Google and other tech giants slammed the Obama administration for a proposal to screen foreigners' social media accounts. | Getty Tech slams Homeland Security on social media screening

Internet giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter slammed the Obama administration on Monday for a proposal that would seek to weed out security threats by asking foreign visitors about their social media accounts.

The Department of Homeland Security for months has weighed whether to prompt foreign travelers arriving on visa waivers to disclose the social media websites they use — and their usernames for those accounts — as it seeks new ways to spot potential terrorist sympathizers. The government unveiled its draft plan this summer amid widespread criticism that authorities aren't doing enough to monitor suspicious individuals for signs of radicalization, including the married couple who killed 14 people in December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.


But leading tech companies said Monday that the proposal could "have a chilling effect on use of social media networks, online sharing and, ultimately, free speech online."

The companies’ main trade group, the Internet Association, said the government's draft rule would grant customs officials unprecedented access to foreigners' private lives, since users often post sensitive details — from their political beliefs to their sexuality — on social media pages. It could also cause trouble for U.S. travelers if other countries follow Washington's lead, the group argued.

"Should the U.S. Government advance with the DHS proposal it is probable that other countries will make similar requests of visitors entering their country, including U.S. citizens," the companies wrote in comments to the agency. "This will be true for democratic and non-democratic countries alike, including those that do not have the same human rights and due process standards as the U.S."

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, said the agency is now reviewing the comments on the proposed rule, which was published in the Federal Register in June. She stressed, though, that any disclosure would be "optional." A spokeswoman for the State Department, which has also worked on the measure, did not respond to a request for comment.

The government's efforts follow months of criticism, particularly from Capitol Hill, following the San Bernardino attacks. Even though FBI Director James Comey batted down reports that one of the shooters has openly expressed support for jihad on social media before she applied for a U.S. visa, many members of Congress still seized on the incident to push the Obama administration to screen foreigners more aggressively.

Like the tech companies, groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology have flagged privacy concerns with DHS’ proposal. In comments filed Monday, Emma Llansó, the director of CDT's Free Expression Project, said it would be "unnecessarily invasive" to ask foreign travelers to turn over their account information.

The ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the New America Foundation teamed up Monday to issue a similar takedown: "This program would invade individual privacy and imperil freedom of expression ... [and] lead to a significant expansion of intelligence activity," they said in joint comments.

And the public interest group Access Now delivered 2,300 signatures on a petition opposing the DHS effort. Even though the government would ask travelers to voluntarily disclose their accounts, Access Now argued that foreigners would feel immense pressure to comply and could find themselves unfairly targeted as a result.

"The choice to hand over this information is technically voluntary," said Nathan White, the group's senior legislative manager, in a statement. "But the process to enter the U.S. is confusing, and it's likely that most visitors will fill out the card completely rather than risk additional questions from intimidating, uniformed officers — the same officers who will decide which of your jokes are funny and which ones make you a security risk."