MSNBC: DHS Nixed Plan to Screen Visa Applicants’ Social Media
Image via ShutterstockRight wing blogs are currently going bananas over this report from MSNBC: Exclusive: Homeland Security passed on plan to vet visa applicants’ social media.
Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security considered a specific policy to strengthen security screenings for foreign visa applicants’ social media accounts, but the proposal was ultimately not adopted, according to an internal department memo obtained by MSNBC.
While the U.S. visa screening process does not include formal vetting of social media accounts, the memo proposed the Obama administration “authorize” customs officials to “access social networking sites” to vet applicants. Such vetting could help catch applicants bent on fraud, crime or “national security” risks, the memo stated.
The federal government considered that policy, according to a former senior official in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but officials passed on it in 2011.
This particular plan may have been rejected four years ago, but:
DHS officials did not dispute the internal memo when asked about it, but emphasized more recent efforts to vet social media accounts.
“The Department is actively considering additional ways to incorporate the use of social media review” for vetting, spokeswoman Marsha Catron told MSNBC, noting that the department began “three pilot programs” for that kind of vetting over the past year.
She said that officials must also ensure any vetting follows “current law and appropriately takes into account civil rights and civil liberties and privacy protections.”
Civil rights and privacy protections are not much of a concern to the right wing media, of course.
However, we should note again that there’s no evidence the San Bernardino terrorists ever posted jihadist messages publicly on social media, and Syed Farook was a natural born US citizen — so this proposed screening of visa applicants wouldn’t have caught either Farook or his wife, even if it had been enacted in 2011.
Meanwhile, many conservative sites have not even bothered to update or retract their mistaken articles screaming about the San Bernardino terrorists’ nonexistent social media jihad posts; for example, National Review: Tashfeen Malik’s Social Media Ignored By DHS.
