San Bernardino attackers didn’t show public support for jihad on social media

However, he said that while the perpetrators of the December 2 shootings in San Bernardino, California – Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 29 – had expressed support for “jihad and martyrdom” in private communications as early as 2013, they never did so publicly on social media.

James Comey spoke Wednesday at a New York City security initiative with private businesses, where he said Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik communicated online before they met in person, during which they discussed a mutual commitment to jihad and martyrdom.

A Facebook official had said Malik praised ISIL in a post around the very moment the couple stormed a social services center where Farook’s co-workers from San Bernardino County’s health department had gathered for a holiday party. At a Muslim cemetery hours away from San Bernardino, the bodies were cleansed according to Islamic rules, wrapped in white cloth and buried. Farook was a US citizen, and law enforcement couldn’t have read his communications without a court order based on some reason to believe he was associating with terrorists.

The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation now says the San Bernardino terrorists did not post about Jihad on social media. But “obviously, I think it’s safe to say there’s going to be lessons learned here”, Kirby said.

“So far, in this investigation we have found no evidence of posting on social media by either of them at that period in time….”

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Malik had “talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad” in social media “postings” in the months leading up to her visa application – warning signs that might have been picked up, the report said, had immigration officials reviewed the social media activity of visa applicants. Afterward, Islamic State leaders praised the couple as “martyrs” but did not claim any involvement in the plot.

Comey said the terror group has perfected the use of social media, and Twitter in particular, to contact potential followers in the United States and elsewhere.

“They move from Twitter direct messaging, which we can get access to with lawful probable cause, to a mobile messaging app that is end-to-end encrypted”, Comey said. On Wednesday he called the issue of encryption a “collision” between public and Internet security and basic law enforcement tools.

“Whether someone, a relative, saw something and failed to report it, I’m not ready to go there yet”, he said.