Homeland Security social media screening ‘common sense’ for visas, lawmakers agree

Fearing the U.S. is losing the battle against the Islamic State terrorist network in cyberspace, those on all sides of the political spectrum demanded Tuesday that the administration immediate begin screening social media profiles of all visitors and enlist tech companies in the battle to shut down radical Islam’s presence online.

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill said Homeland Security’s fears of invading privacy may have kept it from spotting social media red flags on Tashfeen Malik, whom authorities granted a fiancee visa. She would travel to the U.S. to marry Syed Rizwan Farook in 2014, and they launched a lone-wolf attack this month in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding 22.

“Ignoring the online statements of those terrorists trying to enter our country puts us at risk,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce, California Republican.

Democrats and Republicans alike said the Homeland Security Department needs to start screening social media before it approves visas.

The issue emerged during the Republican presidential debate, where candidates said the Obama administration has let political correctness tie investigators’ hands.

“We should in fact be looking at people’s social media posts. That’s just common sense,” said former Sen. Rick Santorum, one of the Republican presidential candidates. “But we’ve defunded and tied the hands behind the backs of our intelligence agencies because of political correctness.”

The House debated a bill Tuesday demanding that President Obama come up with a plan to work with companies to weed out radical communications from social media, saying the U.S. is losing the online battle to the Islamic State, which uses Twitter and other platforms to spread its message, draw recruits from around the globe and encourage lone-wolf attacks such as the massacre in California.

That bill is expected to pass this week with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Laying out her own homeland security policy, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton joined the call for companies to work with authorities to combat terrorist messages online.

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.

The House has passed bills to require tougher certification for the 10,000 Syrian refugees Mr. Obama has said the U.S. will accept this year, to tighten the visa waiver program to insist that risky foreign visitors go through in-person screenings before entering the U.S. and now the demand for a social media plan.

Each bill has had overwhelming bipartisan support, but the Senate has yet to act on any of them.

The White House has vowed to veto the refugee bill, has welcomed the visa waiver restrictions and has said it is open to changes on social media policy — though press secretary Josh Earnest said Congress needs to be prepared to provide more money if it wants more security checks.

“If there are members of Congress that have some new ideas for work they believe the Department of Homeland Security should do, ostensibly, that is paired with an increase in the kind of resources that would be necessary to fulfill those work requests,” he told reporters.

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.

USCIS is in the crosshairs after the reports that Malik and Farook were radicalized well before the San Bernardino attack. That means there could have been information — particularly in social media profiles — that the agency could have caught before it approved their fiancee visa petition.

The Washington Times reported last year that the agency didn’t generally scrutinize social media before approving applications — despite a proposal by the chief of its fraud unit to begin those checks. ABC reported this week that the policy was still in place.

Twenty-two Democratic senators wrote to Homeland Security on Tuesday demanding that the policy be scrapped and social media be fair game.

“A review of applicants’ social media activity should be at the very top of the checklist for DHS personnel,” the Democrats wrote.

Homeland Security officials say they had implemented three pilot programs to try to include some social media in their screening and are “actively considering additional ways” to use social media in vetting.

“The department will continue to ensure that any use of social media in its vetting programs is consistent with current law and appropriately takes into account civil rights and civil liberties and privacy protections,” a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Obama, speaking at a naturalization ceremony at the National Archives, warned Americans not to forsake the open immigration policies he said are a part of the nation’s fabric.

He compared today’s climate of fear over immigration and terrorism to what he called some of the darkest days of the country’s history on immigration, such as when black Africans were brought into the U.S. during the slave trade, when Irish and Chinese laborers faced discrimination, and when Japanese-Americans were pushed into internment camps during World War II.

“We succumbed to fear. We betrayed not only our fellow Americans but our deepest values,” he said. “We need to resolve never to repeat mistakes like that ever again.”