Homeland Security Ramps Up Fight against Terrorism

The Department of Homeland Security is stepping up its efforts to stop potential terror attacks at airports, ports and on social media.

Thursday in his annual address, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson promised to push an aggressive agenda in fighting terrorism.

Johnson pointed to the need to fight a new breed of terrorism and attacks that are harder to detect than traditional large-scale ones. He says such attacks require a new type of response.

"We have moved from a world of terrorist-directed attacks to a world that includes the threat of terrorist-inspired attacks in which the terrorist may have never come face to face with a single member of a terrorist organization, lives among us in the homeland, and self-radicalizes, inspired by something on the Internet," Johnson said.

The agency is also ramping up social media screening of travelers and immigrants entering the U.S. in an effort to protect the country.

"We are expanding the department's use of social media for various purposes," Johnson explained. "Today social media is used for over 33 different operational and investigative purposes within DHS."

Homeland Security will share the intelligence they gather with the FBI to fight extremists.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Senate committee approved a bipartisan bill that would require the Obama administration to prepare a comprehensive strategy to combat terrorists' use of social media. A similar measure passed the House in December.