~~December 13, 2025~~
SOCIAL MEDIA STRIP SEARCH
“We have talked a lot about the National Security Strategy and the Social Media Rule for foreign travelers entering the US.
However in this piece by Kat Romanesko, the policy goes much, much deeper than that. It includes phone contacts, emails, everything that we had once considered private but is now wide open.
Including all the affairs a person had in the past decade … ”
~~Flensburg Files~~
“Somewhere between Ellis Island and the TSA line where a man once tried to smuggle a rotisserie chicken in his pants, the United States decided it had not yet sufficiently embarrassed itself. So now we are planning to ask every visitor from 42 of our closest, most patient allies to cough up five years of social media history as the new entry fee to the land of freedom, fireworks, and whatever flavor of national humiliation the week brings.
It is a bold move from a government that already cannot run a website during open enrollment without setting something on fire. Now they want millions of visitors a year to hand over the digital diaries where their most questionable thoughts, memes, and wine-fueled late-night comments live. This is our new frontier. We used to build highways and moon rockets, now we build forms that ask Danish tourists if they ever sub tweeted an American senator.”
The whole thing reads like a satire but unfortunately carries the weight of federal regulation.
The proposal now requires anyone using ESTA to report five years of social media handles, five years of phone numbers, ten years of email addresses, IP data, family contact information, a few biometrics, and possibly the name of their childhood imaginary friend if they ever posted about him online. Legally speaking, all it takes is a published rule, a 60-day comment period, and an administration confident that the courts will not stop them from turning the border into the world’s most awkward digital confession booth.
The best part is watching people ask if they can simply delete things from their phones. Sweet summer children. Deleting an app is like hiding your diary under your mattress when the FBI already photocopied every page. TikTok still has your drafts.
Meta has your deleted posts and your first three crushes’ phone numbers. Google has every video you watched when you were supposed to be working. Reddit has that comment you made on a sleep-deprived Tuesday when you were arguing with a stranger named “HotDogTruthSeeker.” The platforms keep it all. They always have. This is why their servers are located in warehouses the size of Rhode Island.
And here we sit, watching our leaders insist this is all in the name of national security, even though we have already seen how well this government handles anything involving security, technology and judgment.
The policy is less about safety and more about teaching the world that privacy is a fairy tale and that visiting the United States now requires the emotional vulnerability of a middle school sleepover combined with the suspicion of a parole meeting.
This is where we are headed.
Third world country energy with first world arrogance. A government that pardons sexual predators while interrogating tourists about their Instagram handles. A travel system redesigned to catch the kind of person who once posted a spicy meme but will inevitably miss the kind actually planning something dangerous. It is the American way. If there is a wrong tool for the job we will find it, sharpen it, and swing it proudly.
So gather your handles, your usernames, your old burner accounts from the early Facebook years. Gather every email you ever used to sign up for a free trial of anything. Gather your patience.
But mostly gather your understanding that this is not about protecting America.
It is about shaping it into a place where surveillance feels normal, and where asking someone for five years of their digital life is treated like asking whether they packed their own bags.
Welcome to the new standard. Pack light. Travel honest. And for the love of God do not let them find your Reddit history.
~~Kat Romanesko~~
(full post)
It Is What It Is 