Malik’s messages were recovered by FBI agents investigating whether she and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, had been in direct contact with foreign militant organizations and were directed to carry out the December 2 attack in which 14 people were killed.
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“I think the president’s top priority here is the national security and safety of the American people”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, courtesy of the source.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson decided in early 2014 to continue barring immigration officials from reviewing social media posts of people trying to enter the USA on a visa, The Hill reports.
“Following the tragedy in San Bernardino, we have learned that the Obama administration has declined to review information available on social media platforms to screen for threats from foreign nationals seeking to enter the United States”, McCain said in a statement.
“Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded on Sunday that the US immediately initiate a program that would check the social media sites of those admitted on visas”.
After the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Facebook discovered a post pledging allegiance to ISIS on a profile maintained by the female shooter.
As such, the Obama administration has expressed its interest in reviewing the Government’s procedure for scrutinizing would-be-immigrants, with a watchful eye toward inspecting applicants’ online presence on social media, to close security gaps in the U.S. visa system, as reported by the Washington Post.
“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.
Tashfeen Malik, the female San Bernardino terrorist, passed three background checks to obtain a USA visa despite supporting violent Islamic extremism on social media.
She was also interviewed by the USA consulate in Pakistan, and the New York Times reported that she was interviewed by a us immigration officer in the United States before being granted a permanent resident’s green card. It is not clear how that policy has been in place, but John Cohen, a former high-ranking Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official and now a consultant for ABC News, says that the matter was last brought up for review in 2014.
The investigation on the San Bernardino shooting has included the social media activities of Farook and Malik, hoping that they would get clues on why they mounted the attack and to look if they have made pronouncements supporting terrorist groups in the past in their social media accounts. Interestingly, the DHS will now look at social media posts before granting an entry visa to certain individuals. Facebook and Twitter users can make their pages private and aliases are routinely employed.
Virginia’s Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday his panel is drafting a bill that would mandate social media checks.
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Authorities have said Malik and Farook exchanged messages about jihad and martyrdom online before they were married and while she was living in Pakistan. But technology industry representatives say that would become a massive new liability for companies and chill free speech online.
