President Obama on Friday asserted that reports about immigration officials neglecting to check the social media accounts of those applying for visas "may have gotten garbled a bit."
During a White House press conference, Obama stressed that it's "important to distinguish" between posts that are public, like those on Facebook or Twitter, and private communication through chat apps.
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials "are constantly monitoring public posts, and that is part of the visa review process," the president said.
Obama's comments come after reports that one of the San Bernardino shooters, Tashfeen Malik, was granted a visa despite the fact that she made pro-jihad comments online. The New York Times last week reported that Malik "talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad," but the paper later updated its story with new information from the FBI, which said that Malik made the jihad-related comments on a private messaging platform, not publicly.
When it comes to tracking activity on private chat apps like Telegram or WhatsApp, that is "harder to discern by definition," Obama said today. He urged intelligence officials and high-tech companies to come up with "appropriate" ways to share information, but acknowledged that "no government is going to have the capacity to ready every" text, email, or chat log "if it's not posted publicly."
The FBI and Silicon Valley have been at odds on access to private communication after mobile operating system makers like Google and Apple turned encryption on by default, making it difficult for the feds to monitor discussions on devices running newer versions of iOS and Android. The White House, however, said in October that it won't force the issue.
Today, Obama said spying on private communications "raises questions about our values," pointing to the post-Snowden anger about the U.S. government "becoming too much like Big Brother."
"Overall, I think we've struck the right balance" since the Snowden disclosures, he said, referring to moves like ending the bulk collection of phone metadata. "But we're going to have to continue to balance our needs for security with people's legitimate concerns about privacy."
What we do here has implications overseas, Obama continued. "Because the Internet is global and communication systems are global, the values we apply here are often times ones that folks who are trying to come into the country are also benefiting from because they're using the same technologies."