Radically motivated shooting at a Grocery Store in buffalo, new york just last month, many, many attacks have devastated communities across the country. The response of secretary Homeland Security recently launched the new urgent review to assess the departments capabilities to address this rising threat. We are here today to discuss one of those capabilities in depth. Key piece of department Homeland Securitys toolbox has been the targeted violence and terrorism Prevention Grant program, or tvtp. Since 2011, the department has identified the need to partner with local communities to address the growing domestic terrorism threat. In 2016, dhs launched the countering extremist violence prevention program, but tvtp. However, weak management of that Grant Program undermine Homeland Securitys ability to determine the effect of this due to underfunding and concerns about the inherent anti muslim bias and some of that. It eroded trust with minority communities. It is local Community Leaders who are in the best position to know when and how to engage with a vulnerable individual and ensuring that the portman maintains trust with local communities has to be a top priority. In 2020, dhs relaunch the program under the new tvtp name, with a new Public Health focused approach. Through this new Grant Funding program, dhs supports the efforts of local partners who seem to raise awareness about the domestic violent extremism threat and develop Community Based networks to provide support to individuals who may be radicalized or radicalizing to violence before the crimes are actually committed. Our Witnesses Today represent four of the organizations that have received tvtp grants in the fiscal year 2020 or fiscal year 2021 grant cycles. Their projects executed over a period of two years, represent a wide variety of violence prevention efforts that are funded by this program. Dhs has sought to support projects that implement projects and practices, as well as those who propose and Innovative Solutions to terrorism prevention. These projects fall into a number of categories, including enhancing threat assessment capabilities, challenging online mobilization narratives, and establishing and enhancing local prevention frameworks. The tvtp program has demonstrated some promising early results, but its still relatively new, and although dhs has started the process to ensure an independent review of the efficacy of the projects funded in the 2020 current cycle, that review is still not yet complete. Continued oversight of this program will be necessary to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated today. And i look forward to hearing from the Witnesses Today about how they have ensured the protection of privacy, civil rights, Civil Liberties in their work with individuals and local communities, as well as the plan to measure the impact of their projects. It is of most importance that we get this right, and whatever we can do to curb this horrifying attacks, we must do immediately. With that, i thank you again for joining us today. But here would recognize a Ranking Member, if he is here, is he here . Yes i am, mister chairman. Can you hear and see me . Mister mayor, how are you . Welcome. Coming to you live off the floor. So chairman, thank you for holding this important subcommittee hearing, but department of Homeland Security prevention of violence and terror prevention program. Thank you for joining us today. I look forward to hearing your testimony as experiences had with the program and its recipient, and i am interested in learning about what you found to be the most effective and how you think this program might be able to responsibly grow and benefit from a Larger Community number of communities in the future. Over the years, the terrorism landscape has evolved, and while many grants focusing on terrorism prevention were created as a result of the 9 11 attacks, the current Threat Landscape as a combination of both international and Domestic Violence concerns. We must address and evolve our approach so that it is tackling these new emerging threats, and allocating federal dollars in the most effective way possible. I believe we must do all we can to protect our communities and equip them with the tools they need to combat and prevent targeted violence and terrorism in whatever form it takes. The targeted the tvtp Grant Program is one such tool that could help communities build and strengthen the resiliency capabilities and prevent threats before they arrive. Just last april, i coled the letter for the House Appropriations committee that was focusing on all of these various funding streams, asking to increase funding, and in fiscal year 2022, for the office of violence and terrorism and prevention, which is now offering getting as the center for preventative partnerships and programs, and the tvtp Threat Program itself. This letter highlighted the fact that in recent years, more americans are being killed by domestic violent extremists then by international terrorists. The number of domestic terrorism investigations conducted by the fbi fbi has doubled since 2017. While threats from foreign terrorist organizations remain very real, these figures demonstrate that the landscape is changing. So, too much, some are thinking. Recently, our country is experiencing increased rates of violence, from heartbreaking Mass Shootings to attempted assassination of a sitting Supreme Court justice. We must do more to address violence and its recap causes regardless of root causes. Violence of any kind is unacceptable, and as elected leaders, its our responsibility to find solutions that will promote and protect the safety of our those who we represent. The tvtp Grant Program has a great amount of potential to enhance these important efforts. At the same time, i think its incumbent we make sure this money is well spent, simply spending more taxpayer dollars will not fix the problem. We must make sure that federal grant dollars are spent efficiently, with clear objectives, and measurable outcomes. This Grant Program must be held accountable to the american people, and must ensure that Civil Liberties for all americans are protected. As lead republican on the oversight of accountability program, i have remained committee with working with my call of the local communities and to bolster an improved the ageist programs designed to achieve this goal. It is imperative that we continue to advance bipartisan efforts to increase funding, accessibility, and resources programs that enhanced the safety and security of communities around this country. Targeted violence and terrorism can occur anywhere at anytime. We must remain committed to empowering local leaders and local Law Enforcement to strengthen this resiliency and ensure dhs has the proper funding to support their efforts. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and the importance of the tvtp grants program, the ways in which they have used these grant awards to protect their communities, and any recommendations that they have to improve the Program Going forward. Thank you, mister chairman, and with that, i give it back. Ranking member mayor, i couldnt agree with you more. The mission to protect american lives from terrorism, very important mission. We have to make sure that every taxpayer dollar we invest in this mission is optimal. Thank you very much, sir. Members are reminded that the committee will operate according to the guidelines laid out by the chairman and Ranking Member in the february 3rd colleague, regarding remote procedures. And without objection, members not on the subcommittee shall be permitted to sit and question the witnesses. Now, i welcome our panel of witnesses, our first witness, we have dr. Kurt braddock, and professor at the school of communication and american university. His research focuses on persuasive strategies used by violent extremist groups to recruit and radicalized audiences targeted by the propaganda. Dr. Braddock also explores theories of communication, persuasion, and social influence can be used to inform practices meant to prevent radicalization among vulnerable audiences. Second witness, miss humira khan, the president and founder of move a think tank specializing and preventing radicalization and Domestic Violence extremism. She has also served as coinvestigator for the department of defenses Minerva Research institute project on terrorist propaganda, as well as strategic adviser to the Un Security Council managing that countering violent extremism portfolio. Our third witness, mr. Paul campbell, a Deputy District Attorney with the l. A. District Attorneys Office, where he has served four of her 25 years. Mr. Kim currently works with the hate crime units within the organized crime division. Our final witness is Lieutenant Colonel chris colin ski, commander of Field Support bureau and Deputy Director of Michigan State police. He is responsible for strategic leadership of the Emergency Management and Homeland Security division, and intelligence operations division. This includes the state of michigans Fusion Center. Without objection, the witnesses full statements will be inserted in the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his or her statements for five minutes. Beginning with mr. Braddock. Welcome, sir. Mister chairman korea, Ranking Member mayor, thank you for having me here today. Members of the committee, thank you for having me to testify in relation to dhss center for prevention programs and partnerships, formerly tvtp, as chairman correa said, im assistant professor of communication at american university, where i am also a faculty fickle at a Research Enterprise focusing primarily on domestic extremism and terrorism called the polarization and Extremism Research and innovation lab. Between these two appointments, i work at the intersection of communication and violent extremism, where i try to understand how communication influences people to engage in violence activities on behalf of ideologies that we see both domestically and internationally. My work in this area really stems from the events of september 11th, two thousands of one, which really instilled in me a drive way to find the while people can engage in such evil, and to find ways, academically, to protect americans from this kind of violence. To this end, for the last 20 years, ive studied violent islamic he had, us fell extremism for the far left and far live alone act of terrorism, Animal Rights activists, single issue terrorists, christian terrorists, and the kind you could find. I said in front of you today to discuss my unique experience with the cbp three program. At present, this program from my its understanding disinformation and conspiracies perpetuated by farright extremists and their intended audiences, and more importantly, how we can prevent those audiences from engaging in violence and support of that disinformation and those conspiracies. I focus on the far right in this project because i know how important this for the u. S. Government to use its budget efficiently, getting the most value for every dollar spent. To that and, i sought to develop a project that addresses would all data shows to be the most significant threat to American Security at the moment, far right violent extremists. Stated most simply, i want to get you all the most bang for your buck. Im glad to say that today, this project has been a relative success, resulting in multiple deliverables foresee p3, as well as a large workshop attended by some of the foremost experts in extremism and disinformation. I hope that our work continues to be used for dhs in this regard. Excuse me. From the outside of this project, the cp3 program, formerly tvtp, has been very enthusiastic and supportive of any research i have done. Personnel at cp3, some of which i will mention by name later, have been in Constant Contact with me throughout my work and have sought to help me address logistic problems associated with my research and every turn. One specific challenge that i ran into in the early goings of the project was related to the impact of the covid19 pandemic. This limited the degree to which i could meet collaborators, Research Participants and other colleagues face to face. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic in the limitations i put on my research, cp3 continued support by facilitating a completion of deliverables that could be worked on without face to face contact. Some of these include the development of training modules to stakeholders that help them build resilience to disinformation within their communities, as well as training modules for those who would trained others to help build those resilience. After Covid Protocols were sufficiently lifted, we were able to pull that in person for trump of understanding this information in future stretches, one of which was focused on the lgbtq communities, which, as we saw just a couple of days ago, does seem to be a target of the far right, or at least one of them. I understand that my role here today will be to testify in more detail about my experiences about cp3 two gauges value for the american people. To this and, i offer my full endorsements thus far. Not only has the program funded a range of research that addresses a variety of threats facing the country, it also demands accountability. Very few Research Programs require measures of Program Effectiveness to the degree that cp3 does. Because of, this the field is professionals. Prominent media figures, twitters, and betsy pundits have long commented on the effects of certain practices to reduce the risk of violence but it provided no evidence to this effect. Cp3 does not love this kind of fastened loose commentary. If only cp3s demands for Research Accountability and effectiveness, i believe the Program Provides excellent value. But returning to your questions and further detail about my project, i want to thank my name on the record, jon wilder of cp3. He stood my program manager, and hes been a godsend at coordinating, organizing, and demanding accountability on my part for why my project is being effective. With that, i look forward to your questions, and i also apologize in advance if you hear my dog tapping around during my testimony. I think he just wants to be part of the congressional record. So, thank you very much, and i look forward to your portions. Thank you, mr. Braddock, and your dogs comments on the correctional record will be accepted without objection. And now i recognize miss khan for her statement in five. Welcome, miss khan. Good afternoon, chairman. Distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify about the my name is tumeric on, i am the president and founder of we are a society of security. To prevent domestic terrorism and violence in the country, we essentially focus on one of the threats, and using a Public Health approach as the solution for violence prevention. We use the allocation of resources at the federal, states, and local governments to mitigate and enhance protective factors for crime in the profession the violence. Were actually the recipient of two 2020 tvtp grants, and they focus on these areas. One was up for standard training, race awareness, and the second was and innovation grants quote, Community Resilience on tech systems. It is that to inform platform to help makers, county executives, city managers, and the locally elected leaders to prioritize risk factors, specific to their jurisdictions. And to allocate budgets you mind with their local yes publicly available, open source data of society and productive centers, at the National State and local levels. It does not use any individual level information, nor is it personally identifiable information. So, we are grateful to dhs for funding this innovative approach, and for our litigation for the commitment to protecting Civil Liberties. And, our preliminary analysis focused on hate crimes and domestic terrorism, and over the next few weeks, we will be completing our initial analysis for mass social issues. And as this is finalized, the partnership with the stakeholders, we will be recommending priorities for searing resources to local frameworks workshops at each location to facilitate state and local partnerships based on their needs. In 2020, we also use that the hss tvtp grants for training, and that was implemented with partnership the American Jewish community. And that curriculum includes awareness of the threat of violence and direct hand side understanding how hate and bigotry can incite violence, hate bigotry and anti black racism, and the rule of communities in violence prevention, and the role of engage bystanders in recognizing when individuals are experiencing distress and knowing what to do in these situations. And the participants from from five states included elected officials, district attorneys, human rights commissioners, safety officers, superintendents, count the county management directors, and lots more. , so the implementation of two tvtp grams over the last 18 months. This resulted in several learning. On this, we recommend one. 20 million of Grant Funding per year is stretched thin over our whole country. Its not enough. Current funding levels should be increased nationally. Quaker attention should be increasing awareness levels, but encouraging the skill of the and other similar initiatives. Three, the regional prevention are one of the greatest athletes of dhs. The professionals are invaluable resources for the grantees and the local stakeholders. But theres not enough of them. There needs to be at least one are pc per state. And while the, while theyre adding members to its team, theres still a gap for more technically staff with expertise that is aligned with the Public Health approach. And five is thats an informed analysis facilitates improved position. And the adjust should utilize that law in election a future grants. You think thats informed needs for the proposed solutions at state and local levels. So, let me end by emphasizing that you must accelerate our prevention efforts by increasing resort allegation and not be discouraged by the mistakes of the past. We cannot wait for another synagogue attack or Buffalo Supermarket killings of the Uvalde School massacre. We must fully allocate resources [interpreter] thank you again for your attention, and for the opportunity to electorate asking any questions. Thank you very much, miss khan. And i recognize mr. Kim to recognize his statement. Welcome sir. Thank you, chairman correa, Ranking Member meijer, and distinguished members of this committee. My name is paul kim, and i am a Deputy District Attorney at the dhs of me here in los angeles. A currently getting to the hate crimes unit, ive been assigned here for about eight years. The hate crimes unit vertically prosecutes all serious hate crimes that happened within the county of los angeles, including any case that involves Great Bodily Injury or death. Any case that is committed by organized hate group, and any cases that are either complex in nature or require a seasons Deputy District Attorney. In this capacity, my primary role is neutralized to target. My secondary role is Community Outreach. Ive worked closely with our partners, our Community Based partners, ranging from the jewish groups to the aapi groups, and including members of the Lgbt Community as well. During the time that i was prosecuting hate crime cases, about three years ago, i came across an issue. I had a defendant that had committed a crime of violence against a member of the Lgbtq Community here in long beach, and this has gone all the way up to the highest levels at my office. A disposition was reached to include 200 hours of Community Service. Obviously, our goal was to try to raise the defendants awareness when it came to the Lgbt Community. When we reached out to some of our programs, one of our stakeholders, i was immediately asked, whats this individual do . When i described what happened, and i described the nature, what i was told by the director was, mr. Kim, this individual has committed an act of violence and a seriously entered a member of our community. We dont desire to have him participate in any Community Service with those on our property. This poses a problem. One of the things we know is that hate is not innate. Its something thats learned, its something thats acquired. Somewhere, you learned to hate this group of people because whatever characteristic it is you are biased against. When we start at that point, and we also consider the penal code, the california penal code four for two point 85, which suggests that whenever you place somebody on a grant of probation, you should engage in some sort of cultural sensitivity and awareness training. L. A. County didnt have an anti bias program. One day, when i was doing Community Outreach with the museum of tolerance, i was on a call with the l. A. City Attorneys Office who was working with the museum of tolerance, who was also they tv tv a worthy. On the 1 to 1 program, which is a 15hour coaching program. At that time, i met michael brown, who is the Deputy Director of field operations. I reached out to mr. Brown after i heard his talk, and he mentioned that there was a grant available. So, i told him i would like to apply for the grants. I told him there was a need in the county, specifically when it came to trying to address the bias motivated violence that caused the individual to target whoever it was for whatever crime was committed. Mr. Brown encouraged me to apply. It was the first time i had applied. It was, in fact, the first time that l. A. Da had applied for federal grants. We had previously applied for local grants, state grants, but never a federal grant. At this point, i must echo dr. Braddock, john wilder is also my Program Analyst and he has been incredibly helpful when it comes to helping us get the basics of this program done. The program its three fold. One, we want to focus on counseling. One of our recipient is keenly hospital and Mental Health center. They have a coalition that is working with 80 hours, 40 individuals, 40 hours, trying to see if they could determine what the roots of the bias analysts are, and where they came from. Secondly, we are going to be working with the Community BasedOrganization Called second call. Second call to three and three for former felons, they are going to be acting as professionals facilitators and are going to be acting as coaches and helping with the anti bias portion of the program. Finally, we are working with 3strands to develop an antibias program. And antibias curricula, that can be used for any category of bias once its created. I think that cp3 is really amazing, and i think that what is going to permit us to do is to develop two things. One, and the fendercentric study, not a very large one, but an offendercentric study. And two, but the tools the modules that are necessary to try to address explicit bias. I look forward to look forward to your questions and thank you for inviting me to participate. Thank you. Mr. Kim, thank you very much for your testimony. And i would like to recognize Lieutenant Colonel colin ski to summarize his statement for five minutes. Welcome, colonel. Thank you, chairman correa, Ranking Member meijer, and distinguished members of the subcommittee to allow me to discuss targeted violence and the Prevention Grant program. My name is Lieutenant Colonel chris and im the Deputy Director in charge of the Michigan State police, or msp. In this role, i oversee msp some urgency management Homeland Security division, as well as the intelligence outreach and its division among other areas. , msp was awarded a grant of 450, 000, 250 for the fiscal year 2021. Dhs targeted violence or Prevention Grant program. Today, well be discussing how we are using this important federal support. Too many times in recent years, we have experienced incidents across the great nation where individuals have targeted others who committed acts of violence leading to for too many senseless death. The targeted violence and terrorism Prevention Grants is a tool that is helping us in michigan to hopefully prevent these incidences before they occur by establishing regional behavioral assessment manager team and a statewide Liaison Officer program. A behavioral Threat Assessment Management Team consisted of multi disciplinary and multi jurisdictional partners who identify individuals who are on a pathway to violence and intervene by providing them with productive alternative outcomes. The statewide Liaison OfficerProgram IncludesLaw Enforcement, First Responders, private sector partners across michigan who will enhance awareness and strengthen collaboration information sharing to aid and prevent targeted acts of violence. We recognize that the need to develop behavioral in our state. To ensure prevention frameworks are adopted that will allow local stakeholders to participate in communications addressing radicalization to violence. To address our behavioral threat assessment management gap with the terrorism prevention violence framework were developing one regional concept behavioral threats of an manager team that covers three colonies. These three counties include the State Government in the state capital of michigan. Have a combined total population just under 500,000 people. And are comprised of both urban and rural communities. This behavioral Threat Assessment Management Team will serve as a conduit identify persons of concern, pose a threat target violence and then provide referrals independent programs as a former prevention. This initial Multi Disciplinary Team that this grant is helping to procreates professionals from the community who will collaborate to increase communications, develop protocols and work with individuals who have risk factors targeted violence and terrorism. Using our grim funds hiring specialists will be on board in the next month will be responsible for development in managing the team. Providing intervention and threat assessment training for team members and for developing team protocols. A critical success factor for this program is having the funds to keep the specialist employed be on the ground here. Is this will provide communities with coordination training and confidence to identify individuals who will respond to the corded Community Approach for successful targeted violence intervention and prevention. Future grant opportunities will help us to expand this regional counts of team, statewide. Additionally through this current and in partnership with the dhs the p3, weve recently begun collaborating with Michigan StateUniversity School of medicine and International Policing institute on projects that will train highly skilled to be deployed across michigan who will supplement the regional behavioral threat assessment teams, provide advanced care and Safety Management plans. To those most are risk for becoming radicalized for acts of targeted violence. Were often sensitive to the protection of privacy, civil rights and Civil Liberties which is why the Privacy Policy will be adhered to in all cases brought to the attention of a hero Threat Assessment Management Team. Individuals associated with cases that pose a Public Safety risk will be treated with the same constitutional protections as any other individual encountered by long forsman. The goals of the Liaison Officer program are to provide training to increase awareness to those target involvement in intervention. As part of this grand, we receive funding for two parttime contract panelists to assist with the delivery of fusion Liaison Officer training witches inperson Training Provided to Law Enforcement versus ponders and private sector personnel. This training ceased increase awareness of the risk factors radicalization savant process strengthens for hoosier partnerships and bolster information and intelligence sharing. Today we have hired one of the two parttime contract panelist to assist future Liaison Officer coordination. Finalize our educational materials, help join community or disapproving with our c3 partners then include 30 of our state intelligence members. And conduct one of the scheduled training sessions. Once the initial groundwork is complete the program established, the liaison coordinator was a Senior Intelligence panelist in the Michigan State police will be capable of managing the program at the dependably without the sustainment of the contract panelist beyond current performance period. Thank you for your time, in this opportunity to share our experiences a michigan. And at this time, i am happy to take any questions you may have for me. Thank you Lieutenant Colonel cleanse give you your testimony i want to thank all the witnesses for your testimony as well. All remind the second subcommittee that we will each have five minutes to question the panel. And i will now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning. My first question to mr. Braddock and miss khan. As you know this tvtp program is essentially a twoyear cycle. Fiscal year 2020 just coming to a close. So question briefly if you could tell me whats your programs are able to achieve over the last two years. Miss khan . So we have two projects. For cruz, we have for a pilot locations who are committed to trying out this new approach of using data from analysis is apart the primary prevention of violence. And we are very specifically helping to understand the risk of protecting factors for the allocation of resources. So this is about working with them to recommend resources for the site. All of this is based on the fact that we build which is bringing an open source data from the last 20 years from multiple Government Agencies to actually understand what is playing out in terms of these factors and for a tackle, that we have actually completed the tackle training program. We have trained over 150 participants over 12 states. After the tackle training, we have found that 86 of our participants agreed or strongly agreed that the skills to prevent violence. So this is actually an increase of 37 just based on that one, eight hours of training. And similarly, we found that after the training, 73 were actually willing to engage with a family or friend that they were concerned about. And thats an increase of all 20 . So we have four tackle, we have completed all requirements because we finish early. And we actually went above what was promised. And for cruises, we are now already sent the pilot location of the initial results and we are working with them to develop recommendations and see how they are doing their. Budgets and how they are building the partnerships. Thank you. Mr. Braddock. Thank you, mister chairman. So this project was designed as a two face project. The first of which was meant to inform the second phase. Before i describe exactly what weve achieved so far, let me describe what the basis of the project. Is this project is, hinges on the idea of something called attitudinal inoculation. The idea being that if you expose somebody to a we can form of an idea in the same way the body is exposed so we they can develop resilience to that idea. There is about 60 years of research and communication science showing that this is an effective means of helping people prevent being persuaded by the sorts of ideas, so the first phase of the project was meant to develop deliverables in trainings that help people develop their own inoculations. In the years that we work so far, theres been four major real outcomes. Number one, we developed this literature based around the neck elation and distant information that could be of use of stakeholders. And i know that that literature is a boring word to politicians and to practitioners. So weve made this the accessible to practitioner. One of his own to do this work is to make sure that its easily accessible and adjustable. People are gonna use it. So its been boiled down to its bassist element so that people understand it. Second, weve developed reading list for people so they can look at this information. But the two major hallmarks of the first phase are the trainings that have been undertaken in the works out that weve undertaken. The training so far, i think weve conducted three. Two, weve trained stakeholders directly and i think weve trained probably about 200 by now. Stakeholders around the country. In developing inoculation messages for specific threats that they face in their communities. So although my focus for my project is on the far right and disinformation civically, different communities have different kinds of threats that face them so i want to be able to turn this communities to address those informational threats that they specifically weve trained several individuals, 200 or so in how to develop inoculation messages for those specific routes. For the project going to face to, we conducted this workshop where we had about i guess 30 of the worlds foremost experts on rightwing extremism and disinformation. And identified some of the threats coming out the pipeline in terms of disinformation. In the kind of violence that might come from the american far right. One of which, as i mentioned, was the lgbtq threat. Building on that, hoping to conduct next from where were testing inoculation against this very idea. In areas around the country where this idea starting to percolate based on searches and Search Engines that are completely anonymized. Weve achieved a lot of our foundational work, connect and several trainings and identify these threats in the last step is to test inoculation based on the threats weve identified. , thank you doctor bread. I now recognize Ranking Member meijer for five minutes to questions. Welcome, sir. Thank you, mister chairman. Can you hear me . Yes, yes. A for effort. I really appreciate all the witnesses testimony today and again, thank you mr. Chairman for hosting. This is an important meeting, important hearing on the subject. Colonel kelenske. Appreciate you coming in from michigan today. The great state of michigan. The greatest state of michigan. With all the Grant Funding that youve received, the Michigan StatePolice Michigan intelligence operation implemented their statewide Liaison Officer program. Fusion Liaison Officer program. The goal of the program is of course provide training to the Law EnforcementFirst Responders and private sector partners across the state to enhance awareness and also to strengthen collaboration. Since the implementation of this training, can you share how the information sharing and collaboration has improved between the Key Stakeholders in the space . What have you found is the best practices and information sharing . And how can other local communities implement similar processes to strengthen collaboration . Thank you for your question. Weve only been able to get one of the two parttime contract analysts in place to date. Our focus has been mostly on the creation of the educational materials for the fusion Liaison Officer trainings initial meetings with state and federal partners. We have numerous fusion Liaison Officer training sessions that occur with three coming up actually in august and september. With the training session, we have in a future trainings, we expand our targeted violence and terrorism prevention ecosystem of stakeholders which by its very nature fosters information sharing in collaboration through three when discussions, interactions and our product distribution. Personnel in the sessions when we get comfortable with Fusion Center and a fusion liaison opposite personnel who they provided information. But they understand the process of information sharing and benefits of collaboration. After our first low training, fusion Liaison Officer training session, we did not see an increase in suspicious activity or reports but we did see an increase in requests for service. We cannot say if this at this time is attributed to the flow of training or some other factors but we are going to continue to look at these impacts from our training sessions as we move forward. With over 7000 individuals, and thats Law Enforcement, Emergency Management, private sector partners who currently receive our daily information bulletins from our Fusion Center, with the increased exposure to the low programs for trainings i am certain information sharing collaboration will continue to flourish and increase. We also look to our stakeholders to help us continue identify how we can improve our collaboration and information sharing. We also have more interaction with agencies and personnel on the threat of medication to targeted violence terrorism prevention through our by weekly meetings with state agencies who are interested in behavioral threat assessment teams. Additionally, by vetting our dhs see p3 coordinator into our Fusion Center, we have more quicker access to dhs resources. As well as having a regional coordinators expertise and implementing targeted violent terrorism prevention programs. Lastly, we have engaged with our round experts on this topic for Michigan State university, collaborate with us and provide guidance as we move forward. As far as your question on best buy to this is, first and foremost providing actionable relevant untimely information to stakeholders. Then building that work in multiple disciplines that have regular meetings to engage with each other. Identify that social reporting mechanism and how distribution of information should occur. Discussing appropriate interventions as well as joint training sessions. That fosters trust, demonstrates the effectiveness of interagency and multiple discipline multi disciplinary collaboration. We continue to look at what has been done in virginia. North carolina. Recently, florida who has shown the behavioral threat assessment management is a best path forward with a believe it was may 2007 study. So we will continue to look at our partner stacey what are the promising practices as we continue to move forward. Sir and just as the last question for Lieutenant Colonel kelenske, you mentioned the idea to protect the civil rights, Civil Liberties throughout the work of the payment of. Team in the state of michigan, we saw in recent months, the acquittal of four individuals who were accused of participating in a kidnapping plot against the governor, and its in the realm of domestic violent extremism to make sure we are protecting Civil Liberties. We intra entrapment operations. That is a little more right word than kind of the focus on the prevention side, but could you provide more details into that process and how your apartment assures, in the course of doing their work, theyre also protesting civil religion liberties, civil rights, . If you revitalize more information. I we have a Intelligence Operations CenterPrivacy Policy, thats a six page document that is posted online and, they can assure that get sent to you. It is a public facing document. But we take that very serious, we look at that all the time to ensure those protections are in place, as well as an agency, it is embedded in our official orders or policies to ensure that all members continually have those protections at the front of their mind. But i can provide you thats documents, sir, or the link to that document, if thats okay. I appreciate that, Lieutenant Colonel. Mister chairman, with that thank you, mister meijer, and i recognize mr. Bishop for five minutes of questions. Mr. Bishop. Thank you, mr. Braddock. Id like to ask a couple of questions of you. From one of the other witnesses, at, least how much if he received inference from dhs from this sort of research . This particular grant was 568, 000, i believe, in change. Somewhere in that realm. Over the course of time, how much in total from dhs . In terms of this grants, or overall in my personal research . This grant, and then overall. This grant, i think were about halfway through the money that we have spent, and overall, dhs just added another 5,000 to it for a grant but i got in graduate school for my dissertation. So, about half 1 million could project a few thousand, is that we are . Saying give or take, that somewhere between 550 580,000. One thing you said in your testimony that i saw in written testimony as well, you credit dhs for its program here for the use of quote measures of Program Effectiveness, and you say thats rare in the field, then, you say, quotes because of this, the field is ripe with pundits posing as professionals. Close quote. I take notice that because im concerned about that, especially with the recent hullabaloo about but this information Government Forum and the like. And the way i see that. But let me ask you about this. On may 16th, you had a tweet threat out there that i took a look at. Addressing what you call, excuse me, a tweet thread addressing what you call terrorism, and i say this term is been banned in the last five years or so, roughly. Its a been a little earlier than that, five years in active use, and you describe it as a form of incited terrorism, whereby a communicator has access to a platform and a big audience. When the communicator uses coded language that promotes violence within an audience of millions, at least one is likely to interpret it as a call to arms. Then, you go on to say, thats the end of your quote, but you cant predict who, when, or where, its a matter of probability. At least one person will view it that way and act on it. Right. Thats what you described. So casting terrorism as. You distinguish that from incitement, right . But law recognizes that absolutely. Offer violence immediately, thats incitement. Thats not protected. The line but the u. S. Grew by the Supreme Court is its not safe, if you could even talk about violence calling for violence. You cant call for immediate violence, thats incitement, otherwise, its protected. Isnt that right . Thats correct, yeah. So, then you go on in that tweet thread, and you say in one, President Trump is a so caustic terrorism with respect to the january 6th riot at the coffee capital. Correct. Hes a terrorist. And you also say that with respect to the 2019 El Paso Walmart mass shooting, of people of descended hispanic the set, donald trump was a sarcastic terrorist of that event. Right . Yes, among others. Then, you have a tweet said that and with this. Let me hold it up. It says carlson is a danger to u. S. Domestic security, and youre talking about Tucker Carlson, . Right i am. Your conclusion that Tucker Carlson is a terrorist terrorist. I distinguish between an active terrorist, someone who engages in violence, and the sarcastic terrorist as the inciter, not meeting the Legal Definition for incitement. Not and insight in your definition, its hard to say yes, its annoying. Its a statistics term i didnt come up. With that term came up, i think it emerged somewhere around 2011, 2012. I actually had a discussion height, dusted a process where he said i dont actually like the term stochastic im not a big term either. You are familiar with the truck schumer statement about kavanaugh and corsica. You have released and you will pervade the price. You wont know i hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions. Its Chuck Schumer a stochastic terrorists . I say that one walks align. Theres another one from the, left i forget who it was that that, it but somebody on the left, i think it was last year, talked about getting in the face and getting aggressive with police or something along those lines . Maxine waters, how about that. Lets make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. For you to push back on them. And you tell them theyre not welcome anymore, anywhere. Who ca stochastic . Terrorist i made that argument. Its joe biden after the attempt on kavanaughs life, said merely that evening, that on a Late Night Company predicted many revolutions to overturn the Supreme Court. Is President Biden a stochastic terrorist . I dont think that meets the line,. Now but you mentioned quite earlier, two, it all relates to data and collecting data as to one connects to the other, and thats with the research im trying to cut up. Now its actually not related to the project and testifying on now, but another Research Project and looking on is connecting the lake between the. To its something hes alluding to but something i want tickets distinguishes stochastic terrorism isnt a legal. Just because the term terrorism is and it doesnt mean it in. Legal incitement is illegal. That doesnt mean the phenomenon doesnt exist. Thats what im concerned about. And the chairman might indulge me, just a little, because it doesnt look like we have a long form of people, but look at that tweet thread that was talking about. It says, one more thing. I am a Firm Believer that one, eight, you are referring to the First Amendment is secretary. There is a debate that needs to be had about whether a house stochastic terrorism is allowed to incur. You are talking about some restriction that by your own definition, its different than where the Supreme Court is about whats protected by the First Amendment. Arent you . Its not illegal restriction im arguing for. The argument i make for and against stochastic terrorism are building resilience to against that Strategic Communication, because its a form of communication. Although its not legal incitement, it could be argued to relates to the behaviors that take place later, and though is not illegal, it doesnt mean we cant to counter persuasion against it. So, Strategic Communication device like any other. So, sort of last point of contention. That i showed you. Have you been paid taxpayer dollars by dhs to study Tucker Carlson as a stochastic terrorist . No. Has he been a feature of your research . Have you researched Tucker Carlson . I mean, informally, from my own edification, i. Have sufficient to your point that you are willing to say on twitter that he is a stochastic terrorist for the buffalo massacre, right . Im willing to say it on congressional record, yes. But you havent researched it to quantify anything or come up with the statistical relationship. There are research that i had thank you. With, that we have a second set of questions, if you so wish. Can i make one last statement, chairman . Go ahead. This is a good discussion, go ahead. Mr. Bishop, these are the exact discussions i am talking about in that tweet thread that i want to take place. The fact that these discussions can actually take place, and we can find where airline is, or if there is a line. Thats debate needs to take place, and that is what i enjoy about these sorts of things. Its not meant to be that somebody should be arrested for saying something, but these sorts of words have implications. We have 100 years of Research Showing that words have implications, and even if theyre not legally actionable, they need to be talked about. And these are discussions i like to have with both sides. But chairman allow me to go on i look forward to maybe taking it up with you a little further if i have another chance. Thanks, mister chairman. Okay, miss you are welcome. Im good, im good to go. Thank you, mister chairman, and thank the panel for being here today. You know, i have a question about how you measure the Program Effectiveness and from what i understand, dhs defines targeted violence as any International Act or intentional act against a preidentify targets based on that targets perceived identity or affiliation that is intended to intimidate, coerce, or generate pull bliss the about their perpetrators grievance. I guess my question to any of the panel is, how do you measure the Program Effectiveness and performance standards, and how do you integrate that into this tvtp paid Grant Program, and how did having it perform at standard and accountability measure help you evaluate your projects and improve effectiveness of the projects, because how do you know something is successful if you dont have outcomes and measures put in place to measure that program . And thats to anyone on the panel. All go very quickly, because i dont want to take everybodys time here. In mind, there are several measures of effectiveness, the primary one being the inoculation of actual treatments. You can pre and post test people to see how they feel about a particular topic before and after we receive the inoculation treatments, and thats the plan with the experimental phase of the overall project. In terms of the trainings that ive done, and those sorts of things, we actually have conducted surveys of those who have gone through the surveys, who have gone through inoculation, wonder stand, it you believe there are specific communities and we can actually do statistical analyses of their responses to see whether theres improvement in what they feel about the actual strategy moving forward. And those, of all, have shown positive improvement. In terms of the second part, when i mentioned earlier, the actual inoculation treatments, those are based on control experimentation, which in social science, is the Gold Standard and hard to come across. Theres several different measures like use, and again, one of i think the cornerstones of the tvtp program if it demands these kinds of evaluations as we use these sorts of things. Yeah, absolutely. Does anybody else have a comment . I thought you were trying to guild, im sorry. Its okay, dan. I want to talk about Grant Programs. We actually use fully imposed questionnaires, and there is feedback, very specifically to measure a shift in knowledge, and we use that based on the information we have received. For example, for the capital, granted we started off with is and this is when you mention the definitions of, who knows what the definitions even mean . So, we actually start by asking that. And it turns out that 94 of participants had heard the term domestic terrorism and targeted violence, and get 25 knew what they meant. Same thing, we ask about Public Health approach, what is that . And barely 20 knew of the concept and about 30 had never even heard of it before. So, you can imagine that when we are talking about Domestic Violence, whats domestic terrorism, whats the Public Health reproach, but some are participants had no idea. And who is protected. So, for, us if there is this awareness and recognition that awareness is essential. Without awareness, there is no way of actually doing prevention or having a Public Health approach or any of this stuff, if you dont even know what it is. So, that for us is whats important. It also is our training, after our training, and i mentioned this earlier, also, is that we found after, training over 85 of participants agreed or strongly agree that they have the skills to actually meet sanders and knowing what to do in various types of situations, for little place, they found they were actually and this was increasable. And thats a huge increase, because we are talking about six hours of live training, two hours online. A total of eight hours of training. Its one day of training, which causes a huge increase, and actually the skills that they had, and the other thing is we were checking against is but willing this pact. Its one thing to say, oh, i know what to do, the next, is am i willing to do it . We also saw that after the training, over about 75 , 73 , were willing to actually engage with friends and family. When we are talking about upstanding is in this, we are not talking about a random stranger. This is not about the dhs sees something, we are talking about how can people we know within your own life recognize individuals who are in the stress, who is in crisis in their life, and how do we help before they are actually trying to incite violence . And so for that, you want the friends and family, you want our own to be aware of whats happening. We saw that, again, post training, there was an increase. So, we are absolutely using metrics. I know that you want to say something, sir . Mr. Pak . Thank you. Representative hershberg are, i did. One of the things i think its interesting about the Reach Program which is stands for reconciliation education and counseling crimes of hate is were dealing specifically with criminal defendants who are being placed on probation and are going to be completing the program as a term for probation. I think there is too interesting things we can talk about here, when were talking about metrics. The easiest mentor is going to be whether or not a further offend. We are seeking to get permissions then if they did commit an offense that they target the same group that they targeted the first time. Its not so much in terms of global recidivism but targeting in selecting recidivism about this program is about. And i do feel that having the ability to check the criminal record is a clear quantifiable empirical factor that we can look at. The other thing id like to mention to this committee is this program is making a deliberate effort to bring victim reconciliation and to the arena. And when i say that, one of the target participants thats going to be working with us, he was white, he was with his wife, she was white. They ended up all over the National Press because it came across an African American man and his ethnic wife and they got out of the car and they started saying things like only white lives matter. This was all being recorded by the victims wife. Whats interesting here is even though the court already has jurisdiction of the defendant, the individual who struck the truck with his shovel. After talking to him and his attorney and saying we would like you to participate this program, he and his wife both agreed to participate in victim or conciliation with the victims and in this instance, the victims, the man and his wife, have agreed to sit down with the defendants. And single defendant. Whats interesting i think there is metrics, when we try to make unquantifiable can be very difficult qualitatively here. Having the victim and the defendant sit down to talk about what happened for either to defend it to be given the opportunity to apologize and for the victim to be given the opportunity to accept. It goes way beyond just the defendant and the victim. It involves the entire Community Whether its a Jewish Community thats involved, whether a c African American community thats involved. Whats Different Community it is. So i would like to point that out. Sometimes there are qualitative factors that are difficult to measure. But they do yield i think significant results. Thank you for your question. Thank you, mister chair. Thank you very much and any other members that wish to ask there are ten minutes of questions . Seeing none would you all be interested in the second questions . I would, mister chairman. Okay, lets move to a second round and all start my try to hold the five minutes. Im going to ask Lieutenant Colonel kelenske a question. If i may. Lieutenant colonel, you are running michigan. We hear in orange county, california, also have a union center. And they do some great things from cyber to intel. Trying to prevent some bets from happening. One of the concerns that ive heard from a Fusion Centers is the communication not be as good as it should be. And that sometimes communication is from the fence down but not i should say from the bottom up and not from the bottom back to the Fusion Centers. Any thoughts . I think weve seen over the years that the communications absent flows. Im doing this in sort of 9 11 we are light years ahead of where we were i think everyone agree with that. I do feel the communication is effective. We can always do better. I also think the communication between the Fusion Centers or throughout our nation to include the work that the national Fusion Centers associations doing to keep everyone together. Its also very, very good, sir. We always can do better in sometimes were limited by the information that gets pushed up to us. Thats down at the local level. And thats whats delays some of the actions that we take. Can you elaborate on that specific point, please . With the last one, sir, about getting the information pushed out . Yeah, so this is exactly why we want to get our fusion Liaison Officer program in place. Because thats going to put people who are trained in the process of identifying information that is relevant to the Fusion Centers so that we can look at that information and say yes, we need to do further on this already know, thats constitutionally protected. Theres nothing more to do here. But we have to get that information pushed up to us. Whether its from our fusion Liaison Officers or through the general public, through d. C. Something, say something. Michigan, we have an okay to stay school tip line. Thats whats generates are suspicious activity. If i may, you just said Something Interesting which is if you have information thats constitutionally protected in the context of a possible clear and present danger, how do you resolve that issue . If its a clear and present danger, i guess i would question what is protected in that regard. A lot of times, not a lot of times, sometimes we might get information that somebody may not, they could even have just a beef with their neighbor. Then they push that on to our Fusion Center. Thats not something for us to act on. Thats very different than information that we actually look at, has a criminal nexus and we need to look through more. So in a situation where you do have that balancing act of constitutional protected activity, versus the possibility of something terrible coming to happen. You do have a mechanism to resolve that and hopefully make the right decision. Yes, our Fusion Center personnel as well as Fusion Center personnel throughout our nation or very trained. Trained very well. And very much understand what they can and cant do based on the code of federal regulations. You know, we look back at 911 and because of the misinformation that the silos that we operated Homeland Security was created to eliminate a lot of the silos. They said that things could always be better. I guess my open question to you would be how do we we continue to come improve i am bothered, you all do a great job. We got thousands and thousands of facts data points. Youve got to figure out with this stuff means. Any thoughts on how we can specifically improve which you do in the constitutional confines of assuring that we prevent the next horrific thing from happening . I think we continue to leave egos of the door and i think we continue the open dialogue, collaboration. Not only with local state federal partners but also with our private sector and non governmental organizations as well as the, those that are responsible for overseeing civil rights, Civil Liberties in our constitutional protections. We all have to be engaged with each other. Looks like my time expired so im going to send it over to our Ranking Member, meijer, for five minutes the questions. Thank, you sir. Thank you chairman korea and i appreciate the second questionings. I know miss khan was talking about the overall funding levels in those frustrations and concerns. That the money can only go so far and obviously, some of the goal of Grant Programs are the kind of spur additional insights and information. Hearings like the one were having today are where we can evaluate or potentially that number needs to be. But i guess, again to Lieutenant Colonel kelenske, the training thats been provided by the newly created fusion Liaison Officer program. How, in your view, has that helped a tear acts of terrorism or violent threats in your communities and as a corollary, how would it increase of funding allow you to more officially achieve the desired outcomes of your program . Please, id be curious to your thoughts. Its a great question. Weve only had the one initial training and i will say that one individual i know of, and im sure there may be another, is from the initial training did already provide information to our field analysts to follow up on. And this was a result of providing out of the training but providing field analysts locations and Contact Information that facilitates that reporting, collaboration investigation while nothing came for this report, it does demonstrate to the training is providing an effective identification and reporting process. To your point, your question on increased funding. That allows us to appropriately resource gap we continue to identify as we move through this process. This could include increasing staffing for tip lines in our wide desk personnel or fusion Liaison Officers at the local and state level. Statewide implementation of our behavioral threats of a management teams. Local and state level. We elise want one per state Police District provide training for additional skilled workers, Mental Health, that is a continual gap. Host more training sessions on providing targeted violence and terrorism prevention increase Community Engagement and education. Once the behavioral Threat Assessment Management Team or teams are in place, we also need to make sure that we have the bandwidth to handle the requests for service effectively and efficiently because we know with training, and more Community Engagement education, we will get more, or an increasing request for services. Obviously, the question ultimate responsibility Funding Source between state and federal is something for us to kind of discuss in a bit more detail in other forums. I guess kind of turning back to what miss khan with segment earlier. I would welcome, if anyone else wants to address this as well, more than happy. What weve heard from many of the community that applied from grants across the board, not necessarily under dhs for that can be very cumbersome process. I would just be curious for your experience how challenging with the application for tvtp funding in how did you find that relative to other grand processes that youve undertaken throughout your other interactions . From our perspective, the tvtp is fairly standard. This is not very different from any other federal grant. State level grand. The requirements for what you have to read is actually not too bad. So the process itself, i think, there are instructions again to follow. It anytime you apply for any federal or any government grant, you have to follow the instructions. And as long as youre doing it, they have timelines, make sure you do this two weeks at a time. As long as youre following it. So i think theres just a place where you have to dot your eyes and cross your ts because youre dealing with the government. I think its not just the grant process easy. The reality is if you get the funding, you have like 200 pages of compliance. But this just the federal process and you have to make sure that a lot ahead snotty on the compliance friend. It just is the fact of life we are dealing with any sort of government money. No different from anything else. Mister chairman, i see my time is close to expiring so i yield back. Thank you again. Thank you mister mayor. I recognize mr. Bishop for five minutes sir. Lets go back to what we are talking about. Stochastic terrorism. Your paper says that your testimony says current i am working on a Research Project here towards understanding how disinformation and conspiracies perpetuated by farright extremist persuade their intended audiences. And more importantly, how we can prevent these audiences from engaging in violence in support of this conspiracies and disinformation. So is the concept of stochastic terrorism. Is part of the theory, right . Not necessarily. Your research for dhs address the concept of stochastic terrorism . No. Okay. Lets talk about it just a little further. So still cast it from what i read means random. Random although guaranteed to occur. Statistics means that, statistics of means its random where and when it will occur but it will reliably occur. The best way to explain it if something is random, it happens from a guard regards to a causal factor. When you talk about stochastic terrorism your attributing to a donald trump or a Tucker Carlson. Why use it is not true. You can attribute something to random. If you remember in biology class or biology classes up as exhibit a hughes. When i was in biology class in high school, you would take a petri dish and you would sneezed petri dish in the new would close the petri dish. And then three days later, bacteria would grow somewhere. You cant predict when and where butted grow somewhere. Thats attributable to the sneeze. A better example maybe not a biology class, if youre sitting on your front porch in north carolina, right . North carolina . And youre looking out on the horizon. I know gets hot north carolina, of been to chapel hill plenty of times. And you see dark clouds rolling in on your porch. You know lightning is going to strike somewhere. You cant predict when and where but its going to strike somewhere. Thats attributable to the heat making the cold. Okay so ill leave for the moment for somebody else whos watching decide whether there is a concept is differ between randomness and something caused by an efficient cause. Lets leave that aside for one moment. Let me just get a couple more examples. You said you had no hesitancy to conclude the President Trumps a stochastic terrorist would respect the january 6th and with respect to the el paso shooter. You said the Tucker Carlsons is stochastic terrorist with respect to the buffalo attack. But then you said you thought Chuck Schumer walk the line when he said what he said about you wont know what hit you to address to a Supreme Court justices. Why does that walk the line . Because i dont know what isnt as direct as there are people you in your country. Or isnt as direct as were going to walk down pennsylvania avenue and then not walk down pennsylvania avenue with those people. Okay. These are imply directives. Let me keep going. Maxine waters, starting about that. She said wherever these people show up, you push back on them, you tell them theyre not welcome anymore, anywhere. Thats not stochastic terrorism . Is that what i understand . Did you ignore what is it earlier . I said yes that would. B you said Maxine Waters is a stochastic terrorist. I said these are incidents of stochastic terrorism. How about this . Eric let me ask you, i would ask you one more. Eric swalwell says republican form banning abortion. They want to ban interracial marriage. Is he a stochastic terrorist . Now. Not to that quote. Nothing would inspire anybody to do anything. Let me ask this, was frank james the guy on the buffalo new york subway who shot in the subway, what else he did, was he inspired by stochastic terrorism of say black lives matter and critical race theorists . Im not familiar with the franklins case. Youre going out to explain to me what happened at the closer to getting to his actions. You are not aware of the brooklyn subway attack that just happened about two or three months ago . No. Enough immature with it. Let me see. Okay. When joe biden said, i think i did that one. Hillary clinton this decision will kill and subjugate women. Whats another disgrace. Is that stochastic terrorism . There is no imply directive. If you can see the difference between mentioning something that will occur and an employee directive like were going to walk down pennsylvania avenue. One implies that there is some justifiable motion towards an action. And i could talk about the theory that underpins why my argument is that the certain cases sars stochastic terrorism versus others arent. Our time probably doesnt allow for that. I got 22nd. Slim to get one other way. Is calling republicans white supremacist itself a form of stochastic terrorism . No. Just like calling democrats communist and socialist isnt stochastic terrorism. The woman who runs the account on twitter lives of tiktok, Washington Post says she identified she was a domestic terrorist. And shes had a spate of Death Threats as a consequence. Is Washington Post a stochastic terrorist . Through identifying her . No. It has to be an implied last one, mr. Bishop, where the time, go ahead. Go ahead and finish answering that. One i can do this all day, mister chairman. But that last one, there needs to be an implied directive towards would happening. And again, im more than happy to send information to the panel and to mr. Bishop and like i said, i like having these conversations. I know its kind of a gotcha game but i enjoy have these conversations because ultimately, it means less violence from both sides. But ill be happy to after the hearing, youre more than welcome to supply written answers to any other questions. I really actually want to. And for mr. Bishop, i know we dont have time. But ill send you the materials that link implied messaging to actually have better idea of where im coming from because it is kind of a lecture and i know that thank you, mr. Bishop. Now im going to go back miss dina titus . Im here, mister chairman. Madam, how are you . Im good, thank. You i apologize for being late todays election day in nevada. Thats what it figured. I heard you are busy. Want to give you five minutes if you cant ask the panel of witnesses some questions. Thank you. As you know, we are currently involved in an increased domestic threat environment. And this is due to a number of factors but one thing thats been cited is the forthcoming decision by the Supreme Court on abortion. And so i wrote a letter, i was joined by members of this committee and the chairman and chairman thompson to secretary of Homeland Security. Asking them to please remain vigilant and come up with a plan to deal with this kind of get ahead of the game instead of reacting. But id like to go back to dr. Braddock to talk about this with his research to counter disinformation campaigns. One of the big ones from some of the rightwing groups as great replacement theory. Thats being used in the context of the abortion issues. So all those things kind of come together. I wonder if you could talk about how we can prevent online forums from perpetuating untruths or how we can tackle this situation if we are expecting a rise in dangerous attacks. Could you just share some of your research or findings on those kind of topics . Sir, absolutely. Mr. Bishop will like this. Displace about the left in the right inoculation. Its useful for any kind of ideology. In my research that advocates for violence. The idea is to prevent ultimately violence that perpetuates from a violent extremist ideology. So i mentioned earlier kind of what inoculation is. Attitudinal and occupation. Its a strategic counter persuasive strategy whereby there are two major elements to it. In one, you essential e worn a target who hasnt been exposed to an idea before or has been exposed to a minimally. If there is a third actor out there whos trying to use them for their own devices. And may try to get them to engage in behaviors they might not otherwise engage in. Being americans especially, americans very much value their own autonomy. So when we think somebodys going to try to persuade us, we really dont like it and we kind of become resolute in our beliefs and attitudes. And thats what i really like about it. Because you can approach people and i have of which people and said listen, i may not agree with your political points of views, thats okay, you can have other beliefs and attitudes you have. I just wanna make sure you dont engage in violence. And there are people out there who would have you engage in violence. Thats up one. Step two is to present them with counter arguments against what theyre going to encounter. My research and 60 years of research in the context as shown that when you do this, theres a couple of critical things that happen. Number one, they experience whats called reactions. In response to that. So what they do, i guess the best way to explain this if youve ever been in a store, and you just want to wounded offensively comes out to you and wants to sell you something. That we had gross feeling where you want to just go away. Thats with the experience when they encounter the propaganda. So the good angry and a counter argue against. Thats number one. Number two, they attribute less credibility to the person that may try to persuade them down the line. They think theyre less credible. And would i founded my research, the most important thing for me is number three. They report significantly less intentioned to support that group or that person with violence. They might still ideologically believe whatever they were to believe but they report less intention to get violent on the back of it. So i argue, and i have argued, at that one of the key things that we need with respect to disinformation in the u. S. And elsewhere is some comprehensive Media Literacy and schools to help kids understand when theyre in countering information that might be false. Its not their fault, its not School Districts fault, is that the governments fault that we dont have this. Its just that Digital Technology have advanced so quickly and you have to point out technologies where people can create their own content has advanced so quickly, we havent been able to keep up with it. So we need to arm people who dont have the capacity for identifying a true versus false information from anywhere. They dont have that capacity. We need to help them with that. I think that it inoculation, at least the research that ive shown thus far, would benefit that. There are boundaries around inoculation like there is with any kind of persuasion strategy. Any communication strategy. But thats whats researches for and thats where the parsing out. The department of Homeland Securitys planning attention to this . There are grants for this or how can we pursue that suggestion . I hope they are, they gave me more than half 1 Million Dollars to research it. So i hope theyre paying attention. I dont want your findings just to go on a shelf somewhere. No, im actually, thats one of the things that we mentioned john walter couple of times. My program manager. One of the things that were very cognizant of, this needs to reach the people that need to use it. So ive conducted a couple of trainings already with people all around the country, right, wing left ring, everything in between. To help them develop inoculation messages in their communities against the specific disinformation problems that they face. From what ive learned from those individuals after theyve undergone the training, they reported back to me that they intend on using it and theyve talked about the different kinds of disinformation they face and its not just coming from my focus is on this project. Being the rightwing, they see it coming from all over the place. They want to help prevent people from being taken in by it. And most importantly, engaging in violence on behalf of it. Im interested in preventing violence, police and attitudes thats people can believe it or they want. These inoculation trainings are meant to help people to help others prevent them from engaging in violence and we have any kind of disinformation they encounter. Very interesting. Thank you very much for allowing me to come back, mister chairman. Learned a lot. Thank you very much, maam. Good luck today and your election. Miss harsh burger, are you there . Would you like to add fame as the questions, maam . Going once. Going twice. I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony today. Members for their questions. Was a good hearing today. Members of the committee may have additional questions for the witnesses and we asked that you respond to those questions expeditiously in writing. The chair reminds members that the committee record will remain open for another ten days. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. Thank you very much. Good afternoon