More Nonsense About Aliens' Faux "Privacy Rights"

By Dan Cadman on August 23, 2016

Yesterday's Law360 immigration newsletter contained this little snippet:

Groups Raise Alarm Over DHS Bid For Social Media Info

Twenty-eight immigration, civil liberties and other groups released a letter Monday raising concerns over a U.S. Department of Homeland Security proposal to collect social media information from visa waiver program travelers, saying the request would be a privacy intrusion.

The full article is behind a paywall, but you get the point. (The letter and list of signers is here.)

A privacy intrusion? We're talking about people who aren't even in the United States, who have no constitutional right to enter the country, and whose legal rights to privacy are nonexistent, since a) the burden is on them to prove they aren't excludable as terrorists, etc. when they arrive at a port of entry; and b) in any case, the federal Privacy Act clearly limits the reach of its delineated privacy rights to "U.S. persons," who are defined as citizens and lawfully resident aliens.

What could these "immigration, civil liberties, and other groups" be thinking? Apparently in their fantasy world 9/11 never happened and would-be jihadist martyrs have never used social media to declare their allegiance to various and sundry militant Islamic terror groups before carrying out horrific attacks. Never mind the Facebook posts of Tashfeen Malik, for example, which were not examined by U.S. officials before she was admitted to the country to marry her fellow jihadist; they then went on to kill 14 and seriously wound 22 more in San Bernardino, Calif.

Apparently we should all live in a cocoon of innocence and disregard the reality that some foreigners' hate toward the West (and, more specifically, toward America and its citizens) is so strong that they will do whatever they must to get here and perpetrate atrocities in the name of Allah.

In other words, don't believe your lyin' eyes or ears when you read or see media accounts to the contrary as Islamist-inspired terrorist attacks happen all over the world.

Most especially, don't believe the ones about terrorists from countries with visa waiver privileges — you know, like the attacks in Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and France, not to mention the foiled attacks and plotters arrested in Spain, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.