DHS Could Change Visa Vetting Procedures

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, two top federal law enforcement officials said Monday that Tashfeen Malik talked about joining the Islamic extremist terrorist group before she and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, opened fire at the Inland Regional Center during a Christmas party on the morning of December 2.

Introduced by Senator John McCain, the legislation proposes to require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to search social media websites and publicly available information of prospective foreign travellers or immigrants seeking to enter the US.

Moreover, allowing people who vet visa applicants to review social media postings is no guarantee that a would-be immigrant who has radicalized views will be discovered.

[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.

Employers scour social media pages when making hiring decisions. “They would be able to best assess the optimal way to incorporate the review of – for example – social media postings into screening process”.

Social media comments, by themselves, however, are not always definitive evidence.

The FBI has said the couple declared they were acting on behalf of Islamic State.

The perpetrators of the attack were 28-year-old Syed Farook and 29-year-old Tashfeen Malik.

Meanwhile, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said the committee is working on legislation that would require online information, including social media accounts, be reviewed as part of the background check for visa applicants, including K-1 visas.

The Department of Homeland Security will consider reviewing the social media of certain visa applicants, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday, responding to growing criticism after revelations about one of the San Bernardino terrorist’s social media postings.

That means they probably wouldn’t have been found even if USA authorities had reviewed social media as part of Malik’s visa application process.

Experts said the DHS program would need to be carefully crafted, given the range of online sources. Also there are not many details of these programs available as the government does not want to reveal the secret process it uses to track potential threats. I would say that is an understatement.

Despite widespread calls by politicians to do so, it’s not clear how any such policy to review social media activity could be implemented in an effective way. Part of making America safe for citizens, legitimate refugees, and tourists is protecting our homeland from terrorists.

USA officials have said that Malik and Farook were completely unknown to US spy agencies before the San Bernardino shootings.

There are however no guarantees that those with radicalised views would be spotted by the authorities as social media users can make their pages private and use aliases.