A House Republican on Tuesday slammed a Department of Homeland Security proposal to ask foreign visitors for their social media information, saying terrorists were not going to “voluntarily offer up incriminating evidence.”
“Voluntary disclosure won’t keep anyone safe,” Rep. Vern Buchanan said in a statement. “If we want to win on the digital battlefield, mandatory screening is required.” The Florida Republican has pushed for mandatory screening since December’s terrorist attack in California, subsequent to the revelation that one of the attackers had been a prolific user of social networking sites.
The DHS proposal, which was published by Customs and Border Patrol in the Federal Register last week, would allow foreign visitors to the United States to voluntarily provide their social media information in an optional field on arrival or departure, and it follows a debate earlier this year about whether immigration officers in the Obama administration have been permitted to look at the social media of visa applicants. Top officials insist that employees were at least allowed to do so, though some reports have called the claim into question.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2578718
Online content affiliated with terrorism has also proliferated since the beginning of the year, with estimates of Twitter accounts associated with the Islamic State reaching as high as 100,000. The White House has sought to counter that content through its Counter Extremism Project, which announced in June that it was set to deploy software capable of locating and eliminating that content without assistance from a human operator.
Calling the “Internet and social media” a “digital battlefield,” Buchanan said that voluntary disclosure wasn’t going to be valuable, adding, “The only people who will share that information are those with nothing to hide.”
The DHS proposal will remain open for public comment for 60 days from the time it was entered in the Federal Register before being granted further consideration.
