While there are now currently several test programs underway on how to “incorporate “appropriate” social media reviews”, according to the Associated Press, ABC News quoted a former official as saying that any review of social media accounts by immigration officials had been forbidden under a department policy in 2014.
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The plan was first revealed to the Wall Street Journal, which said the homeland security agency previously looked at social media postings “intermittently and as part of three pilot programs” which began earlier this year.
[Image via Shutterstock/ Mark Van Scyoc]Whether or not allowing agents to look at visa applicants’ social media posts would have caught Tashfeen Malik is a matter of dispute: the San Bernadino shooter used a fake name in her social media posts about jihad and martyrdom.
The couple Malik and Farook took to Facebook to declare their allegiance to the Islamic State on the day they carried out the shooting at the Inland Regional Center.
The Times said Malik’s Facebook messages indicate for the first time that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials missed warnings on social media that she was a potential threat before she applied for her USA visa. And it is often hard to distinguish Islamist sentiments and those driven by political hostility toward the United States.
Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, opened fire on the latter’s co-workers at a work event on December 2 in San Bernardino, California, killing 14.
“We believe these checks, focused on possible connections to terrorist activity, should be incorporated into DHS’s vetting process for visa determinations, and that this policy should be implemented as soon as possible”, the letter said.
Ms. Malik lived most of her life in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but moved to the U.S.in 2014 on a K-1 visa, offered to those engaged to Americans.
While there at present is not any specific order banning visa investigators from trawling candidates’ social media accounts, some businesses have been cautious about doing so, the official stated. Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced a bill last week that would require social media companies to report any posts that suggested malicious intent to law enforcement authorities.
In light of the San Bernardino terror attacks that killed 14 people, the federal government will explore the possibility of more closely monitoring the social media accounts of visa applicants to the United States, a State Department spokesman says.
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As such, the Homeland Security Department announced that it is reviewing its policy on when officials at the US Citizenship and Immigration Service can investigate social media posts as part of its process in scrutinizing would-be-immigrants, who are applying for visas, as stated by the Washington Post. One of them, Tashfeen Malik, had posted numerous social media messages about violent jihad – “She said she supported it [and] she said she wanted to be a part of it”.
