Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Washington Institute for near east policy. I have the pleasure of directing the institutes rinehart pergamon counterterrorism intelligence and i am very pleased to be joined here today by the acting director of the National Counterterrorism center, russell travis. Todays conversation is part of the ongoing counterterrorism lecture series. Russell took office as the acting director in august but its not his first, second or third time in the building. He told many other leadership positions in ctc including a director at the office of Data Strategy and innovation, chief data officer among others. Hes held positions at the office for Defense Intelligence agencies, National Security council, the u. S. Army, joint chiefs of staff so we are very thrilled that he has been able to carve time out of his busy schedule and spend some time with us today to talk about counterterrorism in the era of competing priorities. One russell will deliver some remarks from the podium and then we will sit down for a fireside chat. I will ask the first few questions and then i will open up to all of you here attending in person to ask questions and we welcome all of you who are watching via a live strea the ar cspan thank you for joining us today. Russell, the podium is yours. Thank you very much. Its a great pleasure to be here among a number of old friends to talk about counterterrorism in the era of computing resources. I happened to testify earlier hr this week with the leadership of the fbi and dhs and talked with a friend of mine yesterday and she said a colleague of hers had seen the testimony and characterized my performance as that of a thoughtful nerd so i hope to aspire to something more this afternoon. Kidding aside, the issue of competing priorities is extraordinarily important. We are now almost two decades past 9 11 and if we continue to succeed protecting against largescale attacks against the homeland, i think the notion of competing priorities will do nothing but get more challenging as it should. Ever since former secretary issued the National Defense strategy last year, theres been athere hasbeen an ongoing implit discussion about risk. How does the threat of trigger for some stack up relative to those posed by great powers in north korea or iran or syria or lots of other threats. The testimony this week was along with terrorism is a layout different kinds of threats come election security, election security, counterintelligence, intellectual property theft, International Crime that kills more americans than terrorism ever well and as i said at the hearing it is completely understandable terrorism may no longer be viewed as the number one threat to the country but i dont know what that means and it begs a host of questions. What does the National Risk equation look like as the country conference a complex interNational Security environment. Second hell do we optimize the resources in the best interest of the country when the departments and agencies may have different priorities and if we reduce the efforts against terrorism hell do we do so in a matter that doesnt reverse some of the gains of the past 18 years. But id like to do the next 35 minutes or so is walking through a bit of a roadmap for the issues that need to be considered as we address the questions. Im going to develop ten new themes and in doing so snarky with the geostrategic and worked on to the electron level and back up again. So, number one, good news. Let me say at the outset, terrorism is not and never has been an existential threat to the country unless it changes who we are. This hold up ththose hold up thr killing a large number of people and as history has shown it can occupy the countrys attention for a very long time and prevent other important things from getting done. Fortunately, we have made a lot of progress on this front. The last significant al qaeda directed attack was five years ago today the last centrally directed oasis attack the turkish nightclub three years ago and before that, paris and brussels. Violent extremist attacks are down. Down. They won last yeathe one last yy half a dozen in europe both numbers are substantially lower than previous years. Capabilities o of them floatingf the nicest struggle to sustain success for libya where the franchise isnt doing very well. None of it is by accident. Theres been tremendous military and intelligence efforts in iraq and syria to eliminate the socalled caliphate many skilled operatives have been captured and killed and many secondorder effects. Theres less sophisticated messaging, squabbling and its not just iraq and syria. Weve moved around the globe. Dhs and state pushed for herself and made the homeland much less hospitable to terrorists. Weve also seen global efforts to improve Border Security particularly after paris and brussels. Weve seen in cyberspace less hospitable and services around the globe are working together against terrorism unlike the efforts against any other National Security discipline. The u. S. Continues to pass on Lessons Learned for interested parties with an exercise program of information sharing and cooperation and we are seeing Capacity Building in other countries. And other countries. Improvements and interservice cooperation and enhancements in information sharing to mitigate the impact of terrorist attacks. You compare the response of these attacks against the west eight and 2013 and the hotel earlier this year. Fullstop with far faster with fewer casualties. We will never eliminate terrorism a tremendous amount os amount of good work has been done and allows for the conversation of the comparative risks. And that brings me to seem number two that is a concern of the potential for complacency. We do need to be careful. When i started working after 9 11 we were overwhelmingly focused on al qaeda and one piece of real estate along the border. 18 years later we see the diverse threats that has been homegrown violent extremism. The afghan insurgency and command structure that maintains cohesion over 20 branches of networks. We have al qaeda that has received less attention the past few years and it also retains command structure and half a dozen affiliates. We see coordination among its affiliates and has a full range of threats has provided the iranian code to force also a growing concern for the militant groups in iraq. At the various strands, one complicated enough whe that youe also seeing a global threat of particularly extreme rightwing terrorism. More on that later. Terrorists around the globe are proving capable of exploiting technology. They are good at it and innovative. The use of communications for planning, social media to spread propaganda and transfer knowledge between and among individuals and networks, drones for a tax, delivery means and even assassination attempts. Highquality fraudulent travel documents that undermined screening and watchlist systems in front and Border Security. Crypto currencies to Fund Operations and potential terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons has moved from the low probability eventuality to something that is considered much more likely. In many cases the exploitation of technology has outpaced the associated legal and policy framework to deal with the threat. Looking out for five years we are particularly concerned with the growing adverse impact encryption will have on the terrorism efforts and is the key point. We cannot freeze our thinking and 2019. In 2019. We always need to be looking to the future. Finally come both al qaeda and isis have shown themselves to be successful at radicalizing the vulnerable populations around the globe. Sometimes they dissuade adversaries to establish and organize a group. Sometimes an adversary is deployed to aid in an existing group. Sometimes its already present with historic ties or personal connections. Sometimes it is done remotely with social media or letters and sometimes deployed to an isis court. They are innovative and bolstering the ranks. Things need to do need to focus on prevention. By any objective standard there are far more radicalized people now than there were at 9 11. Think tanks think were looking at four times the number and the number of terrorists has grown by a factor of almost 20. Unless you believe it was and they burn itself out, we will be faced with a growing radicalization problem around the globe no factor captures this worldwide. We believe a mix of personal, group, community, social, political and ideological factors contribute to recruit and to the organizations in mobilization to violence. We are gradually as a world accumulating more Empirical Data for instance the United NationsDevelopment Program evaluated 718 active reform extremists mostly from alshabaab or boca hung on to identify the reasons individuals are radicalized and recruit into these organizations act to person level. The most important factor cited with Human Rights Violations by the Government Security forces but also poverty, the nature of religious education, stable families and government corruption but its not about poverty and being downtrodden. As we said in sri lanka the individuals are well educated and well off but radicalized by heat features. There is a great deal of Fertile Ground in countries and we are facing the radicalization in prisons and even among Young Children being targeted by extremist propaganda. There are various initiatives with the radicalization, reintegration, offramp in as well as broader programs to focus on good governance, Economic Development and human rights available resources remain a problem. If the numbers of radicalized people around the globe keeps growing i just do not like the odds of identifying the right people to capture, kill and keep out of the country and there are second and Third Order Effects as the situation gets worse in africa and Climate Change takes its toll we are seeing greater migration into europe in turn is exacerbating tensions getting further rightwing violence to protest if violation is a vicious cycle which brings me to team member for the need to focus on identity, people of concern. Threats revolver from people and networks and while tracking identities is pretty arcane not as interesting as talking about the future of isis or the latest strike, it is incredibly important. They work underpinning much of the screening and fitting architecture that evaluates 3. 2 Million People a day and this is where we failed the country on 9 11. Two of the hijackers were allowed to get a visa, live in the country and eventually get on airplanes because we were insufficiently stitched together. An enormous amount of effort has been expended over the past eight years. We have effectively pushed workers out creating a multilayered defense to identify those with the rest connections at the earliest possible point and weve continually improved building dossiers, making better use of technologies, performing near realtime classified screening for the watchlist sent a where possible, making use of biometrics. This will never be a riskfree proposition, but the system has overall performed extraordinarily well. And ctc working with our partners is responsible for compiling u. S. Government database of known and suspected terrorists and the data is used to support screening partners. There has been some confusion on this point and when we talk about the precision its very important. Each da paid approximately three individuals that meet the definitions the country to come to the country. This is not to say they intend to conduct an attack but that there is information that warrants a scrutiny. Upwards of another southern watchlist of individuals each day may have connections at wheelock individual derogatory information required to consider them known or suspected terrorists. When 3 Million People per day are screened, drawing conclusions about any one particular individual can be fraught with challenges over the course of 16 years the system has through the test of time in some cases refugee refugees fore scrapings are provided we have no indication terrorist groups have exploited the program and screening limit the ability to do so. Over the past two decades thereve been two individuals who arrived as refugees and have not been attacks on the homeland both radicalized after coming to the United States. As effective as we are we cannot rest on our laurels. There are warning signs as we saw in the case of the terrorist attacks many of the individuals were known to security services. But they have highquality passports and id cards. By a graphicallbuy a graphicalls are on the wrong side of history. We saw this in Northern Syria where the captured fighters routinely gave fake name pence the fbi and Defense Department have as many people as they could. We also have ever increasing amounts of information. How do we process is to ensure highquality databases, i will get into that in a few minutes. In my opinion we should treat this much like we did that after 9 11. What do w we try to accomplish d how are we going to get there . We have a lot of piece parts and we need to ensure that they are properly stitched together. The vision should be a mere realtime screening against all available u. S. Government information to determine if an individual is a known or suspected terrorist. This would involve the collection of integration and sharing of biometrics. The benefits would extend well beyond counterterrorism and support screening against other categories of threats. That brings me to number five, the need for the robust intelligence none of this happens unless we maintain a robust integrated intelligence capability. There is no question the counterterrorism enterprise is the best integrated for the community. We have been doing as a community for a very long time but as good as we are in as well resourced, there will be challenges Going Forward. The globally dispersed terrorism threat that involves individuals and networks places a great pressure on the intelligence services. We need to evaluate the threat at multiple levels and have sufficient insight to determine if and when they pose a threat. The first is to provide by this sri lanka problem this was simply not a high priority before last easter. The Islamist Group denounced isis and 2016 and at a much wantemuchlonger because smallery that was apparently responsible. It had been a bit of a fringe element separatelelements progrr attacks on the buddhist statutes. Not obviously associated with isis we didnt recognize the threat. One step up from that with the local indigenous islamic insurgencies around the globe was to affiliate themselves with isis and with that comes greater interest in attacking the interests. Consider the longstanding insurgency in northern mozambique where we recently be affiliated with isis and are now focused on attacks on u. S. Energy interests. Extrapolate that. And one level higher we need to have sufficient insight into these insurgencies to proces asf and when they may be expanding beyond the country, local threat to one that may threaten the homeland this has been a challenge in the past. In 2009 we thought of a q. A p. As a regional threat. Christmas day of 2009 there was an attempt to blow up the fight over detroit and in 2010 we viewed the Pakistani Taliban as a regionallybased south asia threat and yet they trained the bombing in the New York Times square. Think about the people in the networks and the ability to exploit technology and we had more than a few challenges. At the macro level as we adjust to the other threats, there is no question that intelligence resources, collection and analytic will be shifted away from terrorism to other priorities. Actions have consequences. What do we start focusing on, what is the associated risk . As we drawdown military forces we will have less intelligence capable. There will be less liaison with underground partners. Those are simply facts. With that comes a degree of risk when we determine how great the risk is. Compensated for and so forth. And then at the national level, we are sure we have the right constellation of organizations and authorities. And that brings me t to be numbr seven, the need to get the electrons right. If we are going to get the intelligence right, we need to get the electrons right. Data is everything whether we are looking for strategic trends or conducting tactical Level Analysis associated with individuals and networks its the lifeblood of the community. Its extraordinarily complex particularly when we are dealing with information that is invariably incomplete generally ambiguous and often wrong. Ten years ago this month the nigerian father walked into the embassy said his son may be associated with extremists in yemen. That was a capable to every analyst in the government. It got no attention. Other data existed but the relationships were obvious. I spent my entire career and will state counterterrorism has the worst ratio of any discipline which ive ever been associated. I think th think that he wishesn analyst working counterterrorism since 9 11, he or she has seen a quarter of a million threat. Overwhelmingly they were bogus but when they come in, how exactly do you know . To be a little more concrete we average about three druid abroad a threeyear, almost one and a. To get a little more concrete, the Center Receives in excess of 10,000 terrorism related intelligence reports today that they have to sift through and of those 10,000 reports contained 16,000 names daily. All our services are challenged to uncover potential threats. With the growth of captured media on the battlefield or the explosion of social media, the magnitude of the problem only grows. Terrorists to communicate. But these are not terrorism information, so they can quickly implicate legal and policy, privacy and operational at codys the limit sharing and processing of such data. Determining which information is relevant and addressing the competing with the associated remains a work in progress. I will never have enough analysts to process the information so Artificial Intelligence are not nice to have. They are absolute imperatives. As such i noted with interest earlier the National Security commission on Artificial Intelligence chaired by eric schmitt the former executive chair issued its interim report with a quote. With respect to the data, the government is well positioned to collect useful information from its Worldwide Network of sensors that much of the data is unlabeled, hidden in various silos across sprick networks or is inaccessible to the government. Even more data is simply expelled as exhaust because it isnt deemed to be immediately relevant. And the infrastructure is woefully inadequate to process information. We have a very long way to go to realize the benefits. And in the case of terrorism, is particularly difficult because so much of the data is unstructured. And its all unstructured in different ways. And that makes it very difficult for the machines to help our analysts. To hearken back to what i said about the evolving nature of the threat, it is all about individuals and networks. As we have seen with homegrown violent extremists, it can be extraordinarily difficult for these individuals. Its continuing to grow and the needles are increasingly subtle. We see the problem across the western world where partners may be dealing with thousands or tens of thousands of individuals and subjects of interest. That brings me to number seven. The rhetorical question can be taken at a side road here. What does america want us to do in the realm of discovery and uncovering individuals . Terrorism, like all transnational threats poses unique challenges because it blurs the concepts like foreign and domestic. As such the efforts to ensure Public Safety can quickly bump up against issues of privacy. Part of the governments response after 9 11 was to provide in ctc with Broad Authority to be the trigger for some information. In my opinion, that was an extremely good move. With that came the Compliance Regime and im extraordinarily proud of the senators record in this regard. And indeed, my experience has been that the entire community is very conscientious about these issues. Is to find unknown unknowns how much can we or should we do . Processing of the explicable amounts of information is complex with any simple solution cybercriminals , terrorist in proliferation and criminals have linkages in the United States for good they may be us persons with foreign connections or they may travel here or call here or use our Financial Institutions use our openings against us exploit to easily hide in the daily Noise Associated with millions of people across our borders for the trillions of dollars that slosh around or from the telecommunication activity. In all cases with the data associated of these nefarious actors of data repositories there are lots of complicated challenges and in the case of the 1225 it was a function of the background noise to have these relationships between two innocuous pieces of information relevant data may exist in repositories but for the operational privacy reasons it is not available. Attention with a co mingling of such information in the case of Financial Data it is entirely separate repository the need to balance Privacy Security may sound superficially attractive but what should be accessible to which organizations and what purpose first what level and type of counterterrorism risk should we be willing to tolerate for critical liberties and freedoms and how does the National Security structure dialogue with the American Public to address the question . Second how is the National Security committee covering the approach of exploitation of the internet particularly at a time when technology is far outpacing legal policy rulings and be, to find information on the internet that is far more rich , valuable and intrusive than other types of collections with statutory regulation. Third, what is the role of the private sector of National Security counterterrorism activities . Is there a point at which private sector and government collaborate in the area of Data Collection there is the intolerable privacy risk to individuals . I suspect these kinds of questions are increasingly important as you look to the future. So broader National Security issues. Counterterrorism intelligence integration particularly in an area era constraint would be increasingly difficult and also insufficient as he found over the past two decades its always been a challenge as any practitioner would acknowledge to limit interagency effectiveness. We are a government of the departmental sovereignty the way congressional oversight works certainly thats not an issue when written with the inter Agency Process the 9 11 commission had it right it is hard to break down stovepipes when there are so many entitled to have cast iron pipes of their own. Not impossible but a very good example is what breaks together the entirety of the government but even that has been under stress as it evolves with the evolving priorities the director for Strategic Operational planning has a role of inter agency to have strategies and arguably it is more coordinated than any other mission in part because of those efforts. That said those information efforts will always struggle in the absence of sufficient authority. In theory integration happens at the National Security council and after 9 11 a major focus at the most senior level of government. Than the high threat environment to see the plot there were multiple deputies and meetings every week attention was at all levels and understandably as the perceived threat has declined in the interagency focus. With downsizing and deemphasizing there is that sense partly because of the perception of micromanagement and of the desire to wean off the nsc we need to watch this very carefully to determine how well it does or does not work. No question nsc will continue to handle the highest Priority Issues but what happens when lesser important questions are not recognized as important until they are . Remember it was a very arcane study that failed the country leading up to 9 11 and the technical issue of Network Access that gave rise to wikileaks and edward snowden. How do we ensure lower visibility issues with multiple Department Agencies to adequately address before they become a strategic failure cracks finally one result is the potential of loss of interagency. This could be incredibly important with the need of our Rapid Response during the crisis. Like any transnational threat requires a response as we move forward we have ample interagency mechanisms and now the need for whole society. Is a look to the future we need to look at whole government terrorist use of the internet will require a Robust Partnership between industry to prevent the distribution with communications with supporters in proliferation of information to support a tax. For the past two years there has been a market increase of industry willing to work with one another and Us Government foreign partners to counterterrorism through counterterrorism. Originally created by facebook microsoft and twitter and youtube it gives discussion and information sharing. Facebook Twitter Youtube publicly reported they detect 90 percent of terrorist content through Automated Technology much of that is removed once uploaded and never reaches the public youtube has suspended over 42000 channels and 63000 videos over the promotion of terrorism Facebook Reef removes terrorism content and suspender suspended 166,000 accounts the second half of last year the reasonable to establish as an independent ngo offers a more formalized opportunity to better leverage the private sector and the government against this dynamic problem. The construct looks to sustain deep capacity while incorporating the advice of key Civil Society and government stakeholders it remains to be seen what role Government Entities will play in this construct with the future of online terrorism threat will only be realized through Greater Transparency and information sharing across the divide in realtime. Current reports that pertain to those efforts provide Government Entities with a snapshot of a scope and scale of the problem but they lack sufficient detail as it is being purged it could be better targeted with Greater Knowledge of content being removed and potential attribution Government Entities would more effectively assess trends and terrorist propaganda key radical visors and the credibility and then to pass back to the companies to enhance their models. None of this will be easy companies willingly to robust depends on a host of proprietary concerns. But if we can work through these impediments additional constructs might warrant consideration and i found publicprivate partnerships to be a very useful platform aside from the 501 c 3 to bring government and private sector representatives in the cybercrime arena both have found that construct to work well. As the threat evolves we need to evolve and that brings me to my last statement. Getting our arms around the Global Dimensions of non islam terrorism. Nothing highlights the evolving nature of the terrorist threat more than the growth of what they call white reading or white supremacist terrorism or racially motivated terrorism. The fbi clearly has a lead on domestic terrorism but i will focus on the Global Dimensions and the potential to see a movement. The increasingly nature facilitated by social media and online communication has resulted in the environment that has frequent communication between sympathizers in an open exchange of ideas a large percentage of attacks in recent years either display outreach to likeminded individuals or group referenced early attackers as sources of inspiration. For instance those that have gained International Attention including those who plan a tax. Research has been praised by at least five attackers from the us the uk germany and new zealand. Dylan roof said since he was plotting his attack against a black church in Charleston South Carolina and those he who himself was inspired praise dylan and other attackers and inspired three attackers with his march 2019 attack in Christchurch New Zealand for go connections go well beyond inspiration this travels by white supremacist to conflict areas in communications against violent extremist. Some of this involves connection to nonviolent but extreme right wing organizations some of these connections active military groups have been banned or designated as a terrorist organization and some of this evolve connections between likeminded individuals who might or might not someday move from exploring an ideology to radicalization to mobilization to violence. We understand how that is influenced or what constitutes meaningful relationships between extremist. Unlike extremism from recent years led by relatively large hierarchy organizations like al qaeda the structure organizations are monolithic ideology instead it is dominated by loan actors for the online space is a borderless safe haven by a number of concerns political, social and economic and demographic environmental and personal issues. Moving forward we will have to address these issues but unfortunately there are Lessons Learned that could be applicable in this space federal government improving information sharing focusing on individuals working with the private sector and foreign partners and so forth. That said there are some challenges that are unique to this problem like the lack of statutes in support charges and the complexity constitutionally protected free speech between the United States and partners and the fact the perpetrators are often loan actors substantially complicates the designations used in it also highlight far broader issues for almost two decades the United States has pointed abroad it countries who are exporters of extreme ideology. Now we are seen as exporters of white supremacist ideology thats a reality we will have to deal with. Second, as we grapple with how to deal with the Global Movement we need to be very careful. In the case of the International Islamist terrorist threat we have lost control of the narrative among the populations radicalization has succeeded in conducting a war against islam so we need to guard against that and this aggregate to deal with violent white supremacist activity would not paint with too broad of a brush with legitimate right wing free speech keeping control of the narrative to create International Toolbox from desegregation will be tricky but absolutely necessary to not make the problem worse than it already is. In conclusion i will take you back to the question i posed at the outset what does the national equation look like if the country confronts a very complex interNational Security environment, how do we optimize our resources to best optimize the country. And if we are going to reduce how do we do so if it doesnt reverse the gains of the past 18 years cracks reasonable people to answer in very different ways of most assuredly they deserve informed consideration by thought leaders inside and outside the government i do believe the themes that i lay out focus on all aspects of the counterterrorist threat addressing a host of must use resolving a series of complicated issues to help us inform and develop a good assessment moving forward. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you russell that was tremendous. Presentation to covered a lot of fronts so to pick up the ideological part then we will open it up to further questions and answers. My first question is you mentioned at one Point Military drawdown by definition talks about the liaison and talk about making sure we do what we can to make sure we dont reverse our gains. Next week that characterizes coalition will hold the Ministerial Coalition here in dc i understand they will start off with a purpose of next week dealing whether or not the coalition should be expanded specifically to focus to stay in iraq given the turkish incursion and the us withdrawal partially. Without getting into the big policy issues but just from the counterterrorism perspectiv perspective, what needs to be done to make sure that the Current Events on the ground dont lead to the intelligence collection and losing the progress we have made the secretary of defense has reiterated to have a counter isis mission which is important that from the intel perspective the foreign fighter problem and the isis prisoners in that part of syria for as much attention for us the last couple of years obviously we are pushing very hard as a country to get partners to repatriate. There are tremendous issues with judicial systems with european partner countries. And as i mentioned to be concerned we can see many foreign fighters again. So to buy a metrically enrolling so i am quite pleased with that. Similarly to be fabulous partners over the years with a tremendous cost there is a willingness to provide information to us that are responsible in the way they are focusing on prisons that they drew down substantially with the turkish incursion so for us the greatest concern is a retention of those prisoners and not seeing the foreign fighters. So do you have a level of confidence that biometrics that people have been detained so the people have those metrics quick. The followup probably dont know exactly who these people are. There was movement of prisoners two different prisoners the expectation was to have the knowledge a very specific individuals and what was up keeping with that was can be problematic but we did get biometrics on virtually all foreign fighter components in the case of iraqis in syria. Not quite as comprehensive but that those individuals are more likely to stay in theater. So talk as you mentioned early on concerns about iranian and has balaam. And then to see a sharp uptick and insensitivity in the region and just this week that they fled guilty with surveillance of jewish targets in the United States with one individual convicted third who has been indicted. How does the Community Look at the issue of extremist terrorism in the context of the uptick. The bureau works hard in the United States we can see these periodic threats. I think frankly the uptick of activity in the region is a greater concern to us with the thoughts of a Pressure Campaign the hairtrigger and the activity of the shia militia groups in particular that will bear close in the years ahead. And finally before i open it up to questions of the audience i want to hold together your thought racially and ethnically extremist on the one hand and your points on social media because the growth is so dependent on the other. Do you think government needs to play a greater role in regulating the social media of the private sector cracks i led a small group out to california a few months ago and we came back that there are some things which the private sector and social media was doing incredibly good day forward leaning book so for some platforms the issue free speech it is taken much more strongly than others. And some for hate which is even more so in that it is inconsistent is a problem with the industry to self regulate. I think the government has to be really careful with the point of transparency and terms of service are the province of the individual and as you say some are far more forward leaning more are willing to engage with the government i think its fair to say that platforms themselves are struggling with once you get outside the realm of the isis association for al qaeda association makes them harder to train their algorithms and i hope there is a growing conversation related to the space and how do you do that . Theres a lot of constitution one conversations about where you can go and these individuals are pretty savvy within staying in the legal bounds of the First Amendment and we are in new territory. The strategic picture is there has been tremendous growth in the conversation between the government and the companies with much more forward leaning. Its great to hear you acknowledge every time you talk about a former Government Official that we are seen by many as the source of this extremist ideology of late that we have seen others that are responsible for that and a significant amount of anger and frustration that we have legal restrictions how we can deal with that. That clearly the fbi and doj realm so to engage with partners is there something you would like us to have domestically to deal specifically with the transnational aspect if you find that transnational threat it comes back to the United States in some way from pursuing that quick. The government is stealing its way forward cautious about the way i talk about the nature of those connections and what they mean. There are some that very much want to designate overseas organizations. We will have to be really careful about that we have seen some examples most recently about entities about ukraine or those that would like to designate that entity and because of that because of the Ukrainian National guard the potential for unintended consequences we can make the situation worse if we are not careful that is they are so we have to go slowly to understand the problem. Thank you. And of the foreign fighters in syria and in northeastern syria as well so what is your assessment of the risk knowing that in 2007 and then the emerging years later so i just have these threats from iraq and syria in the region. In six years ago isis was 1000 individuals from iraq and syria the bottom line is 14000 it is higher than that mostly iraq and syria but they recognize the end of the caliphate was coming a couple years ago so they were moving toward the insurgent orientation so given what they did six years ago now potentially only eight or 9000 and there was a radio thing that he called for that so i think the expectation is it will do nothing but grow. In terms of activity on the ground there are some no go areas at night and we see flags and sharia is implemented. And the insurgency is alive and kicking i dont see the function for why they get better it requires a combination of both military pressure and dealing with the entire demand side of the equation. It with a long term disenfranchisement so in that regard there is a lot of work to do. I come from egypt. I am a politician to issues. Number one how do you see this happening in sinai . Is it a kind of revenge and a result of security thats not working there cracks whereby the army is mobilizing the troops and also a close cooperation with israel. How do you see this . Is it those that somehow are not belonging anymore . Or do you believe in for those who are in prison as a member of the systemic groups especially the youngest do you believe there is a real chance for them to change their beliefs so they could refrain from violence and to be integrated again cracks this is a case of the same social economic problem what chances do you think . Thank you. There is both an isis and al qaeda presence in sinai. To test your question there is the underlying cause is issue we have seen the element in sinai has sworn allegiance so we have existing terror cells conducting attacks in the northern part of sinai. Unfortunately globally we are seeing prisons be incubators for radicalization of terrorism i dont think anyone has broken the code of individuals of United States prisons our European Partners had this problem in spades and because the prison sentences around the cusp to see hundreds of thousands of people come out that were very radicalized or not when they went in but we have a lot of work to do but there have been debates about put all these prisoners together or break them up the European Partners are going back and forth with this there is not a lot of Success Stories of people coming out prison if not the radicalized at least disengaged. George mason university. One of the points you made was the intersection of National Crime intelligence but of your strategy you didnt talk about ways to utilize the analysis or those interactions with Network Analysis with one side that may be more vulnerable. I mentioned i did a couple years at the nsc and i actually went there with the goal and it seems to me that if you bring a government together and give access to information with that analysis we go a little bit in that direction right now there is a belief we want to do similar work in the transnational criminal base like terrorist identities that would be a very good idea if we catalog them with intersections of terrorism as knowing that they want to come to the country but there are still lots of issues because transNational Crime is stressed further so we have a long way to go of how we consolidate those efforts. Thank you. From aei he opened by starting discussions about risk that we are facing now toward the great competition as we refocus across the government away from the terrorism threat if not having witnessed another 9 11 attack. The challenges that you layout include interagency coordination and focus. The focus how we have the whole government approach to counterterrorism and i want to ask outside that realm can you discuss the risks relying only on that strategy and how that matches up with the country or a regionwide strategy that produce what you are working against. In my opinion that strategy last year was a good exemplar how the government is working together is not just about capture and kill there is a focus on prevention working with locals and the same multinational which is the right thing to do. But the question with followthrough the notion of terrorism prevention has played a significant role in three out of four strategies since 9 11 we havent made a lot of progress and i think its fair to say there will be a tremendous challenge with some of these groups in africa and how that relates to the exit strategy and what we do with Foreign Development so that will continue to be a significant challenge. Do you see more today than last week and are you surprised by the Propaganda Campaign to show how the locals are supporting him . And second where does the counterterrorism strategy moving to the great power strategy do you see any great powers are starting to manipulate or use a terrorist group as a proxy just to make things more difficult for the us quick. On the first i think this plays out largely that we saw the announcement and then the new guy get named and the call for retaliatory text and eulogies and we saw the branches and the networks star movement. This is very similar to what happens back in 2010 with a substantial period of time of what came out with aku bakr albaghdadi and the recognition of who he actually was mentioned on the hill that our view was a logical candidate for taking over but we are not at a point to have that combination of who it is but this is an added dimension to the problem that i did mention but we have to work our way through certainly there are examples of the russian states exploiting issues to play to the right wing and how we deal with that its an interesting question with counterterrorism and get those issues associated so we have to work that with the bureau of counterintelligence. If you have an opportunity to work with the russians when it comes to counterterrorism can you count on not everybody in the region sees it as a threat as we do so had a tie majority forces on the ground like turkey or syria or russia have a different privatization how is that different with other partners quick. Yes in the turks will profess interest in counterterrorism that their concern is far less and so this harkens back to the issue of prisons and who takes them over and you think they would not be interested in holding the european foreign fighters. So the emphasis we have had on our partners for a long time will be challenged. Thank you. You touched on turkey a little bit they announced yesterday with a foreign fighters over the next 24 hours you touched on the European Partners and the lack of willingness to take people back. I dont know the answer to the question but what we have seen from our European Partners is some concern they stopped stripping citizens are how this kabuki dance will shake out. Concentrating in the middle east and right now in the hemisphere to have massive riots with the connection and the Iranian Affairs do you see a connection there or we just wait and see what happens. I dont have anything to say i do more regional bureaus. Here in the back. Are you seeing any evidence of outright Russian Support with these roshan leave email motivated violent extremist or other types of activities quick. Not that i have seen but those schisms that can cause a Greater Movement in that direction. You mentioned finance but the georgetown students and my clients on in my class so can you comment on the continued efficacy recently its been a lot generally have sanctions are effective in general that how effective or important do you see that counter finance tool quick. It has demonstrated success in the past the history of a lot of terrorist attacks it doesnt cost a lot of money so what they found was small amounts of money that was donated. Thats back to the single noise problem with trillions of dollars sloshing around to identify the money going to a particular individual to implicate what i talk about there are a lot of regulations that go along to co mingle and that makes it difficult for treasury or the bureau at large to track money. Whether talking about the attacks but the fact that if i think back to the way things were with the fbi in the 19 nineties when it comes to these defenders they are largely irrelevant with travel communications and financial transfers. So what are the greatest challenges operationally and how do we accommodate quack. Every western Country Services that precise problem uk highlights given their attacks at the time they did a review from London Bridge and concluded there was like 30000 subjects of interest on the brady radar screen at one point in the conclusion one is at any given time they could do 27 20 for seven surveillance of a few or an investigation of thousands and a lot more would have to sit, something that came in would cause them to be higher on the priority so then the question is how do you identify identify. So you know you have to allocate your resources . They gets back to technology with the approach that we are taking right now the ability to do a recurrent search against any individual who may be on screen but also that so many of these people we find will resurface several years later and we have a workforce that comes and goes so the issue of Knowledge Management to effectively download i think technology can help with that to look at every individual. Not because there isnt progress in those achievements of you and your colleagues but so then i just ask you if there are 20 times more potential bad guys are be 20 times better than we were before 9 11 . Or are we worse off than we wore on september 10th quick. That is a perfectly fair question. The strategic concern that i have is there are far more radicalized people than there were 18 years ago. Are those of primary concern but not be perceived that currently dont have and to see in the heyday of al qaeda but to ensure we dont freeze our thinking. What will this look like Going Forward if we start to pull back the counterterrorism target . And so the nature of the threat in theater or to the homeland and may be the threat will stay local as the director of the fbi talks about this encryption problem. That will make it a much harder problem which means we need to be there. There is a tremendous amount of good news and we need to recognize this effort has to continue. That the way you said things were looking can you help us dig deeper on that . With what you have seen so far . With that type of object one and that it changed from considered unlikely . Could you give us a more granular estimate quick. To a degree it was normalized and iraq with what isis was able to do we have seen numerous plots interrupted around the globe there is a tremendous amount of concern with the ease of which poison gases could be developed and for many of my colleagues given the past history al qaeda flirted with it 15 years ago we never saw that operationalized. Isis goes and easier route to develop those capabilities and there are those instructions and the nature of that threat. To we mentioned in your opening remarks about continuing to focus children so what about terrorist organizations and how they are doing that as well as the radicalization efforts such as iraq and syria. This is getting a tremendous amount of attention from European Partners who had it much worse than we do. Children were born in the caliphate their fathers may have been killed and europeans are struggling with what do they do . And then to talk about bringing women and children back with the social Services Issue of how you deal with these kids and what kind of mental shape they will be in is an area of concern. We have heard a lot of the Islamic State over the years were recently like the aku bakr albaghdadi raid or extremism. And to be used by researchers as well. And then isis can be predictive merit comes next. We have a general who talked about the strategic surprise that caught us with the sunrise vices when that jv league became so much more. And with those big mobilizations and we are doing well with resources elsewhere. If we could learn in the near future. I do think the next couple of years are likely to be very interesting we discussed this all the time that when the caliphate was declared and taking over a large swath of territory so isis is a learning organization and in my own mind i wonder if they would be content with inducting a prolonged insurgency to stay on the ground to avoid the pressure they absorbed from the coalition the last couple years but nobody knows. That the more we drive down that we siphon those resources off in the greater the likelihood is if we dont understand that dynami dynamic. Okay one last question with the concept of terrorism and the process of the information with International Partners and with those national interest. That gets into a wonky answer but things like the houthis is with state support and what we are finding within our community is the counterterrorism effort was put together for many years. Inquiries is having on the rnc campaign efforts