Trump officials told the newspaper they are evaluating whether to require foreign nationals who visit the U.S. to divulge cell phone contacts and passwords for social networking websites.
Opinion:
Not everyone has an internet profile. Some people hate the internet. So the government can’t just assume because a person does not have an internet footprint means they are lying. On the other hand, the bad guys will use phones that reveal nothing. They might even dummy their phones so as to put innocent people on their phone/internet list and then if they do anything, those people might end up on a watch list who do not belong there.
In a way it is good that Trump wants to ask for the information rather than just use bio-metrics and some clandestine way to come up with the information. But either way the information is not likely to be full proof in revealing anything. People can use radios for communication. The more sophisticated hack through satellites to relay information. The less sophisticated may use carrier pigeons or smoke signals or just pass notes in a crowded bar.
Is the potential evolution of our cellphone number becoming our identity a good or bad thing? I don’t know.
I started out loving technology and I was usually ahead of the game in understanding various tech. Sayata actually started out to be a tech company and I may still go back to writing programs. But there is a part of me that totally hates tech right now. And these kind of conversations that attempt to rationalize the total invasion of privacy does not make me grow any fonder of technology.
I grew up in a world where the United States was defined as the good guy and the USSR was defined as the bad guy. And now seeing the USA doing things that we were taught are WRONG when the USSR was doing similar just makes me feel sad.