Posted on 12/14/2015 2:30:10 PM PST by Kaslin
UPDATE: It gets worse. ABC News is reporting that Homeland Security officials have been bound by a secret US policy not to scrutinize visa applicants' social media footprint because the Obama administration feared bad press over "civil liberties." This represents an stunning, intentional dereliction of duty -- all for PR:
Fearing a civil liberties backlash and "bad public relations" for the Obama administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end a secret U.S. policy that prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas, a former senior department official said. "During that time period immigration officials were not allowed to use or review social media as part of the screening process," John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis. Cohen is now a national security consultant for ABC News. One current and one former senior counter-terrorism official confirmed Cohen's account about the refusal of DHS to change its policy about the public social media posts of all foreign applicants.
This administration seeks to curtail US citizens' second amendment rights rights -- relying, in part, on a secret list, without due process -- but exposes the country to risk by bending over backwards to safeguard foreign nationals' "civil liberties." As noted below, these are people applying for the privilege of entering our country. Some defenders of the policy say sifting through a massive number of applicants' Facebook and Twitter feeds would be logistically impossible, given the resources available. If that's true, what does that say about the thoroughness our current vetting standards? And if that's true, are we allowed to suggest that either (a) maybe we should think about stemming the flow of immigrants to a rate at which we can properly screen people, or (b) perhaps some form of "profiling" to trigger additional screening should be considered? Or aren't we allowed to address uncomfortable realities?
UPDATE II - They've gotten their "bad public relations," alright, just not the kind they were anticipating. And now -- surprise! -- their insane, politically-correct policy is reportedly on the chopping block. All it took was 14 Americans murdered on US soil by ISIS loyalists:
Breaking: U.S. is working on a plan to scrutinize a person's social media posts before granting entry visas. https://t.co/KZcWP7Dacd @WSJ— Aaron Zitner (@aaronzitner) December 14, 2015
Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passed three background checks by American immigration officials as she moved to the United States from Pakistan. None uncovered what Ms. Malik had made little effort to hide — that she talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad. She said she supported it. And she said she wanted to be a part of it. American law enforcement officials said they recently discovered those old — and previously unreported — postings as they pieced together the lives of Ms. Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, trying to understand how they pulled off the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001. Had the authorities found the posts years ago, they might have kept her out of the country. But immigration officials do not routinely review social media as part of their background checks, and there is a debate inside the Department of Homeland Security over whether it is even appropriate to do so...
Ms. Malik faced three extensive national security and criminal background screenings. First, Homeland Security officials checked her name against American law enforcement and national security databases. Then, her visa application went to the State Department, which checked her fingerprints against other databases. Finally, after coming to the United States and formally marrying Mr. Farook here, she applied for her green card and received another round of criminal and security checks. Ms. Malik also had two in-person interviews, federal officials said, the first by a consular officer in Pakistan, and the second by an immigration officer in the United States when she applied for her green card. All those reviews came back clear, and the F.B.I. has said it had no incriminating information about Ms. Malik or Mr. Farook in its databases. The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have said they followed all policies and procedures.
In a brief telephone interview on Saturday, the sister, Fehda Malik, said Tashfeen Malik was not an extremist, and she rejected the allegations against her sister. "I am the one who spent most of the time with my sister," she said. "No one knows her more than me. She had no contact with any militant organization or person, male or female." She said her sister was religious, studied the Quran and prayed five times a day. "She knew what was right and what was wrong," Fehda Malik said. She added that the family was "very worried and tense," before hanging up the phone. On social media, Fehda Malik has made provocative comments of her own. In 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, she posted a remark on Facebook beside a photo of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center that could be interpreted as anti-American. Social media comments, by themselves, however, are not always definitive evidence. In Pakistan — as in the United States — there is no shortage of crass and inflammatory language. And it is often difficult to distinguish Islamist sentiments and those driven by political hostility toward the United States. At the time Fehda Malik's comment was posted, anti-American sentiment in Pakistan was particularly high; four months earlier, American commandos had secretly entered Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden.
Haney was given an agency award for his work identifying potential terrorists and he was asked to become part of the National Targeting Center, which works to connect the dots between radical figures and groups, he said. After more than six months tracking the Deobandi movement, Homeland Security halted the investigation at the urging of the State Department’s Office of Civil Rights, Haney said. The agencies asserted that since the Islamist groups in question were not Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations, tracking individuals related to these groups was a violation of the their civil liberties, according to Haney. "The administration was more concerned about the civil rights and liberties of foreign Islamic groups with terrorist ties than the safety and security of Americans," Haney said. He met with the DHS Inspector General in 2013, in coordination with several Members of Congress. DHS and the Justice Department then subjected him to investigations, none of which showed wrongdoing, he said. In September 2014, they sequestered him, revoked his access to the database and revoked his security clearance.
Perfect.
These SOB’s do not now, nor have they EVER had the interests of the citizens foremost in mind when making decisions.
Dear GOD, what will the Jones-jihadists think?
If I had relative killed or wounded in San Bernardino, I would be talking to a lot of lawyers......
So the people in California can thank obozo for the terrorist attack.
How many others have been let in with the same policy?
Proper vetting? Do you belong to the Muslim Brotherhood? Are you in favor of killing Americans? A YES answer to these question will not only win you a Visa but free food, housing and a few phones so you can set up attacks.
America-hating Muslim protecting America hating Muslims.
Been going on for a long time.
This also explains why the Tsarnaev brothers Facebook jihadi posts didn’t trip any red flags. Even after the Russians pointed them out to us.
Whistleblower: My intel might have stopped San BernardinoA year into the investigation, the State Department and the DHS Civil Rights Division told Haney that tracking these groups and individuals was problematic because they were Islamic groups. Haney reports that internal memos forbade him from developing any cases based on this profile.
His investigation was shut down, and many of his records were deleted, including evidence about a suspicious group as well as specific individuals tied to the mosque in Riverside, California, that Farook attended.
Your would think they would be more fearful of f#cking up.
How stupid, or traitorous, can anyone be. Employers check out job applicants presence on social media. Most applying for a job in the US are investigated much more thoroughly than someone from nations known to produce jihadis.
What else do you expect when you have a muslime heading the HSD and 70 other muslimes working in the dept of homeland security?
This has all been planned, folks.....and the muslime in the oval orafice is going to us the attacks to disarm Americans.
Did FDR PUT Nazi's on our Security teams during WW11? Our pres_ent today has done the equivalent - why do you think it's now PROSECUTABLE to say anything anti-Mooseslime? . Obama appointed 2 Muslims on the DHS, has 5 Muslims on his advisory board and is a puppet to his chief adviser, Muslim "VaL" - the virtual president
Now, he is trying to bring in suicide bombers, and as we resist he tells uss, "It's because I love you."
Yes, it seems that 0bama is assisting the terrorists in every way possible.
WHY are YOU surprised America's FIRST Muslim President is now turning the screws a little harder?
Did you miss the story where Hussein Obama is releasing terrorists from GITMO because there are meaner, badder terrorists out there? This is exactly what you would expect a terrorist named Hussein to do.
We don't need more worthless gun control laws, we need muslim observation and control and exiling of the dangerous ones.
You left out Brennan, a muslim appointed as our CIA director,
Below is a reality that has been hidden by the left wing media re German Americans in WWII. Not only Japanese were interned during WWII, Germans were, and Italians were closely monitored in coastal areas.
One of the best kept secrets of WWII was the internment of German American men, women and children, away from the rest of America.
Canada and some Latin America countries did the same and interned some Italians.
Why did these evil countries do this. They were at war with the Axis, Germany, Italy and Japan, and they did not want to have acts of terrorism committed against their citizens by possible terrorists.
Did the media label FDR as a Nazi for the internment of Germans, Japanese and some Italians during WWII?
Who were the presidents during WWII, and what party controlled congress and the Supreme Court?
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