Ken Berwitz
Tashfeen Malik, whowith her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passedthree background checks by American immigration officials as she moved to theUnited States from Pakistan. None uncovered what Ms. Malik had made littleeffort to hide – that she talked openly on social media about her views onviolent jihad.
She said she supportedit. And she said she wanted to be a part of it.
American lawenforcement officials said they recently discovered those old – and previouslyunreported – postings as they pieced together the lives of Ms. Malik and herhusband, Syed Rizwan Farook, trying to understand how they pulled off thedeadliest 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 notroutinely review social media as part of their background checks, and there isa debate inside the Department of Homeland Security over whether it is evenappropriate to do so.
– tashfeen malik, openly talking up violent jihad, getting through what passes for a vetting process in the era of Obama, and– a debate within Homeland Security over whether it is appropriate to view social media sources to see whether someone is talking up terrorism as tashfeen malik was.
This is considered a vetting process?
