Homeland Security Secretary Wants Social Media Password for US Entry

US President Donald Trump and his government has been busy with tightening national security ever since taking office several weeks ago including signing several executive orders that limit immigration into the county, restructuring both national and homeland security councils as well as beefing up border protection enforcement. The latest measure however, as suggested by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, aims to include access to personal social media accounts as a requirement to enter the United States.

“We want to get on their social media, with passwords: What do you do, what do you say? If they don’t want to cooperate then you don’t come in,” the secretary states. He is referring to social media accounts as part of a verification process for visitors to rule out ties to terrorist groups. Kelly adds that the current vetting process conditions are “insufficient”. The suggestion was brought up during talks when Donald Trump signed the executive order to limit travel from seven Muslim-majority countries including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya. The previous Obama administration originally considered adding that measure but eventually nixed the idea.

Considering how easy it is to fake or delete a social media profile, the solution does not sound effective in the least. Even if a legitimate account is mined for evidence, those who are serious about actually carrying out an attack will not make it easy to simply allow a simple CTRL+F to reveal anything incriminating; unless these attackers actually fill out “terrorist” under their social media’s occupation profile. Plus, not to mention the manpower required to peruse through years of content. Maybe the US can learn from other countries that have been quite successful in rooting out possible terror suspects such as Tel Aviv’s Ben Guiron airport whose team of qualified safety personnel have successfully culled terrorist attacks despite the proximity to areas of concern by focusing on criteria that actually matters.