California shooter messaged Facebook friends about support for jihad

As investigators focus on what or who motivated San Bernardino shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, to open fire at the Inland Regional Center, a report about Malik’s comments on social media before she moved to the U.S.is raising questions about how thoroughly she was vetted. It is likely that Marquez will be charged with something once authorities finish speaking with him, but so far sources tell CBS News he has waived his rights and is being very cooperative.

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.

Certain DHS officials are now allowed to look at such posts as part of law enforcement investigations. Malik reportedly “expressed her desire” in one of the posts, written in Urdu, to become a jihadist, according to two top federal law enforcement officials.

The FBI said Farook had ties to a group of jihadists arrested in California three years ago for attempting to travel to Afghanistan to join al Qaeda.

Farook, the D.J.-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, a Pakistani native he married final yr in Saudi Arabia, have been killed in a shootout with police hours after the assault in San Bernardino, 60 miles (one hundred km) east of Los Angeles. But FBI Director James Comey has said there was no evidence the militant group was aware of them before the attack.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Homeland Security and State departments have been asked to review the process for screening people who apply for visas and to return with specific recommendations. Records show her visa was approved the day after the interview and she traveled to the U.S.in July 2014. Both officers spoke on situation of anonymity, the newspaper stated.

That means they probably wouldn’t have been found, even if authorities had reviewed social media as part of Malik’s visa application process. She also had to provide fingerprints and a variety of background information.

“It’s horribly lamentable that we would paint any group as undesirables based on the actions of an extremely small number of radical folks that don’t represent the religion in any way”, Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit told The Los Angeles Times, courtesy of the source.

The department said three pilot programs to specifically incorporate “appropriate” social media reviews into its vetting process were launched in the past year and the department is looking at other ways to use social media posts.

The report says, in the wake of disclosures from Edward Snowden, officials were afraid of a backlash from civil liberties activists if agents were reviewing social media postings and knowledge of the reviews were made public.