Officials in the Department of Homeland Security rejected a specific proposal for screening visa applicants’ social media accounts, according to an internal memorandum published by MSNBC on Thursday.
The 2011 memo, parts of which are redacted, suggested that the Obama administration “authorize” customs officials to “access social networking sites” in order to vet applicants. The memo reportedly went through a year of revisions among the agency’s lawyers and staff, and was close to becoming policy before it was blocked by senior officials.
“I thought it was a done deal,” said one senior official, speaking to MSNBC on the condition of anonymity. “It’s unusual [for a policy] to go through the circulation process and revisions,” he said, and “not happen.”
As a result, personnel were limited to “agency-authorized hardware and other computing resources when accessing social networking sites for official government business.” Because social networking sites are blocked on the agency’s network, the policy effectively precluded employees from accessing applicants’ social media accounts.
Employees were also barred from going above and beyond in efforts to screen applicants: “Personnel may not use their personal computers, cellular telephones or other mobile devices” for vetting applicants, the policy states.
It was reported on Monday that some at DHS had pushed for the policy to change, but the memo is another datapoint indicating just how long the issue has been in contention at the agency.
A bipartisan call has been growing to change the policy. “Our security professionals need to more effectively track and analyze the Islamic State’s social media posts and map jihadist networks, and they need help from the tech community,” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday.
Earlier that day, more than 20 Senate Democrats sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson calling for a change. And in a Wednesday voice vote, the House passed legislation calling for a specific policy on social media to be published within 90 days.
Tashfeen Malik, one of the perpetrators in the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., purportedly posted extremist content on her Facebook account before immigrating to the United States. That included at least one laudatory picture of the World Trade Center towers burning on Sept. 11, 2001.
Officials in the Obama administration have disputed that characterization. “We have found no evidence of a posting on social media by either of them,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey told reporters on Wednesday.
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However, Facebook removed the offensive content for violating the site’s policies following the Dec. 2 attack. It isn’t clear what steps the FBI took to locate anything that may have existed.
