Malik Sent Facebook Messages About Jihad

The State Department said that “obviously things went wrong” in the visa background check for one of the San Bernardino shooters, due to a secret US policy that prohibits immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of foreign citizens applying for USA visas.

“The Department of Homeland Security has been, at the direct order of the president of the United States, has been working with the State Department to review the K1 Visa program, and they’ve acknowledged that part of that review is to consider ways to incorporate the use of social media vetting in their screening programs”, Earnest told reporters.

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.

All sides are scrambling for answers in the wake of the California attack this month and last month’s coordinated strike in Paris, sending fears of terrorism soaring in the U.S.

But immigration analysts challenged that as a weak excuse, pointing out that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that approved benefit applications, is funded by fees, so its operations aren’t depending on Congress finding more money.

Because of the possibility of error, the Department of Homeland Security began three pilot programs in 2014 to examine whether screening social media was consistent with current laws and privacy protections.

Hold on a second – The New York Times thinks it might be okay to not review social media posts because it might be hard to distinguish between anti-American rhetoric opposed to our special ops forces killing Osama bin Laden and jihadists who want to murder all Americans? Malik also reportedly had a longer history of posting messages under a pseudonym that expressed support for waging jihad.

Their request was denied, said Cohen, because of concerns that looking at social media postings would violate the applicants’ privacy and, further, create a public image problem for the DHS – which had already suffered a massive public relations backlash following NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden’s revelations about the agency’s data collection practices.

The messages have been posted earlier than Malik, 29, entered the US on a T-1 fiancée visa in July 2014, the Times stated, citing two prime federal regulation enforcement officers.

This morning on ABC News, John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis, confirmed just how mind-boggling these policies are.

“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.

“If we don’t look and don’t review, we don’t know”, he said.

Malik’s sister also made extreme comments on social media, and on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks she posted a cruel remark a photo of a plane hitting the World Trade Center.