Last week, the Knight First Amendment Institute, the Brennan Center for Justice, and EPIC submitted a joint comment to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) opposing DHS’s proposal to collect social media identifiers, biometric information, and other personal information from the approximately 14.5 million people who apply to travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. 

The organizations’comment called for the CBP to abandon its proposal, noting that there is no evidence that social media screening is useful for vetting travelers and immigrants and explaining that the government’s collection and screening of social media information chills free speech and undermines privacy. 

In 2019, the Knight Institute, Brennan Center, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett filed a lawsuit challenging the State Department’s rules requiring nearly all visa applicants to register with the government all social media handles they have used in the preceding five years.

Read the comment here.