Mitch Perry
Starting this week, the Department of Homeland Security will collect and store all social-media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information and search results in the permanent files of all immigrants.
The new policy will include new immigrants, permanent residents and naturalized citizens.
The regulation — or Modified Privacy Act System of Records — also will encompass “publicly available information obtained from the internet, public records, public institutions, interviewees, commercial data providers and information obtained and disclosed pursuant to information sharing agreements.”
The policy mirrors Republican Sarasota Congressman Vern Buchanan’s legislation that he introduced in 2015 shortly after the killings in San Bernardino, dubbed “Social Media Screening for Terrorists Act.” That bill called for the Secretary of Homeland Security to vet all public records, including Facebook and other forms of social media, before admitting foreign travelers and visa applicants into the country.
“Checking social media is standard practice for thousands of employers,” Buchanan said Monday. “We need to make sure the individuals entering the U.S. are not here to harm Americans.”
In a news release touting the administration’s move, Buchanan again referenced the case of New York terror suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami.
Rahami was convicted Monday of planting two pressure-cooker bombs on New York City streets, including one that injured 30 people when it detonated last summer. Rahami became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2011, according to an NBC News report. At the time, U.S. authorities did not check his social media accounts, but if they had, “they would have found multiple links to radical jihadi videos,” intelligence officials later told NBC News.
Buchanan introduced his legislation after reports suggested that San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik posted support for jihad on social media before receiving a U.S. visa, though FBI Director James Comey disputed that the posts were easily visible on social media. Politicians of all stripes made similar calls as Buchanan.
GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina had said: “For heaven’s sakes, every parent in America is checking social media and every employer is as well, but our government can’t do it.”
