The Obama administration is reviewing procedures for vetting would-be immigrants and its policies on accessing social media.
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NBC News reported the San Bernardino massacre cost about $4,500 during an evaluation of the pre-tax cost of guns and explosives assembled by Malik and Farook. Malik and her husband, Syed Farook, died in a fierce gunbattle with authorities several hours after their commando-style assault on a gathering of Farook’s colleagues from the San Bernardino County, California, health department December 2.
The messages, which were described by one law enforcement official as “her private communications … to a small group of her friends”, were posted before she entered the USA on a K-1 fiancée visa in July 2014.
Routine visa background inquiries usually include checking a visa applicant’s name against various spy agency and law enforcement databases, but would not normally involve extensive investigations in the applicant’s country of origin. CBS reports that she passed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “counterterrorism screening as part of her vetting” process before receiving a visa.
“It is unacceptable that Congress has to legislate on this, and that it wasn’t already the Department of Homeland Security’s practice to take such commonsense steps when screening individuals entering this country”, McCain said in a statement.
The two officials, who preferred to remain anonymous, discussed the current investigation regarding the San Bernardino shootings that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others.
It is also not clear whether an SAO check would have given agents a reason to ban Malik from coming to the USA, even if one had been requested.
Malik herself used an alias along with strict privacy settings that would have required Facebook to release the data even if authorities were aware of her pseudonym, according to CNN.
“We want to look at how our immigration process for a visa for a spouse broke down, that they didn’t notice the radicalisation”, Senator Burr said.
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.
In 2014, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, fearing a civil liberties backlash, refused to end a secret government policy prohibiting immigration officials from reviewing social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for US visas, according to a former senior department official.
The House of Representatives on Tuesday will vote on a bill to require the Obama administration to come up with a comprehensive strategy to combat terrorists’ use of social media. The pilot programs do not involve reading all social media posts, the Journal said, though government officials have not specified exactly what is analyzed in the process of trying to discover potential threats.
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The Times stated Malik’s Facebook messages point out for the primary time that D.R. regulation enforcement and intelligence officers missed warnings on social media that she was a possible menace earlier than she utilized for her D.J. visa.
