Five years of your social media just to visit the US on an ESTA, and 50,922 phone searches at the border in a single year with no suspicion needed. Part 1 of my Five Eyes series: who else gets to see it?
Five years of your social media just to visit the US on an ESTA, and 50,922 phone searches at the border in a single year with no suspicion needed. Part 1 of my Five Eyes series: who else gets to see it?
The title’s a question. It’s the one I asked myself when I saw the proposed changes, would I even want to go there now? I never said America is the scariest country in the world. When I went looking, what I found was different, an alliance between five countries that’s been running for nearly 80 years, and by the end of the piece I say the title’s question stopped being the real one.
You’re welcome to read it again, because most of what you’ve raised is already in there. The line about the social media rule not being in effect goes on to say visa applicants, students, workers and immigrants have had to hand theirs over since 2019, and the proposal would extend that to everyone. It’s still on the table, and if it goes through as written it won’t be a 0.02% chance, it’ll be every one of the 14.5 million people a year who come in on an ESTA.
The 50,922 are the searches that needed no suspicion at all, out of 55,318 in a year, and in the article they sit right next to Canada searching 1,108 devices in the whole of 2024. I looked at North Korea, China and Russia too, and I said they’re worse once you’re inside, in every way that matters. None of them ask for five years of your social media or your family’s details before you get there, though.
So yeah, perspective matters. It’s just hard to get much of it from one line and one number.>