Homeland security adviser to president obama. At this event hosted by the Texas Tribune festival. Thank you, evan. I thank all of you for being here. This is at the university of texas. A couple of quick reminders. This will be 60 minutes total but we are going to leave plenty of time for questions. We already know some of you have some questions you want to ask our, no kidding, allstar panel here. Secondly, in previous sessions at the festival, we have heard some very interesting ring tones. We would not like to hear any more of those interesting ring tones. Please remember to silence your phones. If you do want to take pictures, take videos, et cetera, and tweet them, yes, tribfest19 is how youll do that. Well take questions at the end. The microphone will be passed around. If you want to get the attention of the microphone, please look around as we move to that portion of the program. Quickly, im david priess, chief operating officer of lawfare. I worked in counterterror at cia both before and after 9 11. Now revisiting the terrorism issue from a different perspective. Im here to bring out the best expertise and insight from our four panelists. Bobby chesney is one of the three cofounders of lawfare who served on the president s policy Detention Task force. Now james a. Baker iii chair at university of texas where he also directs the robert s. Strauss center. Mary mccord has been the acting assistant attorney general for National Security, the Principal Deputy assistant attorney general for National Security and for, what, 20 years before that a u. S. Assistant u. S. Attorney. Shes now legal director at the institute for constitutional add voe scatcy and protection and visiting professor of law at Georgetown University law center. Lisa monaco. Lisa was Homeland Security and terrorism adviser to president barack obama and attorney general for National Security and chief of staff at the fbi to then director robert mueller. Whatever happened to him . Shes now the cochair of Data Security and Privacy Group and teaches National Security law at new yorks University School of law and also a senior National Security analyst at cnn. Last and certainly not least, nick rasmussen, he was director of the National Counterterrorism center, or nctc, after serving in government positions in both george w. Bush and barack obama administrations. Hes now senior director for National Security and counterterrorism programs at the Mccain Institute for National Leadership and with Sandra Day Oconnor center of law. Thats a lot of background and experience to bear on this issue confronting us today. Lets start off with laying the stage. Bobby, what is domestic terrorism and what statutes do we have to help address it. The first thing to understand is we grapple with the definition of domestic terrorism there can be and often is a difference between what we might describe as the ordinary common sense definition or sense of the phrase and what particular legal definitions there might be. So, lets just start with the common sense understanding which is usually described as Something Like the following. Illegal acts of violence were the mental state of the person conducting the act or the intept is to have a coherselves ive effect on government policy and or to intimidate or terrorize a civilian population. Theres this motivation that distinguishes it from pecuniary. What makes it domestic instead of terrorism in general would be where the nature of the threat actor doesnt have a substantial foreign tie. The plots not emanating in the form of direction and control or development of the plot, et cetera, from abroad. That is to say simply, it is one of us doing it here. That is the common sense understanding. As for how its spoken about in statutes, thats where it gets kind of tricky. Therein lies a lot of our Current Issues in this area. At the federal level, we have a variety of what we might describe as generic Violent Crime statutes, killing of a federal official, for example, but then we have a slice of federal criminal law thats specific to terrorism. You can find it in title 18 of u. S. Code, subchapter 113b. Theres a whole laundry list of all these offenses there. Most of them are International Terrorism focus. Thats the area where the federal government plays the lead role. It is widely believed and said we dont have a domestic terrorism federal statute. Its true we dont have one labeled as such. I think well talk as a panel if thats an important gap that needs to be closed simply for the symbolic purpose and follows from the symbolism. Its also the case that some of the terrorism statutes in title 18 do apply to domestic terrorism scenarios. If the question is when can the federal government get involved in charging, if its a terrorist attack thats 350purely domesti but involves explosives or attacks on certain types of targets, transportation hubs, in those scenarios, terrorism statutes can be charged in those scenarios. The practical gap, theres two. Guns and other forms of violence like edged weapons used in a vehicle that dont involve explosives. Domestic terrorism using the motte common method of attack would be guns. Thats not covered at the federal level unless some other approach triggers it. Secondly, you may have heard of the Material Support statute. It gets complicated because theres more than one. The one everyone has heard of is like an embargo that flat out prohibits, tangible or intangible to a foreign sdeg nation thats been formally designated as such. Whether any of these gaps should be closed is a separate question well talk about. Quickly, you mentioned federal, federal, federal. For an issue where theres a murder using a vehicle on, a gun or edged weapons, states will prosecute that. Its not domestic terrorists are running away theres no scenario that involves an act of violence that will not violate general Purpose State laws. In our most most recent tragedy in el paso, here in texas, there is capital murder charges have been filed by the da in el paso. Doesnt matter if we cant file a domestic terrorism charge in order to seek the Death Penalty in that case. Might matter for other reasons. Going back to previous cases of Mass Violence in the United States, theres been a lot of talk after almost every single one. Lisa monaco, you wrote recently that regarding domestic terrorism. Its time to turn from talk to action and confront this threat. What specifically do you have in mind . What should be done to fill some of these gaps that bobby mentioned or address other elements of domestic terrorism. Thanks for mentioning that piece i wrote with ken, who had my same rule in the white house as Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser for president george w. Bush. That piece we wrote was really about calling on all of us, political leaders, citizens, to put aside political tribe, put aside the partisanship and do our duty, is how we put it, to focus on the most urgent threats we have as a nation. Domestic terrorism, gun violence, mass terrorism, russian attacks where ken and i feel we need more bipartisanship. So domestic terrorism in particular, i think theres a few things we should do. One, we need to call it by its name. We need to call it out. Here i would cite a good move by the department of Homeland Security just last week in issuing a strategy paper that says, in quite clear language, from the department of Homeland Security, domestic terrorism and mass attacks are as great a threat as foreigndirected terrorism, foreign terrorism. Gwynn the headlines and incredible tragedy that communities like el paso and dayton and others have faced, that seems apparent but it hasnt been said. It hasnt been said enough, certainly by the federal government and experts at the federal level. We have to call it out. I think we also need to put it on the same priority list. We have to put it on the same plane as foreign terrorism. Which is not to say we should be ignoring or downgrading our approach and our focus on foreign directed terrorism. I expect theres a lot of unanimity on this panel on that score but we need to kind of reprioritize or recalibrate how were thinking about domestic terrorism. With that follows resources, focus, leadership, which gets to one of the things i think we really need to do. One is pass a domestic terrorism statute. Mary has written exceptionally eloquently about this. Doing that i think will apply the same moral to acts of violence directed with the intent to intimidate a civilian population, the same moral for foreign directed terrorism. Pass a domestic terrorism statute. We also need to restore the job of the Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser in the white house. That role, the one i had, has been downgraded. The person who serves in the now downgraded function of that job, i think, has been put into witness protection after he had to make a statement about the whole sharpiegate there still is a position there. It just doesnt report directly to the president like you did. Correct. Theres a position. Theyre calling it the Homeland Security adviser. Hes been downgraded within the structure. What does that mean . Is this all just bureaucratic baloney . No. Heres why. When i was in that role, the idea was, and president bush started this, quite rightly and i think quite smartly, to have one person operating at the most senior level in the white house whois job it was to focus 24 7, wake up want on the next foreign leader or next engagement but on threats to the homeland and report directly and immediately, and i can tell you i did, which is why president obama gave me the nickname dr. Doom, because every time i saw him, i was bringing him bad news. Dr structure matters and how you spend your time matters. I met with him every morning in the oval office and briefed him on terrorism threats, cyber threats, you name it. Terrorism was always at the top of the list. I think it matters. It means theres focus in the white house, at the top, leadership level. It means you have someone in the white house that can convene the cabinet, which i could do, operating at the top with direct empowerment from the president of the United States, to coordinate our response to terrorism events in this country and abroad, to coordinate policy. You need to have that responsibility resonant in one person. We can talk about other things, i think, need to be done like funding for community and Grassroots Efforts to kind of intervene, gun reform, you name it. Lets go back to the statutory side. If any of you in the last couple of years have read or heard anything about the need for a domestic terrorism statute at the federal level, it was probably attached to the name mary mccord. Here here. You have been beating this drum for a while, including after the most recent attacks. Tell us what specifically do you have in mind . What would a federal domestic terrorism statute have and whats the benefit of doing it . Sure. I was thinking about this, and i think lisa was with me holding the role before i was even over there in a similar role, but as an acting. We were thinking a lot about domestic terrorism and whether there was a gap that needed to be filled. But i left the government in may 2017. August 12, 2017, most of you in this room probably recall the unite the right rally in charlottesville, virginia, which ended with a vehicular attack, a domestic terrorism attack by james field who rammed his vehicle into a group of counterprotesters killing heather heyer. And this is the same kind of terrorism weve seen in europe and other places on baffle of other foreign terrorist organizations by isis for the last couple of years. The vehicle had become almost a weapon of choice in a lot of the attacks in europe. That was the uk, france, germany, elsewhere. And so i immediately wrote about it that very next day to say we have a gap in our statutes because if this person, james fields in charlottesville, had pledged to the leader of isis before he committed his attack, just like if the shooter in el paso had pledged that right before his attack, i can guarantee you either or boat of them would be charged with crimes of terrorism. International terrorism for attempting to commit that attack on behalf of a foreign terrorist organization. We have a double standard. As lisa mentioned, crimes in our country are our societys way of expressing their condemnation for activity. Its beyond what is permissible in a society of laws. And of the rule of law. And so there is that moral equivalency that we need to have, i think, in the way we approach terrorism. But beyond that, because people will say to me, all right, so is it just semantics . Is it just moral equivalency . A lot comes from that. Its really important. One thing is that people right now, i think, oftentimes in the u. S. Heard the word terrorism and they immediately think islamist extremist, think jihad, think 9 11. People need to know what a threat is because you have to make decisions in your daily life. Im not suggesting we go around scared to be in public for fear of terrorism. But you need to know what the threat is. So you can appreciate and understand the efforts our Law Enforcement and government put forward to combat that threat. And the way you as Community Members can be aware of the threat and looking out for things you might see in your own community. I mean, we know in the area of International Terrorism that in as many as 70 of the cases, there was somebody, a bystander, a family member, coach, friend, religious leader, a mentor, who saw something going wrong in that persons life before they decided to commit a terrorist act. The same thing holds true when were talking about ideologically motivated attacks that are not based on a foreign torist organization but on ideologies extremist ideologies. Whether its white supremacist ideology, which we know is the most lethal ideology when it comes to terrorist attacks and deaths in the u. S. It has been that way for a few years. Or whether its Animal Rights extremism or anarchist extremism. When you commit an act of violence to intimidate or coerce is terrorism. Right now, youll hear this a lot, there are 51 crimes that would apply to domestic terrorism but those are very specific, as bobby indicated. It would involve use of explosives or attack on u. S. Property or u. S. Government officials. Theres no crime with use of a weapon to intimidate or coerce if its not tied to a foreign terrorist organization. Same with a vehicle. Theres also no crime that would apply to stockpiling weapons, intending them to be used in committing a mass shooting for ideological purposes and in order to intimidate or coerce. As ive conceived of a statute and ive talked with a lot of people on capitol hill, ive talked with civil rights and Civil Liberties groups, ive talked with the privacy and Civil Liberties board. Ive been trying to talk to as many people as i can about this to try to see if we cant have a proposal that sort of satisfies all the concerns. So, the basic outline of this would be that youre criminalizing already things that can be but when done with the intent to intimidate or coerce or influence policy of government, this would be and when done in the United States or u. S. Territories, this would be terrorism within the territorial jurisdiction of the u. S. I say that instead of domestic terrorism because it would also apply to a terrorist attack on behalf of isis or al qaeda. The whole point is its this crime of violence in the u. S. To intimidate or coerce. That would also form not only a predicate for Law Enforcement to aggressively use the types of tools theyve used to combat International Terrorism. We can talk about those. Thats like online, undercover personas, sting operations, things people criticize as being too aggressive. I understand that. Those are aimed at prevention. It gives Law Enforcement more of a predicate. They can do some of that now. When they know this is the statute that theyre predicating their investigation on, it gives them a route thats more direct as opposed to calling it Something Else in order to use those tools. It would also allow for the crimin criminalization of stockpiling weapons knowing those are to be used in committing a crime of terrorism within the u. S. Jurisdictions. Thats probably more complicated than we want to get into here, what would involve in amending to do that. U. S. Coast guard lieutenant was recently raysed for spotockpili an arsenal of assault rifles and other weapons and had written extensively about his fouryear plan where he would be accumulating weapons, accumulating targets and ultimately commit a series of Mass Shootings intent on creating a white ethno state. Because there was no applicable federal crime, he was charged with possession of a silencer, which is unlawful, Unlawful Possession of drugs because he happened to have drugs also in his home and Unlawful Possession of a firearm by a drug addict, because he had drugs in his home. So, these are all fiveyear offenses, a maximum of five years. We would call them fairly minor offenses. Those of us who are prosecutors. And so the magistrate judge ruling on whether to detain mr. Hassan prior to trial said, im not going to be able to detain him. You have not charged him with a crime of violence. The u. S. Government appealed that to the District Court who said i will detain him. Its a serious concern when you have somebody so intent to commit a mass attack, causing Mass Violence that there was very little to charge him on. I know we need to move on. People say about what about hate crimes . You heard the u. S. Attorney after el paso say, to his credit, were investigating this like domestic terrorism, but his next breath was, so well look into charging him with a hate crime. Why is that . Because he didnt have a terrorism offense to point to. Tree of life synagogue shooter in pittsburgh has been charged with federal hate crimes. Hate crimes arent going to completely fill that gap. They sort of serve a slightly different role within our criminal justice scheme. We can talk more about that if people are interested. Its one option that is a fruitful option and good option but doesnt completely fill that gap. Theres the statutory side and also the mechanics of government. Immense amounts of money and resources are dedicated to terrorism in the federal government, especially countering it. And yet we have nick here, who ran the National Counterterrorism center for three years, was its deputy for 3 1 2 years before that and has said publicly that absolutely none of that time was directly focused on domestic terrorism. Nick, how do we understand that . How does the public understand how the National Counterterrorism center wasnt focused on this threat . As david pointed out, im the nonlawyer of the bunch here. I would fully subscribe to this set of comments made before me that talk about we need a better legal framework. As a practical matter, the way our government approaches the set of domestic terrorism challenges is different than International Terrorism. A couple of things happened that brought that home to me. When i would go abroad and meet with my counterparts from other countries and i would think about international versus domestic terrorism, they would look at me as if i was bringing some lexicon to the table that made no sense to them because they didnt make any division or create any such divide. They simply talked about terrorism and the kinds of terrorisms. Why were you americans complicating this, was the sense i took away from them, by thinking about it in two different ways . When i thought about the tree of life synagogue mass car that mary referred to, i thought how are my friends and colleagues in the white house responding when an event happens. I knew from my long time in the situation room, sitting alongside mary and lisa, i knew exactly how we would have kicked and swung into action had it been an individual tied to isis or al qaeda. We would have had the cia, the defense department, the state department, the treasury department, every National Security agency you can think of would have been around the table with us, trying to figure out what piece of this can we help solve or address. On the other hand, as soon as that person is identified as being a domestic terrorist and not in any way linked to an isis or al qaeda, all of the rest of us in a metaphorical sense pushed ourselves back to the table and looked to the right and said, fbi, over to you. And it it becomes simply an fbi matter to treat as a Law Enforcement set of challenges. I dont say that in any way of being critical of my friends and colleagues at the fbi. We tend to leave them alone on the Playing Field when dealing with this set of issues. To their credit, theyre amping up their game, ramping up their game against this set of officials. Youve seen fbi officials in testimony talk about that. I think the rest of the government may need to catch up in terms of its ability to credibility to solutions on this domestic terrorism just to fill in that part, nick, why is it important to have a whole of government approach in that area. Well, because, again, one of the things weve learned since 9 11 that no one tool in the tool box is actually sufficient to deal with any of our National Security problems. Certainly not terrorism. We couldnt bomb or fight our way out of our International Terrorism problems, nor could we spend our way out of it with foreign aid. All needed to be pieces. Intelligence was part of the equation. The same is true with domestic terrorism. Mary rightly pointed out the department of Homeland Security has, i think, stepped up its game, at least rhetorically with the document last week that acting secretary mackcaleenan t says the department of Homeland Security will be approaching this set of domestic terrorism issues with renewed urgency and a sense of real prioritization. The question is, will that follow with resources and programs and personnel and dollars, all of the things that us bureaucrats use as metrics to find out if youre really serious about something. Then i thought about my own organization, the National Counterterrorism center, david, not to dodge your question, i thought all of that effort and energy that went into creating the nctt after 9 11, and it was explicitly told focus overseas, on the International Terrorism problem and living where we live today makes no sense. Why would you have your premiere Counterterrorism Organization with some of the best minds and access to the best information on terrorism. Related matters and wall them off from this set of terrorism concerns that we would agree is at the top now. You go around to American Communities right now, including in texas, sure, you are right to be worried about an individual inspired by isis or al qaeda. That threat is still very much out there. The far more pressing and proximate threat is that posed by individuals motivated by white supremacist ideology and hatebased ideology like antisemitism or Something Like that. Bringing nctc into the game alongside fbi, alongside Homeland Security. Isnt a panacea. Doesnt mean the good guys are here and well fix the problem but it comes closer to what you said, whole of government solution. Last point on whole of government solutions. If youre talking about dealing with this set of challenges, whole of government always means the department of health and Human Services because of their capacity to bring mental services, and department of Homeland Security because clearly some of this is happening in our schools, including middle schools and high schools. Whole of government is what you ought to be demanding of your government, whether democratic or republican, and i think thats what some of us on stage have been talking about. Let me go beyond government. Back to you, lisa. Youve written about the importance of getting buyin and cooperation and working with social Media Companies to talk about the environment that breeds domestic terrorism. How could we build on that model of working together within the government, sometimes well, sometimes not, but build on those successes to improve that relationship with the private sector . Yeah. So, theres so many of the same threads that all of us in our decades of experience have seen in the International Terrorism front, in the fight against yd, the fight against isis that are now migrates and have migrated to the domestic terrorism front. The online space is a perfect example. The individuals are getting radicalized the same way in the domestic terrorism context the way they have, and weve seen for years, with regard to isis. When i served in the white house and was working so closely with mary and nick and others, we were really focused on this problem of individuals radicalizing online and then the nearest wolf at the door was isis. Isis literally abusing social media platforms which was, of course, designed to promote free speech, free community, free expression, et cetera. Its literally being abused and turned to a completely opt purpose by radicalizing and inspiring individuals to violence and to spew hate and inspire actual attacks. Were seeing that exact same phenomenon now in the domestic terrorism context. And it makes sense when you think of how much time we all spend online. Weve all heard lone wolf terrorists. Whether theyre inspired by white supremacy, et cetera, theyre looking for community and finding that community, unfortunate, in a hatefilled place online. How do we combat that . We have to work with those who know those platforms best. Thats what we found in the isis example. We also found government was not the best messenger when it came to try to counter messages of violence and hate, whether from isis or from the klukk. That starts with trust with governmental agencies, Law Enforcement Intelligence Community and social Media Companies. Weve seen social Media Companies do a better job at policing and moderating content from groups like isis and taking that off platform, sharing information with the government to make sure that that information is coming down from places like facebook and twitter. We need to have them do the same thing when it comes to violent extreme and inspiration that comes from domestic grievances. Thats easier to say and a lot harder to do. Its a lot more complicated when it comes to domestic grievances inspiring individuals to violence. It should be, quite frankly, because we live in a country that prioritizes and protects free speech so it is i dont say this to minimize how complicated it is but we first need to agree that its a problem worth solving. Im going to do something that as a moderator is difficult. Im going to both get personal and try to generate tension among the panelists. Bobby, working at the university, youre working closely with the Lyndon Johnson Public School of public affairs. But in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered. Mary made a great case earlier about a federal domestic terrorism statute and what it should include. What are the dangers in legislation that are, perhaps, rushed through, even though thats hard to imagine when weve debated it this long, but what harm could come from an illadvised federal domestic terrorism statute . When you started off with an lbj quote i was a little nervous because some are a little offcolor. Yeah, yeah. But that was all right. So, i think what marys talking about, not surprisingly, is very sensible and well considered. But that doesnt mean thats what would get enacted. If we want to forecast what could go wrong at the federal level, a couple possibilities. I will channel some of the feedback i sometimes get when i talk about the same ideas. Youll hear pushback from various quarters. One concern in federalism, as weve pointed out. Were not talking about things where stuff isnt criminalized. There are usually some federal statutes, but always state statutes. Theres a question that makes people nervous from the seemingly uneasy expansion of federal law and therefore the federal jurisdiction in some cases. I think that concern is a little overstated here. Although there are other context about why federal law should supercede the choices of state. Thats a different topic. The bigger question is unlikely to materialize but we occasionally hear members of congress mention this as a possibility. In my remarks i mentioned that with foreign terrorist organizations, one of the most powerful materials we have is the material statute. We designate some terrorist organizations as such and at that point it gives it a crime to give any aid to them and to become a member of the group is subject to the groups control. Its banning the organization. And if if you were to do anything like that at the domestic level, youre the policy can of worms, the pandoras box youre opening up by doing so is best envisioned simply by imagining we have a domestic organizational ban mechani mechanism. Now imagine someone who has the opposite ideological and political commitments you have and they have this tool. Is it possible they might start banning groups that you think its outrageous theyre banned . As you say, as lbj warned, some things are possible we might not want to see happen. I was testifying in congress about this on tuesday and the senate Homeland Security committee by the way, i want to put a plug in for that committee taking a very bipartisan, nonpolitically, highly functional approach to this. I went to washington, yall, and it was okay. But you came back quickly. I got back as quickly as i could. But did you use yall . Oh, always. Always. So, i seen no sign were going to go there, but every now and then it comes up. There are people who say, fill in the blank ought to be designated. Lets not go there. Its exactly those concerns that complicate the job i was just talking about when it comes to online the online space. How do you one Persons Organization or category of speech that is offensive to one and odious to many people be perfectly acceptable within a free speech context. Mary, youve thought about this. You thought about that intersection between good legislation, bad legislation and the risks, the dangers, the First Amendment concerns, the freedom of association concerns. Talk through that. How do you respond to somebody who says this is too hard to get that mix right . Bobby was being very kind. I can create the tension myself because ive had it with a lot of in a lot of other conversations. First of all, to be clear, nothing ive been writing about or suggesting would designate these domestic grid. You dont think most lawyers think thats a bad idea. The First Amendment challenges would probably be insurmountable. If you surmounted them, you would be left with a small fraction of organizations, basically only an organization that designates with violence. It would be pretty easy for an organization to say, oh, no, we do all these other things, too. Because hateful speech, is protected by the First Amendment. Violence is not. Incitement to imminent violence is not. With social media, where do you draw that line between what somebody might be saying over the internet that is horrible that probably everyone in this room would agree with, it is horrible and hateful, if it doesnt incite imminent violence its probably protected. To go back to the things ive been talking about in terms of a federal statute, ive met with a lot of the civil rights and civil liberty groups because, ill be frank, theyre opposed to it. Theyre opposed to it for one significant reason. Thats the distrust in Law Enforcement. Theyre worried if theres another statute created that the fbi and over Law Enforcement will abuse that statute and, frankly, target their resources to things that could be labeled a threat but are not the real threat were facing right now in america. Certainly, historically, there have been instances of that happening, particularly in communities of color and vulnerable populations. I think were all probably aware of those abuses. And i think its a legitimate concern. I dont downplay it for one minute. So, my question then when im talking to civil rights and Civil Liberties groups is how do we ameliorate that risk . One thing ive suggested is not just congressional oversight but public oversight. So yearly reporting by fbi, by dhs to congress, public, open. Theres no reason to make this classified of the number of terrorist investigations theyre opening. Are they resulting in criminal charges . The number they close, by category, islamic extremist terrorism, white racially motivated terrorism, Animal Rights terrorism, anarchist extremism. The categories that would allow the American Public and congress to see Law Enforcement, are you putting your resources toward the actual threat . Are they comens rat with the threat . If they open 100 cases of terrorism and 90 are animal white and 10 are white extremism, we know theres something really wrong here. Another possibility that is in congressman schiffs bill is to have the Oversight Board review the use of this statute within a period of time thats enough for them to have some sort of data to collect. Right now we have really horrible data. The best we have are from the antidefamation league, southern poverty law center, maybe some of you at strauss. Its not from governmental agencies because theres no clear reporting of it. Private and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has been used in the recent years to, frankly, usually to review surveillance programs and other programs and give it a good, hard look. Its a bipartisan committee. I met with their staffers recently. They look really hard at what are the privacy and civil liberty concerns of this program . Is it being administered, you know, correctly and legally and what could what could be done to provide more transparency to the American Public about how these authorities are being used. Thats another possibility. I also sometimes hear about the possible creep into a new statute unlocking additional authorities. Sometimes i think people are actually thinking foreign intelligence authorities. But right now when were talking about crimes occurring in the United States, were talking about criminal tools. Criminal tools that already exist. Things like, you know, undercover operations, sting operations, search warrants, title 3 warrants when predicated, subpoenas, the same kind of things Law Enforcement use to investigate other crimes. So, it doesnt create any new investigative tools. It would merely allow those tools to be used. They can be used already in furtherance of domestic terrorism but it would make a better fit. Right now were trying to fit square pegs into round holes when it comes to what Law Enforcement is driving towards. Well turn to questions in a moment. Nick, i want you to reflect on that. Theres a sliver of good news. There is room for bipartisan Common Ground on this set of issues. I like mary have had serious conversations with hill staffers from both sides of the aisle. Like bobby, there have been hearings in which you can see Common Ground. There are democrats and republicans who want to find ways to improve our statutory framework. This is not like the gun issue in that regard in which theres a real problemsolving sense. There are real problems and mary ticked through the problems and the ways you might kind of manage those problems. But at least its a real debate among people who generally want to get to a set of solutions that will put us in a position to use these crimes of violence, which we said at the beginning, it doesnt make sense to call these normal crimes of violence when theyre, in fact, carried out on behalf of a hateful ideology. One other thing, nick, while we have you. One of the unheralded successes of the National Counterterrorism is the interaction with state, local and tribal entities on issues there was previously a large gap on. Were sitting here in texas. What could the federal government be doing to build on the successes of nctc and applying it to domestic terrorism issues . Again, that radicalization process we talked about earlier in the conversation, we spent a lot of time and energy and resources looking at how that process unfolded when a young man or young woman was becoming, in a sense, recruited, radicalized and mobilized by a group like al qaeda or isis. We learned over time that process you be folds in the same way. More or less the same way when it involves a person who is acting on behalf of a white supremacist or hatebased ideology like that. So, theres a lot of learning that has gone on in the federal government. That learning can be shared with state and local Law Enforcement and doesnt have to be burdened by concerns about classification or this is too top secret to be shared. A lot of this is pure social science. It puts us in a position where communities can become the first line of defense, which is what needs to happen. It is communities who will find they see, appreciate, understand and can predict where these incidents will happen long before federal Law Enforcement. Again, thats not a slam against fbi or a federal Law Enforcement capabilities. These individuals grow up around us in our communities. We are the ones most likely to need to be equipped with the knowledge where we can say, wait a minute, that appears to be amiss. That person is headed in a bad direction. If that happens, we can use tools that kick in before the crime and the tools you use before the crime are the ones you want to be using. Jim comey used to say, if im involved, its already too late. Were now talking about someone being charged with a crime. You usually cant back your way out of charging someone with a crime. Ideally youy to the point where you can offramp or divert someone who may be consuming hateful ideology but they havent gotten to the point of picking up a weapon and doing something about it. This is where the federal government can make communities better prepared to do something about that. If you have a question, raise your hand. Please remember to phrase your question in the form of a question. Not a speech. [ inaudible question ] the question treelts how a domestic terrorism statute relates its an important benefit from having another another statute on the book, a domestic terrorism statute and thats signaling it needs to be a priority for the Intelligence Community. So, the lead Domestic Intelligence organization in this country is the fbi. Importantly, it is part of the justice department. It is tethered to oversight and Civil Liberties protections that come with being part of the justice department, reporting to congress, et cetera. So, first and foremost, because of all the things that bobby and others and said about the real dangers of getting too far afield when were talking about speech that is protected by the First Amendment, you want it to be tethered to a structure. It would signal to the Intelligence Community, including the fbi, this is a priority, right . They have established since 9 11 a tremendous set of relationships with state and local Law Enforcement as well as community organizations. As nick pointed out and as mary said, the individuals who are going down a dark path and who end up committing these heinous acts of violence and in some cases massacre, are among us, right . Now, none of us here is would be add voe karvocating some typ report on your neighbor structure. What were talking about here is being aware, understanding that the solutions to this are going to come from communities. Those communities have to work with state, local, federal government entities, Law Enforcement and the like. That informs what the Intelligence Community is looking for. Hello. So, i use a lot of those Anonymous Online forums and you see a lot of that stuff on there. It varies a lot depending on which form youre on. You might go on reddit and never see it. Whose responsibility is it to regulate the anonymity these hate groups enjoy . All right. Who has the duty of monitoring online content . Ill start and let others jump in. Lisa led our engage thement with the tech sector in the last administration to try to get our arms around the jihadist set of issues. It was a challenge. I would say we gave ourselves a bminus or cplus in terms of our performance and their performance. Its that much harder to do it in the space youre talking about where youre talking about all kinds of offensive stuff, but if its not tied to a foreign terrorist organization, its much harder for us as a government to expect that expec companies will take that material down. I say you have to put the burden on the companies because theyre maybe takening and profiting from the platforms. The good news is, i think theyre beginning to accept that responsibility. One minor indicator that they get it is you see a migration of people who used to work for People Like Us are working in that company. While i hate to see that outflow of people, but i want those people working at google and facebook because they bring a sensibility about National Security and Community Safety to those companies that might not exist in quantities you want otherwise. Well, i would just say at suspect some point mary will make, theres no entity within federal government, state or local government, whose responsibility and authority is to monitor any online platform. Of the type you describe. Thats a direct answer there. Theres lots of good reasons for that. But thats why the onus needs to be on the companies that operate those platforms. It needs to be on the communities, the users of those platforms and it means there needs to be a lot of communication with government and the Law Enforcement Community Based on what youre seeing there. Quick followup. One quick point, one last thing. Theres a lot of confusion about this, the basic point. But the First Amendment only applies to government actors. Such a good point. So, private, social Media Companies and theyre private, they can ban anything they want and they will not violate the First Amendment. Just like you in your home can ban somebody in your home if you dont like what theyre saying. Restaurant owners, same thing. Putting aside racial discrimination, things like that, okay . So, i think the social Media Companies look to government sometimes as a crutch because they want government to make them do it so they can say to their users, were being told to do this. But they need to step up and just listen to what their users want, do the right thing and, you know, monitor a little better the hate on their platforms. Ill add real quick, i do a lot of work on disinformation and the large ers problem of various kinds of problematic speech online. The bigger platforms to all varying degrees very engaged on this issue in particular, very actively involved in looking for a way forward. I dont think they need further nudges. Thats not where the worst conversations are taking place. The good news is, as it gets further and further into the dark corners, its harder and harder for the hateful ideologies to find by random coincidence certain audiences. But it also gets harder and harder to spot them. And to for relevant government actors to see that. Youre talking about stuff like daily stormer, right . An actor that does not want the government to help it and wont listen to the government, and, i mean, ive seen daily stormer as first results on google when searching a jewish issue. How do we counter that when the Tech Companies are not being good actors . You know, to the points all of us were making. The platforms, the Search Engines have got to see it in their business interest, which means their users and consumers needs to demand that of them, if they see it in their business interest to push those search results down. Theres a crosscutting concern that we can take a lesson here from the fbi successes in spotting americans who have been radicalized by the islamic state. When you go through the endless indictments of the past two years and see at least the publicfacing story, the investigation, almost invariably the open investigative shot was someone saying publicly in a place the fbi could observe it, something on social media that drew attention. As the conversations that are most frightening move into encrypted channels and other channels that arent immediately visible to the public, might be more easily missed, theres also a lot of intelligence leads there. Its a bit of a tradeoff there. Less inspiration but less opportunity to watch the scarier conversations. Thank you all for joining us again. I actually worked in the Intelligence Community for seven years. I know ive got a question so ill try to make it requestic. I know terrorism and radicalization doesnt fester in areas where the overton window doesnt expand to buttress up against that. So, what would your representati recommendations for government or us as individuals to shrink the overtone window where radicalization doesnt seem acceptable . Whats the quick answer to how to stop radicalization. I think understanding the drivers of it would be a start, although i dont think any of us up here are social scientists so were not as well equipped as some others. Weve all studied this a fair bit, maybe bobby has more on that, but its got to be i cant emphasize enough that its got to be very groundup and want governmentdown, as lisa mentioned earlier. You know, in fact, when the government under you know, lisa and president obamas and nicks good leadership tried to invigorate a program that was called countering violent extremism, we got tremendous pushback from communities who felt they were being targeted, much like they were being targeted as being terrorist institutions but now they were putting the onus on them for countering extremism in their communities. So, support for i think nick mentioned support for grassroots organizations. There are organizations like life after hate and others that work with people that have, you know, started on that path to radicalization, toward violence, and, you know, the communities coming together to talk together about how they can spot the precursors and what things they can do. You know, some of the obvious things are there, right . Better educational opportunities, better job opportunities, feeling more like youre actually a part of a community, welcoming communities, communities that dont make people feel like theyre outcast and not wanted and not welcome. Many times we found whether its somebody who ends up committing a terrorist attack or traveling to join a foreign terrorist organization, just like somebody committing a terrorist attack for ideological, domestic ideological purposes, a lot of times well see these are people in search of something they could be part of that was bigger than themselves because their own life was not fulfilling. We need to provide more things, right, that people can feel like they can get behind. We have climate change. We have all kinds of stuff going around that people could be getting behind instead of violent extremism. Nick, i want you to weigh in on this because the nctc youve had working on the radicalization. You could fill the room with papers they produce. Take out the classified ones and put those aside. What are those ker naturals they found of cutting off the r radicalization process . It ends up being grassroots and early. We talked about the dhs, department of Homeland Security on and one simple metric the look for you to watch for this administration or any future administration is serious about the problem is they willing to Fund Grant Programs to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year, because it is not a problem to be solved with one high ticket dollar amount from washington. But there are nongovernmental organizations in almost every largesized community in the country who do this work in the community setting, but they can only do it if they are given resources the do it. So giving 50,000 or 100,000 to a group in minneapolis or boston or austin is going to be far more effective than having some big program run out of washington. The challenge is that when you are giving the grants out to organizations like this, you will sometimes fail. You will end up giving it to people who are not going to do what they say they will, and that is a cost of doing business. And the construct for me is what is an acceptable discourse and the fair Playing Field, and topdown is not the solution, but topdown inputs can make things much worse when the rhetoric that is irresponsible, and invites a shift in window to more extreme idealism and winking and nodding towards themselves is making it worse and that has to stop. Please join me in thanking our guests. Today at 6 00 p. M. Eastern, Hillary Clinton and her daughter chelsea talking about their new book gutsy women. Get the book from the politics and prose bookstore today in washington, d. C. , on cspan 2. A look at the primetime schedule on the cspan networks starting at 9 10 p. M. Eastern, on cspan, scott serrotta is looking at the future of health care. And cspan 2, book tv with authors who have written books on business and the economy. And 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3, it is American History tv with programs of world war ii and the liberation of paris by allied troops in 1944. Saturday at 2 30 p. M. , winston lord on kissinger versus kissinger. About nixon and his secretary of state henry kissinger. Nixon had read the books and he wanted to dominate Foreign Policy of where he was so well versed and knew that, and to do that he knew that he needed a able and thoughtful National Security adviser. At 10 00 there was work and life seemed rugged indeed. Here in such a setting they prepared to search for oil. On real america, the 1948 film desert venture on the ventures of the Saudi Arabia Oil industry, and sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts, and we will preview the votes for women exhibit at the national gallery. She started her business as a wall street banker with her sister and advocated for free love which means sex outside of marriage. At 6 30 p. M. Eastern author sophia rose enfeld discusses her book democracy and truth. No one person, no one institution, no one sector, no king, priest, National Research body, specific cast would get to call all of the shots. Explore our nations past on American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Saturday night on book t at 11 00 p. M. Eastern. If we dont tell our own stories, others will tell them for us. And they wont have the same care and concern that we do. What happens and this is important for all of us. Im a privacy advocate and it was hard and actually harder to tell this story, and to tell my story than it was to come forward and really actually risk my freedom and potentially my life to tell the world about everything that was going on. Former National Security Agency Contractor Edward Snowden talks about exposing the u. S. Governments Mass Surveillance Program and going into exile in his book permanent record. Sunday live at noon eastern in depth with journalist naomi klein. It was the hottest summer on record. We have never had so little arctic sea ice. We are losing huge swathes of the amazon. We have lost much of the barrier reef. And these are the major features of the planet, the amazon, the arctic and the Great Barrier reef, and we are breaking them she discusses on fire the case for a green deal, and the logo and shock doctrine. And you can join us live with your tweets and Facebook Messages and phone calls. And later in deceiving the sky, the Washington Times National Security Columnist Bill girts talks about chinas desire to be a World Economic power, and he is joined by a director of global affairs. And the white house was successful in highlighting the thread and issued the report with the stunning title called
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