Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Combating Anti-Semitism Domestic Terrorism 20240713

Live coverage here on cspan 3. Congressman walker, we are on the record so i will repeat what i said previously, because our friend who is injured because he tried to wrestle me, he has made the decision to briefly pause his career in Public Service and i dont believe it is the last chapter by any sense of the word, but to say so definitively on the record has been one of the greatest honors of my life, serving on this subcommittee with m mr. Walker and i look forward to serving with you in many different capacities for many years to come, sir. So this subcommittee is meeting today to receive testimony on confronting the rise in antisemitic domestic terrorism. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare the subcommittee in recess at any point without objection, members not on the Committee Shall be permitted to sit and question the witnesses. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. And i will make it quick, because im very eager to hear the testimony of the experts before us. P p powaw, pittsburgh, monsey, 1800 antisemitic incidents in 2018 throughout the United States, 2049 of these incidents carried out by extremists, since december 23rd, over a dozen attacks on jews across new york city. And after each and every one of these attacks, there is some elected official in america that says our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. After each and every one of these attacks, there is some elected official in america who says we must take action. Well, today, that is exactly what we have got to focus on. Why . Why is this happening . How is this happening . But most importantly, what do we do tomorrow and the next week, and the next month . Today in my community and communities across america, jews are afraid to go outside with, afraid to speak hebrew in public, afraid to congregate aamongst their friends and family, afraid to observe the high lowelly days. Over 100 years ago, my great grandfather came to new york city, fleeing antisemitism and he came to new york city and he came to america, because this country is not just a country, it stands for something. It has been a beacon. Against hate. It has been a beacon for freedom. And today, we consider how can we ensure that our best days are not in our Rearview Mirror . We look forward to considering everything from appointing the federal officials, fbi, dhs task force, how do we regulate social media, how do we increase funding to make sure that no person is afraid to pray, whether at a church, a synagogue, a mosque . Today, we consider the lives of antisemitism across the political political spectrum because we realize this is not a problem for any Political Party and this is not certainly something that we should subject to the hyper partisanship and divisiveness that has taken over this town. Hopefully, for a few hours today, we can be a body that considers a problem and solutions to that problem. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, again, thank you all for being here. I would like to acknowledge chairman thompson who is, i think, who is the most extraordinary chairman of the committee in the history of the United States congress. I defer to you, if you would like to make an opening statement, sir. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Im not used to getting such nice comments from you. I thank you for convening this important hearing today. This hearing is an opportunity for all members of congress to come together, and condemn acts of domestic terrorism, and targeted violence motivated by antisemitism. The issue has been a priority for a long time for this committee. As many of you heard, and the may 2019 full Committee Hearing entitled confronting the rise of domestic terrorism in the homeland, weve seen a dramatic and disturbing rise in acts of right wing domestic terrorism, including antisemitic violence in recent years. Unfortunately, recent events have once again confirmed that antisemitic violence is an urgent and growing threat to the homeland. Just last month, the jewish communities in new york and new jersey area were subject to multiple violent hateful acts. These acts have once again reminded us why it is so important for the federal government to work within state and local partners, to combat antisemitic domestic terrorism. Across the country, weve seen houses of worship and other religious institutions have increasingly been targeted for act of violence. That is why i was proud to introduce hr 2476, the american nonprofit organizations against terrorism act of 2019, which authorizes the Nonprofit Security Grant Program for years to come. The Program Provides grants to nonprofits and faithbased organizations, in both urban and rural areas, to help secure their families against potential terrorist attack. Im pleased the bill passed both the house and senate, and i hope that the president will sign it into law shortly. While this is an important step, congress will make sure that all precautions are taken to protect communities targeted by hate, and violence, this includes reevaluating the grants program, funding levels, and working with Community Groups and leaders, to establish Meaningful Partnership to attack this issue. Separately, im encouraged that dhs released the firstever strategic framework for combatting terrorism and targeted violence. Although i still have many questions as to its implementation, this strategy appears to be a step in the right direction. I look forward to continued oversight over the department on this issue, and working together with stakeholders to suggest the improvements in this effort. I hope to hear today additional suggestions as to how this committee, with domestic terrorism while protecting the civil rights and Civil Liberties of all americans. Congress must continue to advocate for policies that protect the Jewish Community and all communities impacted by acts of domestic terror. I look forward to hearing the testimony from the witness, and again, thank you, chairman, rose for convening this hearing. I yield back. Thank you, sir. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from North Carolina, mr. Walker. Thank you, chairman thompson and chairman rose. I appreciate your genuine passion on this topic. I want to thank you for scheduling this important hearing and for last weeks subcommittee round table with nonprofit groups which provide important Background Information for todays hearing. We can deny what were seeing take place but there is no question that the rise in antisemitic behavior has increased. The freedom of religion means freedom of belief. And the freedom of expression of those beliefs. This cornerstone constitutional freedom is violated when people cannot gather safely in places of worship, Community Centers, or even their own house. It is also violated if theyre threatened at work, on a college campus, or during community activities. In the past 14 months, since a white supremacist committed the most lethal attack against jews at the tree of life singology, there are multiple attacks, including san diego, jersey city, Rockland County, new york. No community is immune to the threat of antisemitism and unfortunately, it includes areas i represent. Last year, weeks rosh hashanah,s, there was found in winstonsalem, North Carolina and more outside the university, services marking the end of yomz were taking place. Unfortunately, antisemitic attacks in the u. S. Have been rising, and the trends are similar across europe. I can remember after the shooting in pennsylvania, on that saturday morning, i found myself at Temple Emanuel in greensboro, just wanting to reach out to my friends there, and couldnt have been more welcome by the rabbis. Antisemitic incidents in the United States have a variety of motivation, the attack at tree of life was motivated by White Nationalist belief, the jersey city, were connected to the black israelite movement. There were several attacks and slurs against jews in new york city during this past month in december. An attack on any faith is an attack on the faithful. Violent attacks and hate crimes must explicitly and soundly be con demd. There is no one solution to combat faithbased attacks but there is more that can be done by the government, the private sector and the fake faithbased community. We have a very dwred panel of witnesses here today who will offer a number of recommendations including additional nonprofit security grant funding, a greater role for fusion centers, more information sharing an end to the antisemitic boycott, i dont investment sanctions or bds movement. I look forward to hearing more about these and other recommendations from all the witnesses. Finally, broad range of ideologically based hatred in our societys continued obsession with violence has left too many scars across our country. I remain kmully committed about an open bipartisan discussion about domestic terrorism, hateful ideologies an meaningful recommendations for addressing these threats to our homeland. We must continue to work in a bipartisan fashion to help solve the complex problems associated with not only antisemitism, but the proliferation of hate and intolerance. I want to thank the witnesses along with the chairman for appearing here today and i yield back the balance of my time. Thank you, sir. I welcome our panel of witnesses, our first witness is mr. Jonathan greenbra blat, the ceo of ind indiana, the antidefamation league. Thank you for being here. And next, nathan, executive dreamter of the union of Orthodox Jewish congregations of america, and if i could just say one thing, we have seen certainly the Orthodox Community disproportionately suffering from a high rate of these antisemitic attacks. I had the luxury of standing outside my home and people not necessarily knowing im jewish. Our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox Community do not have that luxury. And today, we do acknowledge this problem. And we do thank you for your leadership, sir. Next were knowned by mr. Eugene contvich and i apologize what im doing all uf name, professor of law at George Mason University and finally clifford b. May, founder and president of the foundation for the defense of democracies. Without objection, the witnesss full statements will be inserted into the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his statement for five minutes, beginning with mr. Greenblat. Chairman rose, Ranking Member walker, chairman thompson, and all of the distinguished member was subcommittee, on behalf of adl, thank you for the opportunity to testify today and share our perspective. For more than a century, adl has been battling antisemitism and fighting to secure justice and fair treatment to all. We stand on the front lines of fighting hate in any form. And its fair to say that the past few years have been the most challenging that weve seen in recent memory. Youve already mentioned some of the spots. From pittsburgh, to poway, from monsey, to jersey city. From el paso, to orlando, from charleston to christchurch, and the list goes on. But its not just the high profile Violent Attacks and lethal incidents that i want to talk about today. Its the kid who snaps a heil hitler salute for a gag, its the swas scrawled on a garage door, the College Campuses where jewish students are ostracized for supporting israel. This moment is about women wearing wig, harassed as they ride the subway. Its about men in black hats assaulted as they cross the street. Its the idea that a person isnt safe in their supermarket, in their synagogue, or in their home, just because they are jewish. In fact, in adls most recent audit of antisemitic incidents, we recorded more than 1800 acts in 2018, the third highest tote thal weve seen in 40 years. The results came on the heels of our 2017 audit, which documented a 57 surge over the prior year. The largest on record. And in 2019, in new york city alone, there were more antijewish hate crimes than all the other hate crimes put together. Now, it may surprise you, that this increase is happening against a backdrop of steadily, relatively low levels of Antisemitic Attitudes among the general population. That is, our fellow americans arent hating more but there is a growing group of people who are acting out on hate. So why is that . First, we have leading voices in our nation from both sides of the political spectrum, and academic institutions in the media, in other stations in public life, who are normalizing antisemitism. They are using antisemitic myths and tropes about globalists controlling government, jewish money destroying our borders, dual loyalty to jewish citizens, or attacking the jewish state with the same dangerous myths that were used throughout history to demonize the jewish people. And all of they dont sigma advertising antisemitism and renders it routine. Thats why it is so important that we call out antisemitism whenever it happens, but especially when its uttered by our own allies and friends. We need leaders to stop politicizing antisemitism and weaponizing it for partisan gain, no matter what their political affiliation. We need citizens to step up and demand more of people in public life, that they should insist on a zero tolerance policy on intolerance, full stop. Thats where mr. Chairman, i will just acknowledge that you have shown real courage in speaking out and i applaud you for it. A second reason is that we have Online Platforms that tolerate antisemitism and hate. And im not talking about just adults but children can find horrific hate taking place online with just a click or a swipe. 24 7, 365 days a week. Now as someone who has managed engineers and built Software Products in Silicon Valley, i know the culture there, and i know full well that tech can do good. But its impossible to ignore the fact that it has become an amplifier, a connector, a catalyst for some of the worst types of hate in our society. So its long overdue for the social Media Companies to step up and shut down the neo nazis on their platforms. Companies like twitter and facebook need to apply the same energy to protecting vulnerable users that they apply to protecting their corporate profits. That will take putting more pressure on these companies, and perhaps even new regulations. But today, i want to follow up on what the chairman said, this is not the time for thoughts and prayers. We need resources and action. So let me give you some ideas of what you can do right now, across party lines. Number one, pass a domestic terrorism preejs act to ensure that Law Enforcement agencies deal with violent extremists on the homefront. Pass the no hate, so local Law Enforcement know how to deal with particular the online modern safety act and the never again Holocaust Education act so people can be educated about the evils of prejudice unbound. And fifth, fully fund the nonprofit grants program to shore up institutions and meet the needs of all faith groups, synagogues, their schools, their Community Centers, and do that today. And lastly, i want to encourage the state department to examine whether white, violent white supremacist organizations overseas, those frequently connecting with and inspiring equally violent hate groups here at home, meet the criteria to be designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, if these groups are a threat, to our homeland, and if americans are supporting them, we can bring the full force of the law and society against them. Adl stands ready to serve as your partner. Im grateful for the opportunity to be here. And i look forward to your questions. Thank you, sir. We now recognize mr. Diamond to summarize his statement for five minutes. Thank you, chairman rose, Ranking Member walker, chairman thompson and members of the subcommittee, as mentioned my name is nathing dimon, the executive director of policy policy for jewish congregations of america, the largest in the United States, representing hundreds of singologies and jewish protect cal schools around the country, a noncharitable organization. In the year 1890, in the famous letter in new port rhode island, George Washington ended his letter with a prayer. It reads, may the children of the stock of abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his vine and figure tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. I have been asked to testify before, your subcommittee, to describe the problem uniquely faced by the Orthodox Jewish people of the american Jewish Community and that problem is simply this. Now, in the year 2020, in the United States of america, the children of abraham are afraid in a way we have never been before. We are under threat of violence as we walk down a city street or enter our synagogues to pray or shop in a supermarket for kosher groceries. In the United States, even though there has been discrimination against jews for many years as there has been in other places around the world, in the United States it was not predominantly of a violent kind, but now it is. As was mentioned, as you well know, jews were gunned down at prayer in synagogue in pittsburgh and poway, and shopping for groceries in jersey city. Identifiable hasidic jews, those who wear a hat or kapa, or may have paos at the sides of our heads or a long beard have been subject most to these verbal and physical assaults. Anxiety about this new reality is present in Orthodox Jewish communities in all your districts an across the entire country. In the american orthodox Jewish Community, there is a widespread belief that this wave of physical attacks on outgrowth of many years of expressions of not only antisemitic bias in general, but antiOrthodox Jewish bias in particular. That have long gone unreported and unrepudiated. In recent years in too many localities around the country, government fishes and Community Leaders have felt comfortable making antiorthodox statements in particular, and undertaking antiorthodox actions. In multiple towns in new jersey, ocean township, jackson, mawa, local leaders sought to use land use zoning ordinances to try to prevent Orthodox Jews from moving into their towns, quote about invading the community as dirty or religious zealots. It took the intervention of the u. S. Department of justice or the state Attorney Generals Office to resolve those disputes. In chester, new york, upstate in the hudson valley, a town supervisor and leadership, the town supervisor and loich have openly spoke been blocking Housing Developments to prevent hasidic jews from moving in, saying if theres any way for us to choose who could live there, we will. In jersey city, days after the shooting, which killed two Orthodox Jews as well as a Police Officer and wounded others, a member of the local board of education referred to jews quote as brutes, who quote wave bags of money, and ask if people in the community at large are brave enough to quote explore the message the shooters were trying to send. This person still sits on the jersey city board of education. Finally, in rockland, county, new york, where the hanukkah celebration attack occurred last month, the Rockland County Republican Party released a video advertisement last summer criticizing an incumbent county official who is an orthodox jwe. And supports Housing Development that would allow more orthodox families to move into that area. The video accused the identifybly orthodox county legislator as quote plotting a takeover of the community that quote threatens our way of life. The video was eventually taken down after a flood of criticism. These are just a few of many examples and incidents in which Orthodox Jews are preyed as some kind of other and not part of american society. It is important to realize that these offensive incidents targeted as Orthodox Jewish people are amplified and accelerated by the broader range of antisemitism we are experiencing in the United States which jonathan and the adl have well documented. Its in this context, Orthodox Jews being explicitly slandered and jews being subjected to, that visibly recognizable jews are being targeted for assault and abuse and suffering this reality in an unprecedented way in this country. Mr. Chairman, i will conclude these opening remarks by saying even in the face of all of this i am not without hope. The fact that elected leaders from President Trump, and Governor Cuomo and governor murphy have not only spoken out against the surge of antisemitic and antiorthodox attacks but have started to understake concrete action to have our federal and state and local governments respond and begin to make our communities safe gives me hope. The fact that you chairman rose and your colleagues have convened this hearing to confront this problem and look for more effective ways that we can stop it gives me hope. And the fact that i as an orthodox jew representing my community was able to join with people of many different faiths to serve on the department of Homeland Security Advisory Committee chaired by general allen who you will hear from in the next panel and make recommendations for how our government can protect americas synagogues and churches and mosques and temples, this too gives me hope. I am hoping we can all Work Together to keep president washingtons prayer alive for my community and for all faith communities. And to effectuate that, i think we need to join with it the prayer that was presented in albany, new york, last week, by rabbi rosenberg, whose home in monsey was the site of the attack. He delivered the prayer last week in albany at the Governors State of the state address, and included in his prayer, rabbi said, quote, merciful god, bless us all with the courage to overcome tragedy, heal the wounds of tray head and bless us with solidarity to promote tolerance and brotherhood among all of our communities. That is a recipe for action. And that is a recipe for success in this fight. We must all join in that prayer and this effort, because if america slides further into the swamp of antisemitism, it means our beloved United States is losing an essential element of its founding identity to be a beacon of religious freedom in the world. I thank you again for holding this hearing today. And i thank you in advance for the actions you will take. As a member of that Advisory Committee, i obviously join in that list of recommendations which you will discuss as this hearing goes on. Thank you for working with us to combat in terrible situation. Thank you, sir. We now recognize mr. Main and summarize his statement for five minutes. Thank you. Chairman rose, chairman thompson, and Ranking Member walker, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you, congressmen. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I commend you for holding this hearing. Im going to talk about International Antisemitism and antisemitic terrorism. And strongly suggest that these expressions of bigotry and violence are making a significant contribution to the rise in antisemitic domestic terrorism. Jew hatred is as old as the judean hills, predating even the ancient rebel yochbs jewish nation against the roman imperialists and colonialists who had conquered their lands. Over the centuries, jews have been persecuted, attacked and murdered based on their religion and what used to be called their race. They have been despised for being rich and poor, as capitalists and communists, as rootless cosmopolitans and in israel, as nationalists. Jew haters may be White Supremacists, shallic supremacists or self proclaimed social justice warriors. You cant reason people out of antisemitism because no one was ever reasoned into it. Which should be apparent, an important point, i think, in the 20th century, antisemitism culminated in the extermination of the european jew. In the 21st century, antisemitism is meant to culminate in the extermination of the jewish state. Amass, jihad, hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of iran, which supports those and other terrorist groups, are candid about their genocidal intentions. Supreme leader khameini called jewish, must be eradicated. And if jews all gather in israel, it will save us the trouble of going after this worldwide. It is often forgotten or ignored that more than half of the jews in israel descended from families that lived for centuries in arab or muslim lands. And such formally diverse cities as cairo, tripoli, ale. Po, baghdad, circa 1945, was as much as onethird jewish. In the aftermath of world war ii, jews were driven out, not because they supported israel, no, they were driven out because they were jews. You will hear people say, im not antisemitic, im just antizionist, prior to 1948, the Zionist Mission was to reestablish a jewish nation part in part in the ancient jewish homeland. One could oppose that for any number of reasons. Since 1948, zionism has come to mean support for israels survival. For its right to exist. So if you are an antizionist today, you are at best indifferent to the fate of the only viable Jewish Community remaining in the middle east. In other words, to an antizionist, jewish lives do not matter. If antisemitism is a disease, what were experiencing today is a global epidemic. Jew hatred has become not just widely acceptable but edgy, even fashionable in some quarter, in lands where there are virtually no jews. One example, the malaysian Prime Minister is outspokenly antisemitic. Last fall at Columbia University, there was a Global Leaders forum where he was invited to speak, and he instructed his audience, quote, when you say you cannot be antisemitic, theres no free speech. He added, why cant i Say Something about the jews when people say nasty things about me, and about malaysia . Would Columbia University have honored a global leader, as a global leader, a christian or a jew who spoke that way about muslims, salvadoranss or members of the Lgbt Community . In france, sara halini a retired physician and director of a nursery was stabbed and thrown to her death from her balcony by a neighbor screaming al laaqbar. A french court has dismissed all charges against her killer on grounds he was not responsible because he had been smoking marijuana. In argentina five years ago, alberto nisman, a prosecutor investigating the bombing of a Jewish Community center was shot in the head hours before he was to present evidence of a plot involving then president christina chir of ner and the fishes of the Islamic Republic of iran. The current president says he has no idea who is responsible. Another coverup of an alleged coverup . And in Great Britain recently, a serious chance that an antismooit would be elected Prime Minister. I could go on but to take one moment to remind you that the United Nations is a vir table volcano of antiisraeli resolutions and the Human Rights Council is that organizations most prolific enemy of the jewish state. American tax dollars support it. Mainstreams and summons condoning jew hatred both abroad and at home may not cause antisemitic terrorism but it is selfevidently a major contributing factor. My time is up. And in my written testimony, i elaborate. I offer additional information. Based on the research of ftd scholars and provide 14 specific recommendations and my colleagues and i can come up with many more and we would be glad to help you along with those, chairman rose, Ranking Member walker, chairman thompson, let me thank you you for shedding light on this issue and thank you you you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, sir. We now turn to mr. Contovich to summarize his statements for five minutes. Chairman rose, chairmond thompson and honorable members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the unhappy topic of antisemitism. My comments will focus on practices and campaigns that legitimize antisemitism. That whitewash antisemitism. And in particular, on the antisemitic nature of boycotts, against people, and entities just because of their connection to the state of israel. Such discriminatory boycotts known as bds, themselves promote violence but it does, do not themselves promote violence, but they have antisemitic ideas of the singular evil and pariah status of the jews and particularly dangerous in that it seeks to make antisemitism acceptable in Polite Society not just among fringe haters. The campaign to boycott israel seeks to legitimize discriminatory refusal to do business with people or companies because of their connection to the jewish state. This is bigotry. Just as not doing business, boycotting people, because of their race, Sexual Orientation, or national origin, is discriminatory. The recognition that the movement known as bds is antisemitic has been widely made around the world by the parliaments of germany and canada, and by the courts in spain and france, and most significantly by more than two dozen states in america which have passed laws that treat boycotting, refusing to do business with people because of their connection to israel, just the way many states and the federal government treat boycotts of people because of their Sexual Orientation or other factors as a form of discrimination. It makes no difference that these calls to boycott are aimed at israel rather than at jews per se. Israel is the largest Jewish Community in the world and the home to the mur ral ty of the worlds jews refuses to deal that target israel alone and no other countries are clear prox iys for jewishness, antidiscrimination law makes clear that using a proxy for race, Sexual Orientation and so forth can be discriminatory. To you sure, supporters of such boycotts say, but there have been good boycotts in the past, what about the boycott of apartheid south africa in the 1980s . So boycotts are just a tool. How do we know if theyre good or bad. Three factors help identify whether refusals to deal on a group basis are insidious discrimination. The first is history. Boycotts of jewish businesses have aed about half. They have been a staple of anticampaigns most recently nazi germany and the boycott in 1948 with the cracy of the state of israel by the arab league, to suffocate the new country. Long before israel retook judean, samaria, the west bank in 1967. The second factor to help differentiate that boycott is focus. The invocation of ostensible international name, International Law norms to demonize and isolate just one country, with just 0. 1 of the worlds population is a sure sign of discrimination. That is why the working definition of antisemitism, adopted by the International Holocaust remembrance association, and many countries now, lists as a contemporary example of antisemitism, quote, applying double standards to israel. Calls for boycotting israel almost inevitably apply double standards, a unique special standard to the jewish state. Indeed, as i show today, in the wall street journal oped published today, it goes far beyond double standards. Some of the most prominent supporters of such boycotts themselves enjoy, the call for boycotting israel on International Law grounds enjoy substantial connections to groups active in occupied territories. Settler groups. Not just ignoring, but actively contradicting the principles they advance in justifying a jewfocused boycott. In my article today, i explain that one of most energetic campaigners from boycotting companies in israel is the director of the middle east device of human rights watch. Who herself actively fundraises for groups that support armenian settlements in occupiers of territories. Calling for boycott of israeli businesses are not about International Law, theyre about creating a eunice area or aura of legitimacy around the jewish state. Finally the third factor in identifying discriminatory boycott is the people behind it. Proboycott groups have numerous documented links to terror organizations, and i mentioned in my written testimony, the grounders and leaders of the Boycott Movement have openly called for an end to the jewish state. History. Singularity. People involved. When all of these three factors line up, the antisemitic nature of this movement becomes clear and it is a way in wrapping in the manting of human rights rhetoric some of the toxic ideas in history. Congress has a clear role in to play in combatting this and combatting the bds act, which would give congress the support for the action, now close to 28 states, to treat these boycotts as a form of discrimination. And the antiisrael boycott act, which would add to existing federal regulation against boycotts by foreign country, the boycotts promoted by international organizations, are all important measures deserving your attention. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member walker, chairman thompson, thank you, members of the committee, thank you for your time. And i welcome questions. I thank all of the witnesses for their testimony. I will remind the subcommittee that we will each have five minutes to question the panel. I will now recognize chairman thompson from the great state of mississippi. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me, at the outset, thank the witnesses for their testimony. I dont think any member of this panel understands the severity of antisemitism, its impact, in this country, and want to come to some solutions, but the notion, somehow denied to some people, engaged. That there is a quick fix, and so what we are tasked with is to be thoughtful, pragmatic, and to the extent possible, get it right. And so part of your testimony here today moves us in that direction. So i wanted to comment, and im going to ask mr. Diameant to address is how can we the government, effectively protect communities against violence in a way that doesnt result in overpolicing, profiling, targeting, other strategies, that may harm civil rights, Civil Liberties and privacy . Thank you for your question, sir. I would say that at least in my community, and communities around the country, right now the worry is not about overpolicing, it is about underpolicing. Because incidents are happening, theres violence on the streets, and you know, we need the police to be in the community, protecting people, from these assaults. The number one thing that i have heard, even, we were among the coalition groups, the leaders of the coalition, more than a decade ago that helped create the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, we thank you for your leadership in moving the authorizes bill to fund that program for the coming years, we need to not anticipate back in 2005, when that program started, the nightmarish situation that we are in today, and the number one thing that ive heard, certainly from my synagogues and also as part of working with representatives of other faith communities on this issue, is the number one request that synagogues are asking and i believe churches and mosques and others as well, are we need security guards, we need the police, to be more frequently patrolling outside our houses of worship, even stationed outside our house of worship on a saturday morning or a sunday morning or a friday afternoon. And Many Police Departments dont have the resources to deploy officers to those, that many locations. So one thing that i would put to you, that congress could do, is that the department of justice provides many millions of dollars of support on an annual basis to local Police Departments for various purposes, and i would suggest that congress should take a look at having some of those d. O. J. Grants that go to local Police Departments, specifically allocated for the purpose of supporting local Police Efforts to do more policing around houses of worship and in faith communities. I would also say that increasing the resources under the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, help houses of worship, hire security guards, and make other protective measures, its great that we got it up to 90 million this year, but i can tell you, that based on the information that the dhs has shared with our Advisory Committee, last year, last fiscal year, when there was 60 million in that pot, there was 169 million worth of applications. In the five years, five fiscal years prior to that, there was 131 million in grant money available, and there was 357 million worth of applications. So the demand and the need is far outexceeding the resources that congress is putting into place. And if it were a perfect world, and there were no competing interests for the money, it is not a problem, but what we have state and locals who, the communities who will say, well, there are other places we need to look at. So mr. Greenblat, can you shed some light on this for me . Thur, there are a few things to think about. First of all, mr. Chairman, i would just keep in mind that what you said is absolutely true, that when we talk about more policing, that sort of raises some concerns among communities of color, because of the long history of systemic racism. Keep in mind number one, that there are many jews of color, africanamerican, caribbeanamerican, latino, asianamerican, mizrahi, who have similar concerns, so it is not something that is unique to or separate from the jewish experience. Thats number one. Number two, keep in mind that many of the synagogue, the house of worship that were talking about, pittsburgh, poway many others that we see, are not located in dense urban environments where there is bumping up against communities of color. Some of the communities that my colleague mentioned in Rockland County, new york, or in other parts of the area, we just dont have those issues. But number three, as we engage Law Enforcement to support these communities, in this fashion, it clearly needs to be done in a way that is very sensitive to the outlying communities. So what i would suggest is that there is an ability to engage in security measures that keep the synagogues and schools and Community Centers safe, that keep the mosques and black churches safe, and doing it in a way which is respectful of the equities and civil rights of all of the people in the area. Thank you. I think the question is, is you have to have the training of the individuals to understand the broader communities. Yes. That they are working in so training goes hand in hand. The other issue, mr. Chairman, if youll bear with me, the Online Platforms that more or less are pushing out a lot of this hate. Yeah. Weve grappled with it from the committees perspective as to what do we do . Facebook, for instance, has taken the policy position that if you pay for it, whether its right or wrong, were going to let you put it on our platform. Some of us disagree with that. Other platforms have said no. If its wrong and we know its wrong, were not going to put it. Right. So we have some Public Policy issues looking at online hate in those platforms. I would like to just get from the four of you how you think congress should address those Online Platforms. Well, if i might, i can give you some specifics and then open it up to my colleagues. I mean, the adl opened up a center in Silicon Valley in 2017. Our center for technology in society which is headed up by a former Software Engineer thats focused very specifically on this rob because we need to work with the companies. The pace of innovation is so dramatic that is indeed hard to keep up with it and yet we cant wait for the companies to regulate themselves, so there are steps that can be taken, an ill just offer you a few considerations. So number one. The Online Safety modernization act is really quite relevant, so this is about protecting individuals from harassment and hate online. So thats something you should look at, and thats right now going through committee. I think number two we should push the companies to take a couple of very concrete measures, enforce their own terms of service. All the companies have them, but think about the principle of accountability. They need to enforce it on terms of services, the same way other businesses do. If you stand at the au bon pain downstairs and yell at all the people mexicans, go backs to mexico, they will throw you out and you stand at the starbucks and yell at the jews you guys are destroying our border, the guy will throw you out. We should ask that facebook and twitter throw out the antisemites and neonazis, they could do that tomorrow. The second thing ill just point out is decency. They can deamplify the antisemitism. Can you do things to it the al grimpts grimts so that when you target any community from any side of the aisle that it doesnt pop to the top when your child opens up youtube. Number three. They should use innovation. Art official intelligence, machine learning. They should invest the same energy for protecting their users that they do as protect texting corporate copyrights and then last thing transparency. This would get to a concern that i know many of us have because people ask are they shadow banning certain groups . Are they weighting one idea over the other . Independent thirdparty regular audits. By the way, like all other businesses comply with. This is the thing and then ill stop. New media for some reason doesnt have to obey the same laws of gravity as old media, print, broadcast, radio. I could go on. Thats because of the Communications Act in section 230 and whether or not you can take that on i dont know but there are steps you can do right now to hold them accountable and you should. I would just briefly certainly agree with everything that jonathan mentioned. I would just add two other points. One, specifically in the Artificial Intelligence arena its my understanding that software and algorithms from been developed by those who want to thwart sex trafficking, and ai programs have been developed that can be overlaud on the internet and on facebook and these other platforms and is able to flag and take down, you know, based on key words, et cetera, et cetera, and really suppress the ability of sex traffickers to use platforms for that purpose. Theres no reason why that Ai Technology cant also be utilized in combating antisemitism and racism and the other kinds of pernicious things that were trying to oppose, and, you know, ill just stop with that. Thank you. Mr. May is it. Would i certainly associate myself with the remarks of my two colleagues here. I think they know a lot about social media and have studied it certainly more than we have. I would just add that antisemitism is an ancient hey trend. I do not think that we are going to cure it. I think we can treat it number ways. You mentioned training and education. I think thats important. I think having members of congress back in their districts talking about this issue helping to educate local leaders, Community Leaders and officials, appearing with members of the Jewish Community, all of that is seems to me very important in order to send a message that antisemitism, jew hatred, antiisraelism, that antizionism is something that decent people do not tolerate, and when Columbia University, for example, invites somebody who is an outspoken antisemite and names him as a global leader, i would love to see the member of congress from that district speak up about that kind of situation. Antisemitic materials proliferated long before the internet. It the didnt take facebook for the protocols of the elders of zion to be worldwide bestseller and available in every country in the world. Indeed, with the internet now i think it is easier for people to find things out, to educate themselves and find out that, for example, this document is not an actual the pro coles of the elders of zion. I testified last year or earlier this year in the senate on the question of regulating such speech online. We have to remember things on facebook, just like the protocols of the elders of zion are protected by the First Amendment. They are speech. As the same time as mr. Greenblatt pointed out the decency act contains protections and carveouts for Tech Companies not required by the First Amendment and special granted by the congress and can be reevaluated if it does not seem that they have been using those benefits wisely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well now go to my colleague, the Ranking Member, mr. Walker. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, theres no question that antisemitism is rising around the world. Mr. May, what are you all seeing in europe and elsewhere in terms of antisemitic rhetoric and violence . Quite a bit of antisemitism. Quite a bit of antisemitic violence, quite a bit of antisemitic rhetoric in you have of western europe, and what else . The other thing that is going on that you should be aware of is that crimes against jews are being treated differently than crimes against other groups or minorities. How do you come to that conclusion . Well, i mentioned one where a woman in france was murdered, and the not the suspect, the person who committed that murder has been let off, and hes been let off because he was smoking marijuana and that made him not responsible. I do not think that that would happen very often. We had in 2017 there was a lower court in germany. It upheld a lower courts sentencing of three palestinians had set fire to a synagogue. It was the same synagogue that had been burned during krystalnacht and they said they should be released because they were incense before i about israels actions in the middle east and their act of arson didnt constitute antisemitism. It was just a protest, and in belgium last year, a frenchborn jihadist was found guilty of murdering an israeli couple and two staffers at a Jewish Museum in brussels. His lawyer claimed his attack was a targeted execution of the agents of mossad and did not bother to present any evidence. Theres a list of these that go on that you can see whats happening in europe is very dangerous and the Jewish Community is very threatened. Mr. Kontorovich, first of all, thank you for cutting your trip to israel shortcoming back just for this panel. We appreciate you become here. In your opinion has International Antisemitism and antisemitic terrorism contributed to the rise of antisemitism in the United States . The phenomenons go hand in hand. The motivation the motivations differ. Again, every antisemite is coming from a different place. From the left, from the right, but to the extent that the demonization of jews and putting them beyond the pale, making them particularlyelect objects of hate, do the extent that that idea becomes mainstream or becomes accepted for any reason, then antisemites of all stripes, including every kind of violent antisemite you might find in america, can attach themselves to that. Okay. Speaking on that topic, how would you recommend and should you recommend the United States push back against antisemitism around the globe . Is that something that could restrict it even here . So, for example, my comments about efforts to single out israel for boycotts and companies doing business in israel for boycotts, that is a global effort, and to the extent that its found in america, its part of broader efforts europe and internationally and measures like the antiisrael boycott act which would push back on the extraordinary effort of the u. N. To make a list of companies doing business in israel that are on a black list and similar boycott efforts, these are crucial, and thats where congress can really take the lead. A couple of yes or no questions for the panel, and ill go right to left starting with mr. Kontorovich. Do you believe that antisemitism comes from many different ideological drivers . Yes. Mr. May . Oh, yes. Mr. Diament. Certainly . Mr. Greenblatt . Yes. Mr. Kontorovich, based on your testimony it seems like you think that the bds movement is fundamentally antisemitic. Do you believe that . Thats correct. Mr. Bay . Yes. Mr. Diament . Yes. Mr. Glean blatt . I think the people responsible for the movement are indeed antisemitic. The outcomes that bds campaigns generate are antisemitic as well. Sometimes they are college kids and people get caught up in the issue who might not realize what its all about. But at the very core you would agree with the colleagues . Bds is a tactic in the Broader Movement of delegitimization thats inherently antisemitic. Mr. May, why do you reject antibds advocates who say they only want to change israeli views towards palestinians . I do reject that. Israel pulled out of gaza entirely in 2005. That was up with of the two occupied territories socalled. I would call them disputed territories. Israel had taken gaza from egypt, not from the palestinians. Israel said okay we will leave. After they left what happened. Gaza has become since a platform for terrorism against israel completely. Ful israel were to leave the west bank without security guarantees, simply pull out, what would happen is israel would have missiles and mortars fired on tel aviv, jerusalem and the international airport. Israel wohl have to go back in there. It would be bloody for palestinians and israelis. Smart bds advocates know this. They simply do not care. And my last comment here it makes me pause for a minute and think of my africanamerican brothers and sisters who can relate to many soft things that you guys are going through, and i would also like to say a special thank you to mr. Peter king in his last term. Thereto owes been no stronger voice against such in congress and im honored to follow in his views and also well lee seldin a strong voice to our committee as well. With the that i yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you. I ask unanimous intent for mr. Zeldin and mr. Raskin to sit and ask questions of the witnesses. Great. We will move on to miss jackson lee from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and let me thank all of the witnesses who are here today and acknowledge that this committee has certainly been at forefront of dealing with some of the heinous acts that we have had to endure, but enduring is not the same thing of losing your life. Enduring is not the same thing as having your religious services violated, and enduring is not the same thing of being afraid to wear your religious attire, to walk the streets of any city in this nation, and im reminded having known mrs. Everse, mrs. Medgar evers, having known her for a number of years, shes never forgotten to remind us what it was like to see medgar evers gunned down in the front yard of their home in front of their children searing, unforgetting and unforgettable as well and as well to see and to be reminded of the three boys in mississippi that symbolize the violence of that time. There were people during that era who were afraid to come out, afraid to walk, afraid to gather, and, of course, america rallied to be able to use i remember the department of justice in an effective manner, to utilize what presence of federal marshalls and other federal entities that could be used to come to the deep south to be able to break the chains of absolute fear. What about the bombing of the three little girls in a Birmingham Church . And i hesitate to say, but im going to say it, how tragic that were returning to that fear today in 21st Century America where we have celebrated the richness of diversity of our nation, where we have celebrated the variety of faith, the jewish faith and people from the jewish faith or who happen to be jewish who are taking their rightful place in athletics and education and politics, you knee, i believe, and if my facts are correct it might be the first jewish speaker of the house in the state of virginia along with some of the uniqueness of where latinos are in smyth of the policies that have been undermining them, and then, of course, dealing with our Africanamerican Community but our Muslim Community and mosques that have been attacked, so i i believe that it is time now that we look to the Civil Rights Movement as a model, certainly pass the legislation of my chairman, chairman thompson and the energy of our chairman rose and others, its time for us to act. We need to enhance and write legislation dealing with the reporting. We need to take the lapping wang of see something Say Something to be dealing with the religious issues in this era. We need to also, something that i intend to take up, is to enhance the training of Law Enforcement, to detect and to be effective in their review of antisemitism and other antis as it relates to religion, that they need to have their antenna. There need to be segments in these local Law Enforcement that deal specifically with these issues. Why . Because there is an uptick, and the way i say this is because were dealing with this offensive sign. Can you imagine, this little circle that was innocent, we thought, here it is in the center of this is roger stone, and then we see it in the kavanaugh hearings where people are utilizing this. Were told that it is a symbol of White Nationalism, so let me ask you, gentlemen, if you could, go straight across starting with the first witness, what is the value of enhancing and upticking the sensitivity to this dangerous behavior . Yeah. And calling it what it is, reporting, special training for Law Enforcement, certainly legislation for enhanced Circuit Court . So this is congressman, thank you for the question. This is a big focused area for adl. We do advocacy education and work with Law Enforcement. Today we are the largest trainer of Law Enforcement in the United States on extremism and hate. We train 15,000 officers every year. We train the fbi recruits in quantity quo. We train the whole nypd. We train large and small, federal, state and local Law Enforcement agencies to recognize hate and to be sensitive to whats a hate crime. How is it different than a regular crime . What are the trend of the extremists . And i would point out that the no hate act calls for, which is working through committee right now, calls for ensuring that Law Enforcement is trained up across the country and how to recognize and deal with hate and that they report on it, because keep in mind, even though we have some very solid data as does the fbi, hate crimes are still massively underreported so theres work to be done to make sure that all Law Enforcement complying with the law and are reporting on this to the fbi. Thank you. Mr. Diament, can you also add in there the importance of a domestic Terrorism Law dealing with White Nationalism and other acts. Yes, indeed. Again, in the course of my service on the dhs Advisory Committee which youll hear from the cochairs in the next panel, one of the messages we consistently heard from leaders in the federal and local Law Enforcement communities is that you could have somebody come into this country from overseas engaging in certain activities, and because there are antiTerrorism Laws that are in place, the fbi could open an investigation and they could conduct surveillance, et cetera and disrupt or thwart, you know, a possible plot, whereas if american citizens engage in those very same activities, they have an impediment in the absence of a federal domestic terrorism statute to be able to respond in the same way. I know there are a lot of complexities around a domestic terrorism statute. Yes. But thats what they pay you all the big money for and give you these nice daises for and, again, i can tell you not just from the Jewish Community perspective but from interacting with the muslim communities and other faith communities that really feel under a lot of pressure right now. We need to Work Together and figure out a way that is respectful of Civil Liberties but will also address the challenge at hand which is not only coming from overseas but is coming sadly from within our borders as well. Let me ill just say that your concerns are well placed, and in my written testimony youll find recommendations regarding Law Enforcement and education that i think could strengthen with may colleagues, that could strengthen both of those areas. Okay. Thank you so very much. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Ill move on to mr. King from the great state of new york. Thank you. I thought maybe max was trying to cut me off. Staten island guys. First of all, let me thank all of you for your testimony, and the concern that i have is i still dont think that all the testimony that weve heard at various times an understanding of why theres a dramatic increase in antisemitism now. Obviously we can blame White Nationalism, and i think mr. Greenblatt your point is well taken also but we should look to see if theres a connection between White Nationalists here in this country and also europe and to the extent that thats having an impact. Also, we just had a whole series of antisemitic attacks including murder in new york. Right. And not one of them was carried out by a white person. Right. You look at the bds movement, we talk bedcating person and the bds movement is to a large extent is on campus with the most educated people and it seems like its coming from all of the direction. None of the excuses used in the past for antisemitism, terrible economy or some incident that would somehow allow demagogues to talk about antisemitism. None of those elements are as present today as they were in the past. Why now do we see it coming from so many different quarters . So ill try to answer that and number one i do think were in an environment where antisemitism has been normalized or destigmatized. Again, we see it when people say that jews have dual loyalty or its all about the benning minutes on one side or when people say that the globalists are trying to take over congress and jewish financiers are trying to destroy our borders, and people dont call it out, and they say its okay, so number one i think its infecting the public conversation, congressman in, a way that wasnt happening a few years ago, number one. Number two, indeed i think there are Fringe Groups as there always have been, you know, that will take this and act on violent impulses and social media is allowing crazy ideas to spread in a way that just wasnt possible a few years ago. I mean, keep in mind we tracked on youtube a series of antisemitic channels that over the course of this year, are you ready, we found five. They reviewwere viewed 81 milli times, offthewall content that you couldnt find anywhere. It wasnt that there wasnt the protocols of zion and now i can go to amazon and one click at a prime member its in my living room the next day. Social has something to do with t. Number three, the guilt of the holocaust and its memory is fading and thats allowing again i think bad ideas to come into the center. So those are just some ideas that i think why were in this very charged moment, and the last thing ill say in a polarized world there is indeed a lot of anxiety and systems arent providing the solutions. The political system, the marketplace, and in those moments, in those moments when theres anxiety and a lack of answers, people latch people latch on to easy solutions, to stereotypes and slander to explain away their problems, and thats when had the antisemites move from the margins right into the mainstream i would just try to add very briefly that, as i tried to say in my opening comments, that particularly in the Orthodox Community i unfortunately have to say that i think that weve been a subset of the broader Jewish Community and that leaders of communities who have engaged in antiorthodox statements and actions have not been repudiated and called out the way antisemites more generally have been and and as the examples i gave in my testimony it, and i think so the fact that were now realizing that and responding to that is unfortunate but welcome. The second thing just to add to jonathans point about social media, again, one of the things that my cochairs on the next panel can talk about in more detail, one of the things we heard from the head of the office at the secret service that engages in analysis and profiling of potential, you know, criminal actors is that is that the social media has really condense what had they call, you know, the moment of inspiration to action, and it has really the timeline for radicalization of ideas to action has just been so condensed and accelerated by social media and the internet as well. Let me just mention that for centuries, indeed milania, jews have been convenient scapegoat and they still are convenient scapegoats for very many groups. Again, on the right and left, islamists and supremacists and others. We also have, i would just reemphasize, the United Nations which continually day after day pours out antiisraeli and antisemitic resolutions and rhetoric. It was very useful i think when we had nikki haley as ambassador because she stood up to this on a regular basis. By the way, senator moynihan who i had the privilege of knowing when he was ambassador to the United Nations, i knew him when he was a senator, he also stood up against antisemitism and antiisraelism and was a model. I think it would be good for this body to encourage in any way you think is appropriate the current ambassador to the United Nations, ambassador kelly kraft, also to make this a priority and stand up to the constant flow of poisonous rhetoric coming out of that body right there in new york city. Mr. King, i think a fantastic is a fantastic question and a deep question why now, and i want to say professors like to explain everything, but one important thing in social science is deep and complicated human phenomenon dont always have an explanation, and Everyone Wants to say oh, this is happening because they read the right wing website or left wing website. It could be that they maybe did that and they had breakfast and breakfast didnt make it happen either. Why these things happen, why these strange movements of people uncoordinated happen hat different times is very hard to know but we know there are countries where there are no jews and yet surveys suggest deep antisemitic views. They have never seen a jew. Why is that . Thats why antisemitism needs to be treated with particular sensitivity because its something deep, its something thats always with us. I think unlike that is why it may be a mistake to lump it in with, you know, all other isms, all other antis because antisemitism is something thats just always with us around comes in strange waves and motions, and we need to be able to deal with it, even if we cant fully understand it. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you, chairman. Thank you, mr. King. Next up is miss slotkin from the great state of michigan and i would also like to formally commend for for her entire professional light in taking part in the fight against terror, both abroad and here at home. Thank you , chairman. Thank you for doing this pam. I think theres strong support. When you can get bipartisan members of congress to stay through an entire hearing and asked interested and engaged questions you know that youre on a topic that has really strong bipartisan support and interest so thank you. We have been reading the materials and, you know, weve all been talking about a fourfold increase of victims of violent antisemitism on top of the vandalism, the harassment. In michigan weve seen the same appropriate to us rise in antisemitism, including a synagogue that was defaced and the Michigan State university hilal which i represent was defaced, so this is an issue thats very much on my mind and in our hearts, but i am a cia analyst by training, and so while i respect the view and certainly have lived the experience that antisemitism is as old as the world, we cant dance around the idea that theres been a appropriate to us increase, and so im interested in order to fix the problem we have to understand what is at the root of the problem, so weve talked about this idea of mainstreaming. Mr. May, you spoke about it. Mr. Greenblatt, you spoke about it. Explain to me how its becomes mainstreamed. We had social media 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, but weve had a appropriate to us rise in the past couple of years in these incidents, and we know some of the most violent incidents, the shootings in california and in pittsburgh were centered around a Conspiracy Theory that probably should have never seen the light of day that was the basis of their desire to enact violence on people, so explain to me, particularly the role of leadership in mainstreaming antisemitism. Mr. Greenblatt and then mr. May and as crisp as you can if you could. Yeah, so, look, antisemitism is sometimes called the oldest hatred. It isnt new it. Over the last decade, if we try to pull back a little bit. At the adl we tracked some 220 extremist murders in the United States. 200 of them were committed by extreme right wing elements like White Supremacists, antigovernment activists. Thats 200 in the last decade. 12 by islamist radical jihadists and eight by radical left wing types, so i want to just point out that the violence didnt just start, but what we saw in 2016 was a dram dick increase. After antisemitic incidents had been on the decline over is a years, 2016 it went up 34 , to 17 57 and then as youre pointed out in the 2018 antisemitic assaults more than doubled year over year, and the victims tripled. So something is going on, and i think to your point the idea that conspirecism has now become part of the political kind of parlance is deeply problematic, and we see terms like globalists or open borders or all of the crazy internationals against george soros that hes paying migrants to come from central america. Just so you understand, these ideas are not new. They are lifted from the pages of White Supremacists. They are laupderred through Services Like 4 chap and 1 chan and to facebook and political pundits on primetime television. Ill just said number one that has a lot to do with it because this is the stuff that feeds the deranged, and ill also point out that the crazy ideas that somehow, again, that the jews control congress or that israel is behind all the machinations feeds an equally odious narrative that comes from a different ideological direction and when it goes unchallenged, when it goes unresponded to, it settles into the conversation. So mr. May, help us understand the rule of leadership in this it, and please, i have 50 seconds left. Really quickly. I think youre absolutely right to put your finger on the role of leadership. Leadership has not done what it should do. Why didnt the president of the Columbia University said we shouldnt be having a recognizing a global leader, someone who is an open antisemite in the why was that not done in the antisemitism in form end up justifying violence in antisemitism, and this is going on all over the world. Theres legislation passed in ireland. Its not yet law that would say its illegal for people in ireland to do business with jews in a jewish quarter of the old city of jerusalem. They think this is a way of protest to israel, but they are saying jews in the jewish quarter, we will not do business with that. I think that needs to be addressed by our leadership. I can give you other examples of this as well, but leadership is very important. You send signals. Is the leadership of the president of the United States important, sir . Its very important. I think my time is expired so i wont go on. Thank you, miss slotkin. Can i have ten seconds to Say Something. The issue of ireland is absolutely disgraceful and despicable and ive officially complained some balance it. I know you have. I do know youve been involved in that. Mr. King, thank you very much. Next up is mr. Zeldin from new york. Well, thank you, chairman, for hosting this hearing. Its an honor to be here and very timely topic, so thank you to to the chair and also to all the witness whose are here for both panels. First off, there are a few pieces of legislation that im supportive of that i believe congress can pass to assist. One is the never again education act, hr943, the antisemitism awareness act, hr4009, israel antiisrael boycott act hr5995 and s1 which gains the combating bds act. For the millions of americans who are watching us live on cspan right now, the Public Service announcement of january 24th is International Holocaust remembrance day. Just a few days later on january 27th is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz, and earlier this week in my office i met with the u. N. Special war on freedom of religion or believe. The special rappoteur came out with a speech on this topic and encourages the secretarygeneral to appoint a senior level lead in the executive office with the responsibility for engaging with jewish communities worldwide as well as monitoring antisemitism and the response of the United Nations so as i heard mr. May and others talking about the United Nations specifically, i think it would be great for the secretarygeneral to act on that recommendmation made by the special rappoteur. Mr. Greenblatt, i think it would be helpful for the community and congress and the country to get a little more of a historical perspective. There was an executive order signed a few weeks back and some people were just becoming familiar with the issue as the executive order was first being signed but what a lot of people dont realize is the bipartisan Historical Context over the course of the last several years and why i really do believe that more americans, regardless of political affiliations, not just should be aware of the Historical Context but should be supportive of the underlining substance. Sure. Of all, congressman, thank you for the question and thank you for the leadership on never again education act. We also agree it should be passed forthright. Im glad that you brought that up. We think that the executive order signed by the president just a few weeks ago is incredibly important in large part because it indeed has a bipartisan history so to step back i think as mr. May pointed out we do have a legitimate issue with jewish students being marginalized on College Campuses because of their quote, unquote support of israel. Thats often the pretext, but ive heard stories about kids afraid to go to hillel because they will be excluded from certain parts of campus, because they will be marginalized from certain groups, its, forgive me, off the wall. The challenges that the department of education which has a department of civil rights, never in its history prior to a few weeks ago taken up the case of a jewish students civil rights being violated so during the Bush Administration there was a driskt, a decision rendered that ocr should look at these violations of jewish student civil rights, and let me just step back because title 9 does pardon . Title 6, excuse me, doesnt it lays out that it protects people on the basis of race, religion or national origin, so does it exclude jews . Sometimes they are considered a race. Does it exclude jews so the Bush Administration found no, it should not because often jews are targeted in the same way people are of a particular race or national origin, so that decision was challenged and then reinforced by the Obama Administrations Justice Department and said, yes, indeed, jews with like sikhs or muslims are often considered a Distinct Ethnic Group and should be protected by title 6. So what the eo does is simply codify coming from the white house that it is time to actually enforce that. Honestly, its more symbolic than anything because it simply reiterates what the obama and Bush Administrations had found, but it also does something very important. In as much as it recognizes the International Holocaust remember Association Definition of antisem turkey. There is a group of academics and professors and school ears, no politics in the group and from many countries around the world including from the United States who over several years developed this definition. The eo codifies the definition and reenforced where the bush and Obama Administrations are. At the end of the day its about how universities take enforce their own policies, and hopefully this will help them understand that if you dont protect the civil rights of jewish students like you would muslims or africanamericans or latinos, then you might be at risk of losing thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for the witnesses and your testimony here today. I find the rise and spread of antisemitism extremely trouble, and i think its important that all of us call it out and condemn it as often as possible and not be silent. In your testimony, mr. Greenblatt, you mentioned that the fbi data on hate crimes is based on voluntary local Law Enforcement reporting, and i agree with you that we cannot fully understand what we cannot measure, and in this case, unfortunately, the trend of reporting seems to be falling rather than increasing, so in your view how can we go about improving the fidelity of this data . Is it primarily a matter of betterment of identifying hate crimes at the federal and state locals but do leas have the data but just are not reporting them to the fbi . There are a you foo things. Indeed, number one, the integrity of the data matters so much, congressman. I mean, we cant manage what we dont measures and the fact is that some 80 plus of Law Enforcement agencies around the country actually dont report hate crimes at all. So why dont they do that . Maybe the Law Enforcement isnt adequately trained up to recognize the difference between a hate crime and an ordinary offense. Maybe number two is too much paperwork and they dont want to deal with it at the police desk. Maybe number three, they are afraid it will reflect badly on their community, but this is the purpose of the no hate act thats moving right now through the house. It is indeed to ensure that Law Enforcement is adequately trained and adequately tracks hate crimes against any marginalized group. If we better understand the issue, if were better counting it, well be able to more effectively correct for it. I want to be clear. Did you say 80 . Its like 87 i think. Wow. Its massive. Now, just to be clear. Most of the major metropolitan areas do report, but there are many large ones like honolulu reports zero hate crimes a year, and there are other large metros that simply dont report at all. I can assure you there was probably a hate crime in honolulu at some point over the past 12 months, but, again, Law Enforcement does so much good, we work so closely with them with better training and resources they can they can get this done. Thank you for that for that conversation and perspective. Mr. Diament or mr. Greenblatt, weve seen in many of these antisemitic attacks that theres often been linked to extremist activity online in Message Boards or social media. Weve talked about that both in testimony and in the conversation here already, but can you expand on your view in your estimation how would you judge the work of social media platforms . Again, weve talked about this already but to expand on that, and what should their role be in helping to stem extremist content . The challenge is some of these social media platforms say they they are a platform. Others would argue that they are essentially publishers and they should be held to a higher standard, and so what should their role be in helping to stem extremist contempt, and should their focus be on moderating content directly or removing consistent bad actors from their platforms . Well, i appreciate that, nathan. Look, i think its worth noting that the companies have taken some steps. Youtube has taken down extremist channels. Facebook has taken down extremist accounts. Twitter has introduced policies. Reddit has quarantined problematic users. Google has used sort of data boxes when you do certain searches so theres steps that they have done, but they havent done nearly enough. The 181 million views i described that we found on the youtube channels, four out of the five channels are still up today. The kind of oped you could never post, you could never publish in any newspaper in america, you can post with almost instantaneously on facebook. The kind of videos you would never show on any broadcast network you can post instantly to youtube, right, so the reach and the instantaneousness of it is really unnatural. Thereto hes no natural law that says when i post a video it should show up automatically. That isnt ordained by god. Keep in mind that the shooter in christchurch, the shooter in halet they live streamed the shootings, so, again, i think the Companies Need to again exercise some kind of a moral authority and live by the same standards that they should impose themselves that, again, broadcast print, radio, other media live by these standards, and frankly although theres room for improve president , they work pretty well. If the companies can protect copyright, if the companies can go after sex trafficking, if companies can do a better job of addressing hate speech, and if they wont do it, you need to step up. As as professor kontorovich said section 230 of the Communications Decency act holds them to a different standard than all traditional media. Its time to look at that and assess. If they wont answer the problem, you probably need to. Very good. Thank you all. Appreciate your perspective on this and the work that youre doing to call attention to this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next up is miss clark from the greatest city in the world, new york city. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, and i thank our Ranking Member mr. Walker. I thank you all of our expert witnesses who have testified before us today. It is not enough to live in america where we are assured the right that we can practice our religions freely. We must live our lives free from fear. Just a few weeks ago attack at the chanukah celebration in my state of new york was a vivid reminder that the ancient evil of antisemitism still exists, and sadly it doesnt just exist. Its on the rise. In jersey city, san diego and pittsburgh weve seen the death toll of these hateful ideologies grow larger and larger. In fact, pittsburgh was the deadliest act of domestic terrorism of the Jewish Community in americas history killing 11 people simply observing shabbate. In my district the brooklyn and Crown Heights communities, weve also seen violent hate crimes occur in rapid succession and with alarming frequency. We must reject hate, and we must take action to confront it. Antisemitism has no place in our society. My question my first question, mr. Diament, is tragically the orthodox Jewish Community has been has often been disproportionate target of antisemitic violence. Weve seen this in my own district, my own community where i live, and im deeply concerned about the recent spat of Violent Attacks in communities like the one in Crown Heights. As you stated in your opening testimony, the very fact that many Orthodox Jews which are visible markers of their religion may put them at risk which is totally unacceptable. In your view, how can and should government officials provide support specific to the needs and issues facing orthodox communities in order to protect them against violence . Thank you for your strong statement, congresswoman clark, and i think, as i said earlier, i think in the short term, to use your words, people need to be free from fear, and in the short term while were in this crisis, and it is a crisis, we need better policing. The nypd does a wonderful job, but i suspect they could even they could use more resources to really provide the level of Police Protection that our communities need, and the communities themselves need more resources in terms of making our synagogues and our schools and other places that we gather more secure. Just to give you a ballpark figure. You know, to hire a Contract Security guard from a private company at 40 a week, right, thats 360 a week for a single security guard, and you multiply that out. Thats not something that your typical small synagogue has in its budget and was contemplating let alone dramatic physical Infrastructure Improvements like, you know, shatterproof glass and surveillance cameras and controlled entries and so on and so forth. The Nonprofit Security Grant Program has been a wonderful resource for that, but sadly more synagogues and more churches and more mosques need those resources to make their people, make their congregants more secure. Mr. Diament, i think that weve been having those conversations with our municipal and state partners in new york city, and i think that the message has been received. Mr. Greenblatt and mr. Diament, the distinction between the real world and the Virtual World is blurry. Antisemitic rhetoric on the internet can and does inspire actual deadly attacks. In your estimation, how have the mainstream social Media Companies done so far . Know you mentioned it a bit, and what can congress do to help rein in hate speech on platforms like achan . So i would give the mainstream companies pretty poor marks. They have done some things but not enough. You have the public platforms like facebook and google and youtube and twitter and then you have 4chan, 1chan, discord, minds, and particularly like 8chan and 4chan, congresswoman they dont obey any rules. They have almost weaponized the First Amendment to target marginalized people. They allow the kind of sexual predators, horrific bigots, the worst elements of society up there, and, yeah, i think thats long overdue to take action, and and i think these companies dont exist in a vacuum. They exist in a value chain, and so we should say to the Financial Institutions which allow them up, do you, Financial Institutions, want to work with companies that peddle this kind of gash and, the Cyber Security companies, the hosting companies, the domain name providers. Again, there are ways we can encourage companies to behave in a way of moral leadership if those particular firms wont do any at all. So i think its long overdue for this to happen. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Miss clark, thank you. Next up is miss rice, also from the greatest state, new york. Thank had you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Greenblatt, we have time constraints here, but recently i met with a group of High School Students and survivors who take part in ugas witness project, and it was so incredibly moving. These High School Kids meet with the survivors and hear the stories directly so that because theres going to come a time in the not so distant future when there will be no more survivors. Right. Hand who will tell their story . And if you look at the statistics of the percentage of people who either dont know about the holocaust, literally dont know about it. Yes. Or dont believe it it, the aspect of this from an educational standpoint to me is the single other than politicians like us and people in the Public Discourse watching what we say and not feeding this rise in antisemitism, it is it is ensuring that this is taught as a fact of history. Yes. And not just some tall tale, so if you could just talk more about that. Congresswomanries, i think what youre pointing out is really important so that we know that our own High School Students do incredibly poorly in terms of their basic civics, so it shouldnt surprise us that the majority dont even know what auschwitz was, right . And, again, as mentioned by my colleagues it stands out the most prolific act in the 20th century and the history of humanity, and the idea as we lose the survivors we lose the memory which is unconscionable. So i think the never again holocaust again is really important. Every american student should be educated about hole caught. And genocide. What can happen when hate goes unchecked, what it means when Law Enforcement and government, the instruments of the state, are used as tools to target, to persecute and to murder people because of how they pray or who they love or, you know, where they are from, so we deeply believe in this. You know, i think if were ever going to get our arms around semitism, we cant arrest our way out of the problem and we cant lobby it or legislate it. We need to change hearts hand minds. Yeah. Thats why every year we reach over a million schoolchildren with our antibias education programs. There are other excellent organizations like facing history and the splc that do really good programs around this, but i would challenge you today. You should get that act passed so that every american student in to operate in an increasingly diverse country and increasingly global world gets educated about bias and hail. I think its the minimum that we can give to our kids if we ever really want to inoculate them from intolerance. Challenge accepted. Thank you very much. Miseries, thank you very much are, and i apologize that were speeding things up a little bit. Mr. Raskin from maryland, thank you for being here. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The great state of maryland. Surely you meant that. Lets see. I want to start with you, mr. Glean blatt. We are now in an election year, and i know that adl makes a point, as you just observed a few moments ago, of calling out antisemitism when you see it and not allowing it to become part of the fabric of everyday exist men. Yeah. And i remember clearly in 2016 when adl blew the whistle on on Donald Trumps closing tv ad in the 2016 campaign which had focused on george soros, Lloyd Blankfein and janet yellen and said essentially these people are globalists who are exploiting the American People and im wondering do you take special precautions in election years to try to contact campaigns or Political Parties to talk about the use of antisemitic tropes and themes, or do you what do you do to make sure that were not going to see that further kind of degradation of our political discourse . Congressman, i think its a very good question. Were a 501c3 organization and as a taxexempt organization we dont get involved in politics. I dont really care how any of you vote. I care what you value, right . I dont care kind of what lever you pull. I care whether or not you push prejudice, so indeed in 2016 we called out candidates when they said things that were beyond the pale, and when you made claims that theres again a global conspiracy and you point the finger at only jews as driving that, forgive me, but that gets our attention no matter who is saying it and no matter what the consequences are of speaking out. That being said, indeed i worry as we move into this political cycle, we have candidates on both sides of the aisle, we have both Political Parties, who have engaged or certain members have with the kind of rhetoric that i think doesnt belong in our political conversation, so we do take great pains to be evenhanded. We will call it when we see it, and i think for me thats a good way to conclude because what gives me great hope today is after charlottesville you had members of congress, you had members of the senate, you had governors on both sides who called this out clearly and consistently, and over the last year and a half from the, you know, the mayor of pittsburgh to the governor of new york to many of you, members of the new york delegation and relative to the attacks weve seen the last few months, you have called this out clearly and consistently. As the grandson of a holocaust survivor who lost his entire family in nazi germany, when the government was, you know, attempted to murder all of european jewelry, as the husband of a political refugee from the middle east, from iran, a government that is the worst state sponsor of antisemitism in the world that has instrumentalized it as the chief plank of its Foreign Policy i can tell you it makes a difference when people in positions of Authority Speak out and i applaud all of you for doing just that. Thank you, and mr. Diament, if im not mistaken youre still my constituent . This is wonderful to hear. A lot of my constituents are terrified by the rise in antisemitic violence and especially parents of small kids, especially if they go to jewish schools and so on, and i know that this is something thats of great concern in the Orthodox Community. What special precautions are being taken now and what more do you think the government can be doing to enhance peoples sense of security against, you know, the resurgence in antisemitic terror and violence . Thank you for your question. My congressman, just to be fair, i should say. My sister lives in miss rices district and my parents in mr. Kings district. In terms of precautions, there are a range of precautions that my organization as the umbrella for synagogues around the country are undertaking. They range from assisting our congregations with becoming educationed and applying for the grants for security improvements that are available, both from the federal government and from state and local governments. Were also been working with local congregations in terms of developing best practices for training the congregants of what to do in should there be an unfortunate emergency situation. Many, many, many of our congregations have volunteers who are standing outside synagogues and have been trained on how to be watchful in sort of a see something Say Something kind of context, and so thats what were doing in terms of our congregationally. As i said earlier, theres a lot of anxiety around this, but i dont think were going to cower in fear. Were a Resilient Community and perhaps because sadly there have been centuries of antisemitism we have the resiliency and the courage to work with people of goodwill and government leaders who care to try to push this back and say no, were not going to be fearful. Were going to exercise our freedom of religion in this country. Thank you very much. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Mr. Raskin, thanks very much. With that we thank the witnesses of our first panel for their extraordinary testimony, especially because mr. Miller scheduled his plane like a true new yorker, we ask that we move expeditiously to the second panel. Thank you so much again. Okay. We welcome the agenda panel of witnesses. Our first witness is john miller. Deputy commissioner of counterterrorism the the new york Police Department. The greatest Police Department in the history of the world. We thank the men in blue. Well jump right to now because i know youre a little pressed for time. Thanks for the understated introduction and its good to be back. Good afternoon members of the subcommittee. Im john miller, Deputy Commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism at the new york city Police Department. On behalf of commissioner shea and mayor de blasio, im pleased to testify before your subcommittee to discuss the disturbing rise in biased crimes, especially antisemitic violence as well as the nypds effort to address that. An attack on a member of a particular community because of their race, religion, nationality, gender or Sexual Orientation is an attack on all new yorkers. New york city standes as an example of how distinct cultures, religions, nationalities can exist side by side learning from one another and enriching each other. Unfortunately, last year in new york city we saw 428 hate crimes. Thats a 20 increase in hate crimes over 2018, which in and of itself is concerning, and a 26 increase in antisemitic hate crimes, which comprised a majority of the total hate crimes in our city. That would be 234 antisemitic hate crimes. Now, we see that the lions share of that number are things like graffiti, a broken window, a property crime as a hate crime. These are very challenging to solve because often times nobody knows when it occurred or who did it or how long its been there. It is a challenge when these things are in bathrooms or in a School Classroom or on a wall to find Video Evidence or witnesses. However, i would assault our clearance rate, our our solve rate is over 80 . So that is significant. We put a lot of work into that. Youve heaall heard of the brut machete attack in monsey, new york. These were people peacefully and happily celebrating hanukkah. And the brutal attack and the shootout in jersey city you also heard of which killed six, including a Police Officer, joe seals. It turned a quiet neighborhood into a battlefield in an afternoon. But these days it also seems like every news cycle carries yet another story of violence targeted at jewish new yorkers, including children. So what are we doing about it in new york city . What are we doing about it specifically as the nypd . First of all, were ramping up our uniform presence in the city, particularly neighborhoods that have been targeted by antisemitic violence. The first line of defense is our most valuable asset in the nypd and the fight against violent extremism. Thats our highly trained, dedicated and extraordinarily diverse personnel of the nypd. They collectively make up our department and they make it stronger because the nypd has worked very hard for a long time to stand up a force of officers who reflect the city that they are charged with policing, and were succeeding. In a majority minority city, the department is now a majority Minority Police force. With each subsequent graduating Police Academy class reinforcing that trend. We now have members of the service hailing from 161 Different Countries and 22,382 members who speak more than one language with 168 languages represented among them. That encourages is encouraged by the support of a meefr yesterday of fraternal organizations across all those ethnicities, religions and language. We embrace our diversity in new york city. We embrace our diversity as the nypd. We expend significant resources to ensure those who commit crimes motivated by hate are apprehended and brought to justice. The numbers bear that out. Last year hate crime apprehensions increased by 38 for the most serious offenses. Criminal possession of a weapon. Criminal miss chef. Swastika gra swastika graffiti, grand larceny, murder and attempted murder. Our focal point in this area is the detective bureaus hate crimes task force. Its personal, our detectives and state troopers are specially trained to investigate and identify hate crime. It is the largest such municipal unit of any Police Department in the country. Now, the nypd, of course, saw the disturbing upward trend of violent bias crimes sweeping across the country and moved very early on. Between the time of september and december, we moved to form the racially and ethically motivated extremism unit or reme within our own unit. This new unit also has 25 nypd personnel, detectives, analysts, Police Officers working side by side with members of the new jersey, new york and Pennsylvania State police as well as agents from the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosion everyones. Reme is specifically dedicated to focussing not just hate crimes, but more specifically the actions and the growth among violent hate groups as they spawn across the country and across the internet. The idea is to identify groups with a propensity to violence and those individuals who may carry it out and to stop those incidents before they happen. To do this we go by the same rule book and the same tactics and the same techniques we use to thwart attacks by isis and al qaeda and the lone wolves they inspire. Weve already opened dozens of investigations within reme since the first time it was consumered. It consolidates and streamlines the threats and facilitates engagement in the department with our federal, state, local and private sector partners. Because of this wherever there is a highprofile incident anywhere in the country or in the world, such as as we discussed a moment ago, the pittsburgh synagogue attack or the christchurch shootings on the other side of the world in new zealand, the nypd goes on high alert and further increases our visibility around houses of worship and customizes a deployment plan to discourage any potential copycat attacks that may be inspired. The value of our collaborative efforts to guard against violence imported into new york cannot be undersold. Remember, jersey city is literally on our doorstep. The upstate attacker arrested by our officers in harlem has no connections to new york city that are current, so it begs the question, why did he flee that scene and come to new york city . What was he doing there . We still dont know. That investigation continues. What his intentions were, were still working tirelessly with our partners to find out. Most of the proud boys are not from new york city, but it presented too attractive a target for them when they decided to engage in violence. The white supremacist Neo Nazi Group Patriot Front have taken their recruiting efforts to new york city. Just last week they brazenly hung a banner with antiimmigrant language over an overpass in brooklyn. The same freedom and diversity that are new yorks strengths are the same reason its the number one target for violent foreign and domestic extremists all at the same time. Finally, part of the new york city wholistic approach to combatting hate crimes, commission shea has announced last week that hate crimes will now be included in our comstat statistic cal analysis. Hate crime will be in that lineup that we watch very closely within the numbers and the mack mapping and the crime strategies for any uptick or change. Antisemitism manifests itself in many forms. Wellorganized groups, lone wolf actors, the deluded individuals and everything in between. Antisemitism in all its forms, however, is steeped in ignorance and bred and muddled of incoherent conspiracy theories, many of which were discussed at this table here this afternoon. It is more easily spread and consumed these days, however, because of social media. For these reasons, a lasting solution to bigotry and hatred will never be grounded solely on Law Enforcement and heightened security. That will only be achieved when every citizen works collectively to educate each other and reinforce our shared values of tolerance and unity. New york city and the nypd will continue to be at the forefront of this movement. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify to this committee. Id be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. How much longer do we have you for . You out of here ten minutes . Im going to take a very quick point of privilege. Reme, how many of these cases are connected to neo nazi organizations, the base that also have global linkages . You mentioned that youre following the same rule book that youve used over the course of the last decade, two decades to attack jihadist terrorism, but you dont have the same tool kit, particularly designations of Foreign Terrorists organizations, which as you know is a very almost a singular focus of mine at this point. So, can you give us a brief analysis, high level of what youre seeing and how much this is hurting you, the absence of an fto designation as you continue to tackle neo nazi threats, antisemitic threats and the threat of domestic terrorism. So the reme cases are by and large involving White Supremacists and Neo Nazi Groups to date. What we see is a trend that that activity is rising. What we also see, its dynamic. In that you have organized groups. Some of them, to answer the core of your questions have overseas connections with foreign groups of the same ideology. Others are purely domestic. And then beyond that, you have people who are not part of the groups per se, but follow them online and act out violently as lone actors. We encompass all of that, but it is disturbing when you see people who are part of supposedly domestic groups who are training overseas and domestic groups that are planning actions that if they were doing the same action on behalf of isis or al qaeda would be squarely within the terrorism statutes. Even though those actions are politically driven and using violence and the fear of violence are not considered terrorism under the statutes as they stand. Do you think that we can seriously take on this fight against antisemitism without considering fto designations for global neo nazi organizations . I dont understand why were torturing the subject. A terrorist should be regarded as a terrorist as a terrorist. Understand why we have to decide, well, its terrorism, but its domestic. Its terrorism, but its foreign. Terrorism is terrorism. Okay. I think the statute should reflect that, to answer your question. Not to make this overly informal, but considering mr. Miller is a bit constrained, does anyone have any questions that they would like to ask of mr. Miller . Mr. King. Ms. Clark . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank you, commissioner miller, for all of your hard work and dedication to the people of the United States of america, and, of course, our beloved city, new york city. As you know, there have been a number of antisemitic incidents in my district, particularly in midwood, in the flat bush and Crown Heights areas. Ive urged the nypd and other Law Enforcement agencies to monitor this situation closely. Im very happy to hear what youre doing with comstat because i think that may help us to get to the core of the matter, but can you discuss nypd strategy to combat violent hate crimes, and in particular incidents targeted toward jewish particularly the orthodox Jewish Community . So the first thing we did as these incidents began to rise, congresswoman clark, was to increase the Police Presence in these neighborhoods and around houses of worship, and in the areas where we were seeing the hate crimes. That was a combination of precinct personnel, house of worship personnel. Specially trained precinct personnel that can literally change their uniforms and become counterterrorism officers and be placed out there. Because they do have that training. And thats a select group. As well as the crc, which is the Critical Response command. Thats our forwardleaning uniformed counterterrorism force. Weve pushed all of that into those neighborhoods when this started, just as we pushed those forces toward mosque during the christchurch attack. Just as we pushed them towards Christian Churches after the tex attacks in sri lanka. This is something that we are trying to get a handle on as to is it a trend, is it a fad, does it have an end . Weve seen an disturbing uptick and were there. Okay, sorry. Be safe on the flight. Thank you very much. Next we are joined by general john r. Allen. Cochair of the Homeland Security subcommittee for the targeted violence against faithbased organizations. Paul goldenberg, cochair of that same Advisory Committee. We thank you and we look forward to hearing your statement. Thank you, chairman rose and Ranking Member walker. Members of the subcommittee, and thank you of your leadership. As noted, my name is john allen, im a retired marine and more than slightly selfconscious im not from new york this afternoon. Its a really great pleasure to be before this subcommittee this afternoon. To be joined by Paul Goldenberg who is my fellow cochair at the Homeland Security Advisory Council subcommittee on the prevention of targeted violence against faithbased organizations. Were exceptionally grateful for your continued leadership on this issue before us today. That of antisemitic violence to include the threat of domestic terrorism and are doubly appreciative of your support of our recently released Homeland Security Advisory Council report, which i concluded added to our submission for conclusion in the record. This is a critical moment for your leadership. And its shining through. But more needs to be done as a collective approach to this problem. Its a broader problem than just antisemitism, as we found in our research, but we focus on that today, and its absolutely crucial that we have this conversation and future conversations of this kind. Let me turn the floor at this moment since you have given us the latitude of doing a joint statement to Paul Goldenberg who will speak for the next several minutes on the nature of the threat that we face. Paul . Thank you, general. Thank you, general. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And let me mirror general allens thanks to you all. Were here today because of your leadership. I also do want to add to the record that i am from the state of new jersey. Our recent mission with the hsac tasked us with examining considering the rise of the places of worship. The security of faithbased organizations across the country. In particular, the subcommittee we chaired was tasked to provide findings and recommendations on how dhs can best support state and local governments and faithbased organizations to keep houses of worship safe, secure and resilient. Our final report, which was released just a month ago today, details our findings and recommendations in full. Our work was significantly aided by the advice and counsel of representing offices and entities from across all of dhs, which has a vast array of highly dedicated men and women. And the broader u. S. Government, including the doj, the fbi, and the United States secret service. As alluded to earlier, i believe notable is that our members took to the field. We went to the field. We went to the ground. Visiting synagogues, mosquines, temples and churches, meeting with communities impacted by targeted Violent Attacks committed by some very heinous violent extremists. These engagements were literally eyeopening, even for a very jaded senior former Police Officer from the state of new jersey. Our nations faithbased communities are one of the few institutions that has the resources and the will to bring together people of contrasting political opinions, races, religions and ages. Uniting communities from a variety of backgrounds and interests. And offering a range of competencies not often found in a Single Community or organization. Or for that matter, police force or government agency. They have the fundamentals to empower people developing a sense of ownership among all members of the community. And for some they see it as an achilles heel. Unfortunately, the question of whether faithbased communities and certainly the Jewish Community is targeted by hatred and terror is not up for debate. Synagogues here and abroad remain targets. To the threat itself, the primary inspiration behind many of these violent targeted attacks is to force us to not merely question our fundamental safety and security as well our ability to protect our nation, neighborhoods, families, and to look to change our behaviors. Success in the eyes of these domestic terrorists comes when we retract from your daily routines, ways of living and even spiritual and political beliefs. We need to further explore the impact of these hatefilled messages with public trust. As well as attacks perpetrated by white supremacist violent actors and other separatist groups grow in number, we should all be concerned that an adverse public reaction may generate something that these violent extremists could never have achieved on their own. This complex psychological progression becomes an enabling tool for those who seek to derail our way of life. Indeed, citizens immunized against the psychological influence of violence and terrorism have a much great ability to resist such manipulation. That is our perspective and that was our mission within the hsac. Id like to turn it over to general allen to discuss the recommendations for how we respond to these threats. General . So, ladies and gentlemen of the subcommittee. Thank you, paul. What hes described is no ordinary threat. Its a National Security issue for the United States and it the a threat to our way of life. Thats the truth, plain and simple, and i think the testimony of the first panel, that of mr. Miller, that of what we discovered in the course of our research for this report it substantiates the nature of this threat. Nevertheless, were not here today to admire the problem. Were here to discuss what we can do about it. To that end, much of this is reflected almost verbatim from our recent report we need to be thinking about these issues at a strategic level and have a tactical framing as well. Rather, there are efforts that can be undertaken at the National Level with the congress and the administration leading the charge, but there are also many efforts that can be undertaken at the local level also. Our report contains 46 recommendations overall and we lay out seven key recommendations in the executive summary in response to the unique nature of the issue. Were happy to go into greater detail in q a. Id add a bit of personal framing from my own experience in counterterrorism. We looked at how communities can prepare themselves prior to the terrorist incident or the attack, what we called to the left of the incident. We looked at how communities can prepare and react to the incident itself during its course. What we sometimes call at the bang. And we also talked about and researched what can be done on the other side of the incident, the right of the incident, where resilience and reconciliation and recovery is essential. We look for those measures across all of those. And at the incident itself excuse me. At the point to the left of the incident before it occurs, many preventive measures are available to these communities. And here consistent training and community outreach, which weve discussed already in the first panel, especially between state and local Law Enforcement officials and First Responders is essential with our faithbased communities. At the incident itself at the attack, there are protective measures which can range from deployment of protective security advisers to increased coordination with responders and, of course, increased defensive capabilities hardening the infrastructure within the communities themselves. And in this category, funding, especially through the fema Nonprofit Security Grant Program is crucial. And i have to commend this committee and the congress for not just enlarging that funding but being open to a discussion to increase it even more. And, finally, to the right of the incident after it has occurred, this can include anything from resiliency efforts with the community to efforts focused on healing and reconciliation as well as justice and accountability. Its the response with social workers and Community Advocates and Law Enforcement and healers playing such an Important Role alongside our police and First Responders, as well as civil leadership and legislators. Its that response that can carry the community through the trauma of that attack and to some form of normalcy in the aftermath. Very importantly, i said legislators because i believe that for the congress it means three things. And this is a personal plea as much as it is a recommendation from the cochairs of the subcommittee. First, i believe that no other body today in the United States can maintain focus on this threat and protection of our faith communities as can the u. S. Congress. You are of the people, you represent the people, and your attention on this matter, as evidenced by today, is extraordinary and your attention continuing into the future will be absolutely essential. Second, you have the power of the purse. And there is a need to increased funding, not just in the form of grants, but increased assistance to Law Enforcement at all levels. And third, our laws. Weve talked a lot this afternoon about proposed legislation and legislation that is that is in the process of being enacted. I could not more strongly associate myself with all of that conversation. Because we have to have the laws to hold those accountable when they perpetrate these kinds of crimes, but there needs to be a formal discussion, a full discussion on the nature of a domestic terror law. I believe weve reached that point in this emergency. Where we not only talk about a to domestic terror law, but we also talk about designating domestic terror organizations and domestic terrorists themselves. Its an unsettled conversation. Weve not found our way to a final conclusion. And there are complexities about this associated with the First Amendment and Constitutional Rights and civil rights which are fraught, but we have to have this conversation now, given the uptick in the violence against the Jewish Community, but the other communities, communities of customer, the muslim communities, the sikh and the hindu communities, our black communities in the context of the christian church. We have to have these conversations, and i believe its the time now to have that conversation about whether we have a domestic terror law and domestic terror designations, and with that ill turn it back to paul for his closing remarks. Thank you, general. As the list of recent attacks against american faithbased communities grows, almost daily, we have seen a rekindled call for domestic Terrorism Laws as the general just referred to to provide federal Law Enforcement agencies similar tools that are available to combat targeted Violent Attacks by international terrorists. And i think we heard that several times today from the Law Enforcement experts. Its been resonating. Many believe that these bills specifically would provide required resources to federal Law Enforcement officials, some of which have indicated they do not possess the suitable tools mr. Goldberg, my apologies. Weve stretched this. We have to vote right now, so what were going to do is the committee is going to stand in recess to allow members to vote on the floor and the committee will reconvene ten minutes thereafter. Well continue this very, very important conversation. Thank you. This Homeland Security subcommittee has. Looking at the issue of the rise of violence in the u. S. Motivated by antisemitism. Theyre breaking here. Theres a series of votes on the house floor on a bill related to discrimination against older workers. They will resume the hearing after the votes are done. Well have live coverage of that when they get back here on cspan3. While we wait for that, part of todays washington journal. Congressman, democrat of oregon and member of the energy and Commerce Committee here to talk about Prescription Drug pricing. Now, the house passed hr 3 last were. What is it, what would do . Its the first attempt since the passage of Medicare Part d almost 20 years ago to increase drug prices for americans. We hear it again and again on the campaign trail that drug prices and Health Care Costs are the Biggest Issue for americans right now and this would allow the United States government, health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices. We negotiate drug prices in our private lives, we negotiate them with unions and businesses, why cant seniors, why cant americans negotiate drug prices . Its a marketbased principle. Republicans and democrats should be able to do that. It limits out of pocket costs for seniors right now. If your drug costs go beyond a certain point, the seniors on the hook for 30,000, 40,000, 50,000. Democrats and republicans bills would limit that to 2,000 or 3,000. It puts a lot of transparency into the system. We learned in investigating that there is a whole chain of events, a lot of Different Actors playing into these Cost Increases and we need more transparency to make the right moves politically to make sure these increases dont affect people like they have so far. Who on the business side, which companies would be impacted by that type of negotiation . Probably first and foremost the pharmaceutical companies. I think pharmacy benefit managers that help negotiate prices for Different Companies and different groups would also be affected. Consumers obviously would hopefully be affected in a positive way at the end of the day. The federal government taxpayers would hopefully not have to pay as much out of pocket. So theres lots of people that i think would be affected along the supply chain. Pharmacies themselves are caught between. They have to make a little bit of a profit on the medications they sell, but there is claw back provisions. They have to pay back after the fact dollars to various companies that these pharmacy benefit managers they negotiate with. So there are a lot of folks impacted by this bill. How do you respond to republicans and others who argue that this would kill innovation . That pharmaceutical companies then are not incentiveized then to spend the billions that they have to spend on research to find new drugs to prevent and possibly cure diseases. I think thats a little bit of a bogus argument, to be honest with you. Will they bring quite as many new medications to market as they are right now . Probably not. But you got to weigh that against the decrease in cost to the American Consumer. If you can reduce these increases, you know, from 15 to 20 a year down to, you know, 2 , 3 , 4 a year, thats a huge savings to the bulk of americans out there. Most of the medications and drugs now being formulated are what we call are phone drugs. Theyre very, very neat. They work for very targeted types of disease entities but it only affects 100,000 people and yet the cost can be hundreds of thousands of dollars to the taxpayer and the system. You got to weigh that back and forth a little bit. Theyre going to spend a lot of money on research anyway. Its their bread and butter and still a lot of great medications coming to market. There was a front page story in the New York Times yesterday, i believe, of a new way to pay for the cost of these very expensive drugs that treat these sort of niche diseases. One of the ways is allowing these Drug Companies to pay it back. What do you think about allowing sort of the market to take care of it . Well, i think that we have a twofold approach. One is the market should be able to take care of it like in hr you can negotiate drug prices or at least limit the inflation going forward. As one of the leaders of the Health Care Discussion in the United States congress, ive proposed a valuesbalesed approach to protect the consumer. Explain that. Well, if you up up with a medication that is going to cure hep c, maybe you get the full reimbursement, the 50,000 that costs but you can amortize that over a period of time. Paying 50,000 up front would bankrupt the organizations back in oregon, you pay maybe 5,000 a year over the lifespan of that individual. Or if your medication is only a palliative, increases your decreases your pain or, you know, reduces the mortality rate from five to two years or from two to five years, then you get paid a lesser amount than the full cost of the medication. And i think theres very a lot of interest by the companies on trying to get to solving our problem with the rising costs, rapidly escalating costs of pharmaceuticals. What did you make of President Trumps attempts so far to reduce Prescription Drug prices . One of his ideas was to compare it to the International Index of what we pay versus what other countries pay, but it seems that that did not go into effect. Is that a good idea . Well, actually, thats what hr 3 tries to get at a little bit. The president tried that on his own. Got rebuffed, you know, why do we have to set it to european standards . All the drug prices are going to go up. The invasinovation argument thau made. Were trying to get that at a slightly different way in hr 3, but i think there is an opportunity to incorporate elements in hr 3 as well as in Senate Judiciary committees bill. We already have seen it both on the house and senate side bipartisan support to reduce these costs dramatically. Maybe we cant get to the negotiation piece this session. I think its important to bring it up. For the American Consumers to realize, wow, why cant we negotiate . Theyll demand action over the next several years, but we can limit out of pocket costs, we can do the transparency piece and we can make sure that the drug prices for existing drugs dont increase beyond inflation. Right now inflation is, what, 2 plus. Drug prices are going up 5 plus. Thats wrong. Do you think any deal could address surprise medical billing . I certainly hope so. Thats a big deal back home. Every american, certainly in oregon, you try to get insurance, you stay in your network, you know, your doctor, hospital all in network. You go in for surgery for your knee only to find out that the an the anesthesiologist isnt in network and you get a 20,000 bill. Thats not right. The consumers done what theyre supposed to and they have this huge bill at the end of the day. I think we came up with a really, really good approach. There was a bit of a fight. Everyone agreed that no one should get, you know, stuck with those bills but the question is, okay, who does pay what at the end of the day . The insurers had one idea. The doctors and hospitals had another and we sort of split the baby. So no one really likes us right now. But its a good approach where there is a bit of an index, a benchmark we should be thinking about for the costs of these out of network costs you face, but if there is a lot of disagreement, you can go to arbitration and come up with a fair approach. New york does that. Theyve had great success. All right. Were interested in our viewers joining this conversation as well. Tell us what experience youve had with Prescription Drug prices or surprise medical billing and what you Want Congress to do about it. Lets go to virginia. Democratic caller. Caller yes. Hello, gretta. Hello. Good morning. Go ahead with your question or comment. Were listening. Caller all right. I recently went to my physician for an annual physical. Well, it was october 29th of 19, 2019. I have been going to the same Family Practice for over ten years. Never had to pay for a physical. This time i came out with a 254 charge. I have been in contact with the Hospital Organization since 11 16 when they first sent me a bill with no satisfaction. Theyre telling me that theyre charging me 254 for advanced directive counts that was supposed to take at least 30 minutes on the bill, they said. If youve been to a doctor, you know you dont spend 30 minutes in the Doctors Office for anything anymore. If i was there ten minutes i didnt get the service that theyre saying. The young lady asked me the physician who is now my doctor asked me, ms. Richardson, what would you want to happen if you had an Emergency Reaction here in the office . Would you want resuscitation . I said yes. Cpr was what she said. I said yes. And she handed me for a form for to fill out as far as that procedure as far as not counselling but directives for after if you cant speak for yourself. So that was handed to me. There was no discussion about what i should do with the form, who should help me fill it out, whatever. So i dont call this an assessment. So ive been talking to them. They told me that i am responsible for this 254. My insurance, which is federal employees Blue Cross Blue Shield is not going to pay for it. I do not have medicare and i cant afford 254. What am i supposed to do . Well, you got ripped off, ms. Richardson. You got ripped off. Thats exactly why were trying to get people universal access to basic health care. If youre on Exchange Rated plan, that physical, if its a once a year, annual physical, thats free. If theyre trying to charge you for that in any way, shape or form, thats wrong. You can take them to court. On the advanced directive, i havent heard that game played before, but, unfortunately, were going to see more of that. I would certainly get a different doctor at the end of the day if theyre trying to do that. End of life planning is a basic thing that everyone should do to protect their family. Not just yourself, but to protect your family from huge costs at the end of the day. And it should be incorporated in just any exam. I think, you know, thats egregious. Im not a lawyer. I wont tell you how to go about this, but i would certainly seek some legal redress and side call blue cross to the arent a little bit and say, hey, you know, basic Health Care Information like you got should be totally covered with your once a year annual exam. New orleans, democratic caller. Go ahead, please, for the congressman. Caller good morning. Morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. My issue is about us spending money for drugs that the drugs that were taking now instead of solving the problem, theyre creating problems. What do you mean by that . Creating problems by doing what . Caller making making you sick. Youre getting cancer and and then we dont have the medical to take care of the added problems that the medication is causing. Okay. You got to turn down that television. Its causing confusion. Listen and talk through the telephone. Im a veterinarian. In real life i spent 30plus years as a veterinarian. Im aware of side effects of a lot of medications. A lot of the newer medications more powerful, a more targeted e effect on your condition, but also bigger side effect that makes you take other medications. Which is probably wrong. What you need to do is have an opinion with your physician about side effects that your medications are having on you. Is there a perhaps less potent but very helpful medication you can take for your condition that wouldnt cause or set you up for these side effects. One of the things you need to do very, very carefully is make sure you read these labels and question your doctor on side effects from any medication they prescribe for you. They can be lifesaving. They keep us at home, out of the hospitals, extend the quality of life, hopefully, for the most part, but those side effects can we quite debilitating and you ought to make sure you have a better understanding of what those are and get a different medication. To milwaukee, patricia, democratic caller. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. I am calling because i called on the democratic line. However, medication is not has no party. You know, in this country we might spend a lot of money on research and development, but other countries like canada and other places, they do negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies as to how much they will pay in order to do business with them. Now, my question is, why is it so difficult for us to also do the same thing . Because when we have things like the epipen, when that young man i cant remember right. Caller who purchased the right to that it went from one price and it skyrocketed. I want to understand why dont our government prevent those kind of things happening to our citizens for our drugs . Because, again, this is not democrat, it is not republican, and it is not independent. It is a matter of people being able to afford and access medication. So youre democratic. I would like for you to respond to that. Thank you very much. Sure, sure. Very good question. Very thoughtful. I totally agree. The United States of america and americans, american taxpayers shouldnt subsidize lowcost drugs around the rest of the world. Everyone should pay their fair share. You know, i think our prices should be able to come down. We should be able to negotiate prices. What will happen, the little secret that a lot of the pharmaceutical Companies Wont tell you, you know, theyre going to raise the prices on folks in europe and other areas to make sure, you know, they can make a profit and do their innovation they want to do. But i think theres got to be a balance. We should not be subsidizing these people. It begs the question, why not be able to negotiate drug prices . The Veterans Administration negotiates drug prices. The department of defense negotiates drug prices. We negotiate drug prices in medicaid for lowincome seniors. Why cant we do it for americans . There is no defensible answer for that. We need to come up with a approach that doesnt stifle innovation and lower costs and, frankly, get the European Countries and everybody else to pay a little bit more. To your point on the huge bad actors, the Hedge Fund Managers that buy orphaned pharmaceutical companies and jack the price up like they did on epipen and some of the other medications. We went after martin shkreli. I passed a bipartisan bill with a good friend of mine from florida and we passed a bill in the last congress that would take make that not something that theyd be wanting to do because we put competition in the marketplace. If there is an orphan drug out there, we allow a Different Company that wants to make a competitor to go to the head of the line, get quick approval and put it out there to drive the price right back down, so the incentive to rip the American Consumer is not there. West palm beach, florida. Wanda, republican. Youre next. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I agree with the former caller who called on the line and said, you know, there is no party regarding prescriptions and health care, and i agree. I tried to call the democrat line and couldnt get through. Long story short, the reason im calling is that for years, since 2010, a small amount has been deducted from my check each month for what they called late enrollment penalty. From some time in 2010. Now, ive tried to resolve it. I called my representative and her expert on the issue said, well, we dont know about every law. There is nothing we can do about this. Ive tried to explain the ill logic of this. If you have a late penalty, for example, under irs, you take care of it, its done, you dont pay for it the rest of your life. And so i think this is a very unfair aspect, even though its a negligible amount. Its like 2. 90. Now on the notice i received last year about how much i would be getting this year. It calls it information about your medicare Prescription Drug plan cost. Its no longer calling it a late penalty. So, you know, this is very this is astounding. Another aspect is that i take a drug thats been around for decades. Its for hypothyroidism. It costs me 15 a month and its been around for 70 someodd years. I was taking another because i do better i know there is a controversy about that, but the brand name costs me 40. I had to cut back on my expenses so i could take it and feel as though im not doing as well on that. This is ridiculous that these drugs that have been around for decades, the Drug Companies are still getting a monumental amount. I mean, they should be like an asprin practically. Although asprin is pretty expensive these days. Anyway, what about those two issues . The cost of drug has been around for decades and the late penalty for enrollment that im not even show that it happened. How can i prove you know, its ridiculous. But thank you for taking my call. Good issues. And a lot of folks face those. I assume youre a senior on medicare. There is a late enrollment penalty if you dont sign up exactly when youre supposed to. And it does go on for the rest of your life, which is, i agree with you, totally unfair. Most other penalties are for a short duration of time. You pay your fine for the mistake you made. Not when it comes to signing up for medicare. And were trying to fix that. Ive got a bill out there we had a big hearing in the energy and Commerce Committee just last week on medicare enrollment penalties and what we can do about it. A lot of folks think theyve still got coverage through their job and that ends and they cant enroll for another year or two. What do they do about their Health Coverage in the meantime . Not right. Not fair. I dont think folks read the fine print. Youre supposed to sort of sign up for medicare when you turn 65 or 67, depending on your age, but the rules are very unclear. Theres conflicting advice out there. Sometimes people get wrong advice. Were now in the process congress is listening. Weve heard this. Its unfair. Were in the process of fixing it. I think well probably have a markup on a number of bills to address this medicare penalty. Sometimes you can get that reduced if you make your case to the federal government. You had a good reason. You were misinformed, whatever. Id urge you to follow up on that. And, you know, with regard to the to the to the rest of the drug problem, i think, you know, the main thing is being able to have an opportunity to have that negotiation at the end of the day. And limit price increases. As a veterinarian, i actually prescribe that and a bunch of others. They were very inexpensive. Not costly at all. But what happens is they become unprofitable also because theyre also fairly inexpensive. Drug Companies Want to go on to the big, new blockbuster. There is more money in that. I get that. This is a capitalist market economy, but there should be ways to make sure you have access to key drugs. Drug shortages are a huge issue in the veterinary field, the human field. We are trying to address that. There are Innovative Solutions coming forward by nonprofit groups, by some of the manufacturers themselves. Hopefully over the next six, eight months well have some to the earlier caller and your points, this is a democratic issue. Well be able to get bipartisan support for, you know, reducing these costs, making sure there are other suppliers when a shortage is identified so you can get the medication you need. Again, im very sympathetic to the fact that you actually require a brand name drug. I had many patients in my clinic that were fourfooted and required a brand name drug to get best results. We should make sure costs are driven down. The most recent trade agreement helps us, believe it or not, in that area, as well as the issue of getting to lower drug costs. There is bipartisan support for that. The Senate Health committee has almost all the same elements that we had in hr 3 except for negotiating increase. The Senate Health committee has a lot of great work thats being done on increasing competition in the generic marketplace to prevent these oneoff raises that youre talking about. We have passed all of those bills out of energy and commerce and ways and means on the house side. Theres a lot of bipartisan support out there to fixing these problems. Dave in hale, michigan. Independent. Question or comment here for congressman schraeder. Caller good morning to both of you. Good morning. Caller ive often thought i dont use drugs right now Prescription Drugs. That doesnt mean youre not going to have to at a certain point. Im old. Im medicare now and i got thrown off of medicaid because i own too many items in equity, which i worked all my life for, and now i cant my dignity is all gone. Cant enjoy that. Im not going to give you the hardship case, but as your buddy a thought ovf a system that could be worked out as a bid system annually on all these drugs for all these companies, get their ducks in a row, put up a bid system, and well go forward and be fair for everybody and supply and demand can be under control. Thanks and have a good day. All right, dave. No, i agree, dave. Youve got a good point. We all negotiate in our daily lives for best price, different stores, different insurance companies, auto, health, you name it. We should be able to do that on a regular basis. We shop with different insurers that offer us the best deal. Cover most of our medications or our health care needs. We need to be able to do that more directly with pharmaceuticals. The problem is weve got this weird chain of command, if you will, thats grown up where the Drug Companies may only increase the price of the drug a couple of percentage points, and, actually, pharmaceutical costs have not gone up that much in recent years, but what you pay at the end has gone up dramatically. Theres pharmacies, pharmacy benefit images benefit managers, intermediaries that all take a piece of the pie. Your cost has gone up dramatically because all these middle men in between. What we need to do is address that whole supply chain, look at where the costs are legitimate, where people are taking in extra profit, where consumers should have more information so they can negotiate a better deal for them. I think thats the goal here. Were raising this issue for the first time in 20 years in the United States congress. Getting a lot of play. Folks like you are paying attention. And i truly think that bidding on various drug costs is the way to go. Pharmacy benefit managers shouldnt do spread pricing. They should be focused more on per unit pricing. Thats what matters. A bigger discount doesnt mean you pay less. A bigger discount on a higher priced drug means you may be paying a whole lot more on a lower discount that costs 10 or 20. If the Veterans Administration can negotiate prices and medicaid and dod can, why cant regular folks, seniors who have made our country a very, very great place to live, why cant they benefit from just negotiation, very american, marketbased principle. Thank you for the conversation this morning. Thanks, gretta. This House Homeland Committee subcommittee has been holding a hearing looking at combatting antisemitism in the u. S. They have taken a break here for a couple of votes on the house floor which should wrap up shortly. Our live coverage resuming on cspan3. Well hear more on the trade deal signed in washington between the u. S. And china. Congressman roger merschel at our table here to talk about the phase one of the china deal. Why is it called phase one, and what does the agreement do . Good morning greta. This is a great morning for kansas agriculture. Kansas literally had economic depression for five years now. We have mountains of grain with nowhere to go. What this phase one of this deal is going to do is help us start moving more and more grain from kansas to china. Its starting to move to mexico and canada because of the president s trade deals, japan has done as well, south korea. This is a great, great deal for us. Phase one, theres going to be more. The president couldnt get it all done wrapped up in one bow. Theres other issues to pass. But we might be moving 20 billion of grain from this country. Is President Trump partly to blame for the grain sitting in your district for the past couple of year because the trade war. Absolutely not. This started over five years ago when the farmers were getting the short end of the stick in trade deals. This president was the first person to stand up and say enough. Enough of these unfair trade practices, enough of what chinas doing to cheat american farmers. So, the farmers have stood beside the president. Theyre continuing today. Were celebrating realizing the president is when we finish china he will have completed trade agreements with 50 of our trade economics. A little more detail for our viewers. China pledges to buy 200 billion worth of u. S. Goods over a four year period. U. S. Will cut the tariff rate in half by 15 to 7. 5 on certain levies on 120 billion in chinese products including shoes and apparel. China to stop forcing Technology Change to companies, and unspecified measures to address intellectual property, measures aimed at devaluing currency as well. I want to show our viewers what senator schumer who has been a vocal critic of china for many years, what he had to say on the senate floor about phase one. For all the effort and turmoil over the past few years, the deal that President Trump will sign tomorrow hardly seems to advance the United States past square one. It fails to address the deep structural inequalities in the trade relationship between china and the United States. For the past decade, china has stolen American Intellectual property, forced Technology Transfers of our companies, and throughout cyber theft. The president s phase one deal doesnt even address this issue. China has routinely subsidized most important domestic industries, not just labor intensive industries but even Industries Like huawei are subsidized to gain unfair advanta advantage. The president s phase one deal doesnt address any of these issues. Not only does this deal fail to make any meaningful progress towards ending chinas most flagrant abuses, what it does achieve on the agricultural side may well be a day late and a dollar short. China has already made long Term Contracts with other producers of soybeans and other goods in places like argentina and brazil. American farmers have already lost billions and over the last two years watched their markets disappear. And too Many American farms have gone bankrupt in the time that it took President Trump to reach this deal. Congressman, your response . Well, obviously senator schumer doesnt have any agriculture in his state, must not have much manufacturing either because this china phase one deal is tremendous for kansas agriculture, for agriculture across the country and manufacturing across the country. This is what doesnt make sense to me. The democrats have said on the usmca trade agreement, the United States mexico canada trade agreement for over a year, and hes criticizing President Trump for not being quick enough. I think its incredible what President Trump has done to get over 50 of the trade Business Done in three years time is incredible. I would respectfully disagree with senator schumer and thank goodness President Trump stood in the gap here and helped out the farmers. Ben steel writes in the wall street journal this about this first stage, china is set to do little more than restore agricultural purchases. Trump could have had that two years ago without the tariff damage. Well, certainly we think the trades going to increase. We think the dollars that china is going to be buying is going to significant increase. But what else the ustr has done has negotiated ways to deal with china so we can quickly reimplement these tariffs. China has a history of saying one thing and doing another. This trade agreement is going to give us the ability to implement the tariffs quickly when china does not do what they said they would do. I know some people dont think this is perfect. Thats why we need phase two to still happen yet. According to the treasury, cnbc is reporting more tariffs could be rolled back in phase two of a trade deal. What are you hoping for in fade two . I think free and reciprocal trade is the ghoel. Also we need to make sure we stop intellectual property theft, that we make everything fair and even. If we give them unlimited access to our markets, they need to give us that same reciprocal unlimited access as well. Lets go to joann in fallon, nevada. Shes up first for our republicans. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to say how schumer has been working on this. He got on the floor of the senate bragging about how he has worked on this for 20 years. What has he done . Absolutely nothing. Just like everybody has done nothing. Thats why trump is in, and i dont know how anybodys going to beat trump. I mean, when you look at what he draws, the crowds he draws to his rallies, you know, i just i dont see it. Theres nobody with any fire in their belly on the democratic side. Okay. Caller i guess i dont have any questions. That was just all a comment. Okay, joann. Congressman, what do you think . We had the democrat debates that looked like a funeral and on the other channel was President Trumps rally going on. I walked into the house after a dinner meeting and my wife said the president s on fire tonight. Shes right. His base is fired up. Americas fired up. This is the greatest economy of my lifetime. The average American Family has 7,000 more of their money to spend on whatever they choose. So, its certainly a new day in america, a great day, president s doing super. His policies are working. John in trenton, new jersey. Independent. Caller yeah, i think a bunch of monkeys in the marketplace could do a better job than the republicans and the president. Where are intellectual Property Rights going to . And how come china is all the time selling ideas that should have been placed in court for the collection of the money they stole from us for using our ideas . Now, you know, the farmers are hurting, and thats because of donald trump. They dont need to have their marketplace prices jacked down or jacked up by the president. It should be done by congress. Everything should be done by congress. War powers and all the rest of this stuff. Not the president now. Lets get a response. Well, i think actually the president is doing exactly what you were hoping he would do. Hes addressing these intellectual property issues. If you look at the United Statesmexicocanada trade agreement, its the most fi sophisticated. Its the Gold Standard by which all other trade agreements will be judged. It includes intellectual Property Protection for americans. It took us 20 years to renegotiate that and fix it. Those same principles will be applied in the other trade agreements, so i think the president is doing exactly what youre wanting him to do. Just point out one thing in that chinas culture is so different than ours. They really dont respect intellectual property, and thats why the president has negotiated Quick Response to when the chinese do things that weve asked them not to do. Larry in california, democratic caller. Caller good morning. Yeah, trump and his daughter have all their items made in china, so hes getting over. As far as the agriculture, weve got to get out of the business because americans are really too lazy. Weve got to hire all these illegals. Look at trump. Hes hired all these illegals. So, i dont see how hes doing anything hes just making a fool out of america. Got to impeach the guy. Congressman. I think the president s policies are working. Well respectfully have to disagree on this. I think his policies are working. This economy is the greatest economy of my lifetime, record low unemployment, record wage growth. This president is doing an incredible job. Adjust look at the facts and take the emotion out of it. I think if you review the president s policies, theyre working. We divided the lines, democrats, republicans, and independents as we always do, fourth line for farmers today. Welcome to call in. Joe in ashe, North Carolina, independent. Caller yes, good morning. What most people dont really talk about that after the second world war, europe and asia was completely in ruins. We were the ones who rebuilt everything. We were the ones who fed everybody from china to russia to japan, everywhere. Our Big Companies went ahead through the marshall plan, went ahead, subsidized everything in the world. They got rich. We did not go ahead and rebuild our roads, our bridges, our factories because of the profit was overseas. How that we stuck ourselves in the corner, everybodys saying oh trump this, oh nafta this. We were the ones who stuck out neck out and took care of everybody else, and now were crying about it. Now, tariffs, yes. You have to have a level playing field. We invented the vcr. Who produced it . Japan. Go think about it. Thank you. Certainly we can always learn from history and theres great history facts there. But the bottom line is if you want more infrastructure, and i think somewhere in there that was an important point you were making that we do need to work on infrastructure,that the roads and bridges, high speed internet, all those things need to be addressed. All over kansas im seeing infrastructure thats 90, 100 years old that needs to be replaced. The first step in getting a good infrastructure plan is a strong economy. Thank goodness we have a strong economy. Looking forward to getting all this impeachment nonsense done so we can talk about an infrastructure plan, have a serious conversation. I know that President Trump thinks we need more infrastructure as well. So, looking forward to having a serious conversation about that. And thank goodness for this great economy so we can pay for some of this infrastructure. In the wall street journal, theres an article, eu tries to avert u. S. Trade war. Whats happening with the eu and the United States with the United States threatening tariffs . Will that affect farmers in your state . Of course. What the European Union is trying to do is lock out agriculture. They know european farmers cannot compete with american farmers. Weve been blessed with natural resources. Theyre trying to lock us out. President trump said thats a nonstarter. Agriculture needs to be included. If you want americans to buy your luxury cars, you need to buy american agriculture. The president saying thats not going to happen unless we level the playing field. So, thank goodness for standing up for kansas agriculture. Caller good morning. Just wanted to chime in here. Its refreshing to see finally someone sticking up for americans and the way that this trade has been, you know, unbalanced for so long. We he sensually years under the Obama Administration where we had a president cower in the corner when we talked so much about chinas real influence that they were growing and taking advantage, currency manipulation, trade on tariffs, those types of practices and never did anything about it. The left is so fixated right now on this administration. But if you look at im not the biggest trump fan personally, but if you look at just the accomplishments in three years, the chinese really like consistency. And with someone as unpredictable as trump, they dont know what to do. Ive talked with folks in diplomatic circles and they have said that they are frustrated because they just cant figure this man out. And that only benefits us, i think, in the long run. So, for the farmers and others, that may take one step back, i think were going to take two steps forward and im behind it. When will we see for farmers the two steps forward . Its already happening. I was looking at Commodity Prices this morning and the markets are already reacting. The prices are going up. Were already moving grain to china. Its already happening. Its been a great couple of months for agriculture. Robert in huntington, new york, democratic caller. Caller yes, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Im just wondering what is going on here as far as the republicans are concerned. Im in the plastics industry where president promised automotive jobs. Thats not happening. Its staying in china. The parts cannot be manufactured here or the cost of the parts would be that much more. I have a Retail Business where you come in and pay 25 more for items that are now on sale because of the china tariffs. And you have the republicans all standing by trump as if hes the best thing white on rice. Hes bankrupted companies in Atlantic City and im trying to figure out why theyre saying the farmers are happy as the farmers lost most of their business to other countries and what theyre regaining is a small penitence of what they lost. I would like to see what you guys can do that about that. Okay, robert. Great. Appreciate the several questions there. Number one is farmers, agriculture, is supporting this president. Without any doubt every time i go back home, the agriculture says this president is doing a great job and were standing right beside him. You probably need to reach out to your local congressman and ask them to reach out to secretary mnuchin and talk about some of the exemptions on these tarif tariffs youre talking about. Weve had successes in places like kansas getting those tariffs removed. A lot of supply chains arent moving out of china. Were seeing more jobs move back to kansas, move back to this country. The usmca trade agreement alone is going to move hundreds of thousands of jobs back into this country. It doesnt happen overnight but over the long term its going to work. There is some short term pain, but theres longterm gain opportunity. If we want our children to have a successful america, this is the time to stand up to china. The president s doing a great job of saying stop, enough, were protecting our childrens future. Union dale new york, john is watching there. Independent caller. Youre up next for the congressman. Caller thank you. Go ahead. Caller oh, im sorry. Congressman roger marshall, the moral code of america is very important to america. Donald trump not only ruined his company, but now hes starting to ruin the moral code of the United States. And as a republican senator or congressman, how are you going to explain to your children that it doesnt matter that hes a womanizer, possibly a rapist, possibly a criminal my sincerest apologies again. We will get started to general allen when i was speaking with him a few hours ago and he introduced himself to me and me to him, he said i believe we served together at one point which is going down as the biggest understatement in the history of my life. So, thank you again. And well let your testimony continue. Thank you. Thank you, congressman. So, in closing, as the list of recent attacks against american faithbased communities grows, weve seen a rekindled call for domestic Terrorism Laws to provide federal Law Enforcement agencies similar tools that are available to combat targeted violence attacks committed by international terrorists. Many believe these bills specifically would provide required resources to federal Law Enforcement officials, some of which have indicated they currently do not possess the suitable tools for addressing domestic terrorism, and were happy to talk about that a little bit more in the q a. But to close, faith based nongovernment t organizations extend far beyond faith, spiritual hair, health and Human Services. Theyre a collective component of a Homeland Security effort. Faith based organizations own and operate infrastructure that remains vulnerable to attack, provides direct support and response to our nations worst natural and man made disasters and provides vital resources to tens of millions of americans every day. By educating lay leaders, community members, sharing critical real time information and by more effectively working with our Law Enforcement partners, they will have the fundamentals to empower themselves developing a sense of ownership in the community. Include what is encompassed in our hsac report is sourced in that reality and framing. Finally, let me say that having had the honor and privilege of working with our current acting secretary chad wolf over the years, i could not possibly recount the number of times that he has pushed on these issues and with me personally as well. General allen noted in his statement that the importance of being seized at this moment and this topic is more significant and critical than ever. That is certainly the case for acting secretary wolf, and i can personally attest to his passion and care for fighting for progress and support of our faithbalsed communities. With that, well close. General allen and i welcome your comments and questions. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on this most important and critical issue. Thank you again for your testimony. Ill now yield to one of the fiercest fighters against antisemitism in the country, congressman josh god himer of the new jersey. Thank you, mr. Chairman. General, thank you for being here. Im honored to have you both in our presence. General, do you think it would be helpful if we had a domestic terror law . I have a piece of legislation that im working on that introduced in a bipartisan way last congress which freezes the assets of domestic terrorists called the faster act. Do you think that would be helpful the in our fight against isis inspired home grown terrorists and other home grown terrorists in the United States . Yes. I dont think theres any question. And the thats my opinion. Its not an opinion we express in the report. In the report, we made the point that this is an issue that needs to be thoroughly debated. Because on the one side it gives us the tool that is youve discussed, congressman. On the other side, there are concerns about civil rights. And that conversation needs to be had because its not settled. I happen to believe we should be both having we should have both a domestic terror law and we should have capacity to do designations of domestic terrorists as well. Thank you, general. In what cases do you think it would be best utilized . And obviously in your important work that youre doing right now in homeland to fight antisemitism, how do you believe it would actually be, could be utilized to help protect our country . Well, obviously those individuals who are organized in a manner that will employ violence as an extension of their extreme ideology, there should be a price to be paid for that. There should also be a price to be paid for those in the same context as Foreign Terrorist Organization designations for those that provide Material Support to those kinds of organizations as well. As a commander overseas fighting both the taliban and al quaeda, one of the great asset that s t had was the foreign terrorist designation. This terrorist threat is no less a threat in the United States as americans descend upon americans and inflict terror in enormous quantities in communities, having that Legal Mechanism both in terms of freezing assets, limiting travel, penalizing those who provide Material Support to this kind of a group as well as designating individuals, i think that gives us another tool in the tool box to deal with these people. Excellent. Thank you general. And either one of you might take this one. This builds on the fto designation, general. One thing that chairman rosen and i have worked on with others in a bipartisan way is fighting the massive spread of terror online which through social media has been now used as a tool to recruit, as you know, not just around the world but at home and one thing weve been concerned about is the spread and facebook has taken a lot of steps and we worked pretty closely to encourage twitter to do the same. But these handles go up every single day. Its hard to stay ahead of them. And we know its being used as a tool in their arsenal, the terrorists against us. And those who have Foreign Terrorist Organization designations should not be allowed in our opinion, in my opinion, to post online, to have handles, to be on facebook, to be on youtube. Either one of you start, and your thoughts on that. Well, the entire cyber domain in which so much of the world operates now. You have the cyber domain and physical domain. Were in the physical domain at the moment. But the cyber domain, theres capacity under the designation to limit the movement of terrorists in the physical domain by limiting their capacity to travel, having the capacity to limit the movement of domestic terrorists in the cyber domain by limiting their access by law to certain social platforms is a different way to think about this. I think we need to think about those terms. In the cyber domain, there are no boundaries, there are no borders. Sovereignty has an entirety different means than it has traditionally. When domestic terrorists move with impunity from one platform to another, we should be thinking in those terms. This is a different kind of sovereignty. This is a digital sovereignty, and we should be confining and limiting their capacity to move across the cyber domain and use that domain as the mechanism and platform to victimize the population. I appreciate that. Im more limited on the clock here. Mr. Miller. Goldenberg. From fj had nj. Where in jersey . I grew up in mammoth county. Up by the shore. I love that, i love a jersey guy. Let me share if i can and ill do it very quickly, a very quick story. How many people have heard of white fish montana . Its a pristine beautiful place. Its pretty magical. It sits on the side of the mountain amongst good people. White fish, montana is a population of 8,000. Two hanukkahs ago i received a phone call from rabbi rosen. He said to me what do we do here . My sons photo, the photo of tonya ger sh who was a local realtor in town who got into some there was a situation between herself and Richard Spencers mother. Richard spencer, referring to at that time was an individual who was very proactive in certain ideologies. There are folks that placed the families, the sons, the 12 and 13yearold children on the internet, and they put a not a swastika, a star of david across the chest of the children and trolled these children and calling for an armed insurrection against the jews of white fish. It was literally one of the most heinous acts that ive seen as a former Law Enforcement executive myself. I know that and ive used the word jaded. If someone took one of my childrens photos or their photos of one of my grandchildren that would have a huge impact and would put ter error and fear into my heart. Heres the problem. No one was arrested. No one was prosecuted. And quite frankly, this isnt a criticism, but the local Attorney Generals Office, prosecutors office, state Attorney Generals Offices, state investigative bureaus, they werent quite sure how to handle such a thing. But here we had a Jewish Community literally rethinking whether they stay put in a beautiful, pristine place such as white fish. And now two and a half, almost three years later, they stayed theyre there. Theyre stronger than ever. They received tremendous support from the local citizenry of all colors and religions. But the fact of the matter is that it was not a clear margin. And thats something that i think we have to have a real tough talk not only with those that are propagating these types of threats, terrorist threats, but thats a conversation probably for doj and bureau and other federal agencies to sit down and explore and determine what do we do and where is the line drawn on events or incidents such as that. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you. Next is congressman ted deutsch from the fantastic great state of florida. Thanks very much, mr. Chairman. Thanks for allowing me to join your panel. General and mr. Goldenberg, im prost grateful for your efforts here, for choosing to focus on these issues. I just wanted to follow up on a couple of things you were both speaking about. General allen, when you talk about cyber, we have conversations regularly about social Media Companies and responsibility for social Media Companies should have. You touched on that a bit. I wanted to actually talk about what we dont often talk about which is those who use those companies to draw people in to the dark web and the kinds of things that happen there and the violence thats promoted there. And i just wonder if you have, if any of you have thoughts on how to actually combat those kinds of efforts. And ill ask that question and mr. Goldenberg, ill follow up with you. The good news and bad news is weve come so far from the dark web, were not even in the dark web. Its out of the dark web. The domains being used now is across the spectrum. Theres 4 chan, 8chan, reddick. I know the head of the adl today did a very eloquent job describing some of the concerns and threats that are coming from these very dark places. The problem is and the general knows this better than anyone when he saw how a very, i dont want to say unsophisticated group, but a group that came together and became very sophisticated very quick and people literally woke up one day and said how did isis get here . I say that humbly because the person responsible for the fight is sitting to my right. It didnt just get here. And the level of threat, the level of concern that we should have as a nation, the concern is what were not seeing. Its what were not seeing. I have a young 26yearold Research Person that continuously reminds me of what im missing out there. And when you ask for show of hands within various Law Enforcement communities and say how many of us know what 4chan is or 8chan, its unfortunate that we do need to know about these things because people are putting their manifestos out there. Theyre laying out their plans out there, and at minimum and im not talking about First Amendment. Im talking about when people are planning and plotting to kill or maim or destroy because of color of kskin or religion, t cetera. So, we do need to be deeply concerned. And finally, mr. Chairman, if i might, when you recount the story from montana, from white fish, the Community Never could have imagined what happened to them. The community in Squirrel Hill never could have imagined what would befall them and the deadliest attack on the Jewish Community in americas history. The hah bad in poway never could have imagined and no one in new york could have imagined a machetewielding attacker walking in during a hanukkah celebration. But people also couldnt have imagined that jews would be attacked as jews because theyre jews on the streets in some cases every day. And if you could i guess as we round this out, if you could just speak to the terror that and i ask both of you, and general allen giving your experience, the terror that that creates in that community, in this case the Jewish Community. But ultimately, why it is that the broader commune i thity, th america as a whole, ought to be genuinely worried about that. I think we have to do a better job, obviously at the level of the education of our children, about how intolerant we should be of hatred, and how we should create an environment of education that prizes and celebrates the diversity of our community and how civility has to shoot through all that we do. It has to be at the strategic level something about the shaping of the education of our children. It has to be about what kinds of behaviors we will tolerate. And absent the kinds of strategic measures that can be taken or the policies that can be enacted or the legislation that can be passed, we leave large gaps in the field to be filled by those dark forces that will find themselves able to operate with impunity. In the battlefield of iraq, those areas we didnt control, we called the them the coldest space in the room. That is where the enemy would accumulate. Those areas that are not regulated, those areas that dont have policy that attach themselves to it, those areas that dont benefit from education, it creates cold spots within which those kinds of communities can accumulate. I have to go let me go back to the cyber piece a minute because this has really given the capacity for isolated individuals and isolated groups to be joined together in a common cause of hatred in ways that weve never seen before. It has both increased the surface area of these groups. It has increased the magnitude of the hate within the groups. And it has accelerated the capacity of these groups to take action. And often in the world that i live in now, we talk about Artificial Intelligence and emerging technologies constantly. One of the challenges we have. This is the unique role of the congress, sir. You have been deeply involved in this, and were all grateful for your leadership. But the reality is that technology is moving so fast that policy and legislation is always in trail. And sometimes its years behind. I just tried to describe a few minutes ago that the cyber environment in which this hate occurs and within which the connectivity can be affected and by which the actions can come back out of the physical community in School Shootings or in attacks on jewish communities, thats the physical manifestation of the things that are occurring in the cyber domain. Yet this is so new to us as a people that we have yet to understand that the technology is moving so quickly that the kinds of legislation and policy necessary to regulate that is far behind. And so we scratch our heads when we wonder why the social media platforms arent taking the steps necessary. Theyre all technicians. So, it requires that the American People through their elected representatives understand that unless we can generate the kinds of controls and legislation and policy necessary to gain control of the cyber domain just as we have them for the physical domain, we will still be scratching our heads because we are watching actions and behaviors and levels of hatred unfolding in the cyber domain that we could never have imagined in the physical domain because they were isolated from each other. Now theyre joined together. Theyre not just joined together in the United States. Theyre joined together with groups overseas. Added to that not just the white supremacist organizations in the United States joining with those overseas, the Strategic Influence campaign of the russians is aiding this as well. So, its not just group to group. Its the explicit state policy of the russian government to interfere in the democracy and in the Civil Society of the United States. And these actions together constitute a direct threat to the National Security of the United States. But much of it is occurring in the cyber domain right up to the point where it becomes a physical threat. And then were behind the power curve. And a final point. Sorry. Just as technology has given the capacity for these groups to amass and attack, there are technologies out there today, some young groups, small start ups, with exquisite algorithms with the capacity to find these organizations in cyberspace because of the meme that is they use, because of the code words that they employ. They leave a cyber trail. And the capacity and this is whats very, very important and we had this conversation with the acting secretary on monday in extended conversation. He has taken our report and handed it to his department and given them two weeks to come back for an Implementation Plan for the recommendations. Thats extraordinary leadership from my perspective. Theyre going to get after this. Part of it has got to be that we must aggressively leverage the advances in technology right now that the enemy is using and the enemy is walking amongst us, that the enemy is using to victimize and attack and kill our faithbased organizations and faithbased communities but more broadly the american public. May i just and i know heres take as much time as you need. Ive just spent the last, almost the last decade but the last three years through Rutgers University working transnationally and out of jewish communities across all of europe. I dont know how many of you have travelled to europe as of late. But in many cases in germany and negd ne netherlands and france and sweden and other parts, you cannot go into a synagogue without crack military troops with long rifles and sandbags in some cases greeting you and barb wire greeting you at the entranceway. And these are democratic, wonderful institutions, many of which survived world war ii. So, that is a canary in a mine. And probably very much a place we never want to get to in this United States. So, these types of works, these collaborative works between dhs and other federal agencies is probably more critical and important than ever. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My time has long passed expired. But i want to thank the witnesses and at a moment when the community Jewish Community all across america feels real threat, it is real leadership you have shown in calling this hearing with these witnesses to help elevate this issue to the level that it deserves, and i am most grateful to you. Thank you, sir. Thank you for everything you have done for so many years on this issue. Two pieces of legislation i would like to bring to your attention were working on, two projects. One is designated global neonazi organizations as fdo. The second is the reasonable cause the bar act. Should be an Innovative Partnership between the department of Homeland Security as well as university and trusted flaggers to on a quarterly basis measure how well social Media Companies fulfill their own codes of contact as it relates to getting terrorist content off of their platforms. These are two pieces of legislation that we would like to actively work with you on. And i believe based off your testimony, it seems as if they are much needed. Would you agree . Absolutely agree. 100 . As someone working abroad right now and watching these movements grow, watching these populist movements go from the margins to now as acceptable movements within some of these countries, they are communicating here. They are working with some of our players here, our actors. So, i think theres more of a need now than ever. And i want to speak more to the Global Nature of this and start to disabuse ourselves of the notion that theres something happening in europe or throughout the rest of the world and it is entirely separate from what is happening here. General, you led the fight against isil. Do you see any commonalities between the global jihadist and neonazi movement . I do. Im not an expert on this. I know the Islamic State and al quaeda pretty well. But the behaviors i have seen lead me to believe theres a connectivity we should be certain of. This would be an area i would want to focus and serious intelligence resources to establish unambiguously. Unambiguously is the term ill use the connective between the two. Ive said during my testimony that the environment in which we live today where so much of our moment to moment existence is defined by a cyber environment where i have the capacity to on an encrypted application, have near real time actually real time video, telephone, and sms communications with someone anywhere in the world. Problem we had with the Islamic State was because of these applications and the internet and encrypted applications, they could plan strategically in a distributed manner separated by continents. They could move regionally by using criminal networks, and they could attack locally and it could be all as director comey used to call it, all in the dark. Very difficult to perceive. And that kind of connectivity knows no boundaries. It doesnt know mountains. It doesnt know oceans. That kind of connectivity is real time. Its instant, at the speed of light, and organizations that wish us ill harm, organizations that would attack the Jewish Community of the United States that are already attacking the Jewish Community in europe find allies in the United States over the cyber environment and weve left that line of communication open for them. So, when we think about first designating them as a neonazi organization, i dont know what the argument is. I need someone to tell me why we wouldnt. In the end if that organization wishes american interests and american citizens and our allies ill which is a big part of why we designate someone as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, this seems to me doesnt require a lot of debate. What you mentioned earlier that you could not have conducted the fight with isil about the fto organization, authority or power or without these organizations labelled as such, can you expand on that . Let me say it was quite helpful. I was doing lots of fighting against isis that didnt require ftos. But what ftos would do was if they were nonamerican citizens and most of them are aliens, they cant travel freely. When we work with the department of justice, when elements and ill particularly talk about the network which was in eastern federally ministered tribal areas. You remember what they did coming out of the high land. Fto designation gave us the capacity to limit their capacity to travel, it froze their resources, and also gave us the ability to sanction those who provided Material Support to them. Thats a very valuable asset. And just being on the list of being on an american list maintained through the state department of being a Foreign Terrorist Organization creates for us a connectivity with our allies that is very valuable to us in dealing at a global level. Something i urge you to consider in future reports is that over 17,000, nearly 20,000 foreign fighters have gone to fight with the azad battalion from 50 Different Countries. That is more than the number of foreign fighters than went to go fight at the height of the soviet unions war in afghanistan. I cannot say with certainty please correct me if im wrong that we have a system in place right now to track every american who is going to fight with the azad battalion, is that correct . Thats not something i can comment on with any knowledge. Can i have your commitment in your current capacity advising Homeland Security department that this is something that you will consider going further . Absolutely. Okay. Yes. Okay. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, first of all, for your extraordinary service. It goes without saying that considering both of your extraordinary experience, you do not have to be doing this right now. And it exemplifies both your patriotism, your commitment to this country. And for that we are in deep, deep gratitude. And thank you for taking the time today. Chairman, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for convening this hearing and for the additional work you plan to do on this. This is a direct threat to the American People, and thank you for your leadership in dealing with it. Thank you very much. Just in case you missed any of this hearing earlier on combatting antisemitism, you can find it any time online at cspan. Org. In the halls of the house and senate today, action on impeachment. In the u. S. House this morning, they approved the