator