U.S. mulls plan to screen social media posts of visa applicants

Details of the pilot programs of the DHS are tightly kept to prevent possible threats.

The officials, who declined to be identified by name, would not discuss specific social media monitoring techniques that are being tested.

Tashfeen Malik, 27, was married to Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, her accomplice in the shooting Wednesday that left 14 people dead and 21 injured and culminated in their deaths in a police shootout.

NBC News reported the San Bernardino massacre cost about $4,500 during an assessment of the pretax price of firearms and by gathered explosives Malik and.

Immigration officials are forbidden, by policy, from looking at the social media presence of visa applicants, a policy that may have allowed San Bernadino shooter Tashfeen Malik to get a visa to enter the USA despite evidence of radicalization on her Facebook profile, ABC News is reporting.

“Ensuring that the screening processes for our nation’s visa programs are rigorous and comprehensive must be a top priority, as these programs are critical to our security, our economy, and for our bilateral relationships with nations around the world”. Malik had been posting pro-jihadists messages on social media prior to her entry into the United States, and the reason it wasn’t looked into is the epitome of political correctness.

The Homeland Security Department said that it was specifically reviewing policies on when authorities at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services can look at social media posts as part of the vetting process for applicants for certain visas.

“If members of Congress have new ideas for work they believe the Department of Homeland Security should do, ostensibly that should be paired with the resources necessary to fulfill those work requests”, Earnest said.

“Immigration, security, law enforcement officials recognized at the time that it was important to more extensively review public social media postings because they offered potential insights into whether somebody was an extremist or potentially connected to a terrorist organization or a supporter of the movement.”

“Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded Sunday that the US immediately initiate a program that would check the social media sites of those admitted on visas”.

Malik, a Pakistani national, passed two background checks before she was admitted to the United States in July 2014, and a third last summer, when she was given a green card.

According to the Los Angeles Times report, one of many officers characterised Malik’s messages as “her personal communications … to a small group of her friends”, in accordance with the Times.

The search yielded nothing useful to the investigation, said a law enforcement source.

McCain accused the Obama administration of “purposeful refusal” to review social media activity as part of its regular screening processes for foreign nationals.

Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein and Mr Burr introduced legislation last week that would require social media companies to report to law enforcement any “terrorist activity” they became aware of, for example, attack planning, recruiting or the distribution of terrorist material.

Separately, congressional negotiators were looking at including in a fiscal 2016 spending bill a measure to impose new curbs on travel by citizens who live in one of the 38 countries that enjoy expedited travel clearance to the U.S.