Under 90 minutes. The subcommittee on oversight and management and accountability will now come to order. Without objection the chair is authorized to declare the subcommittee in recess at any point. Im going to start by thanking everyone for joining us today. We are here to discuss the topic that is becoming all too familiar to many of us in every part of this nation. That is domestic terrorism. The hostage situation in the synagogue in texas earlier this year, to the radically motivated shooting at a Grocery Store and buffalo, new york, to just last month, many, many attacks that have devastated our Community Across the country. Responses for Public Security from state urgent review and assess the departments capability to address this rising threat. We are here today to discuss one of those capabilities in depth. Department of Public Security toolbox, have been the targeted violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program since 2011 the department has identified the need to partner with local communities to address the growing domestic terrorism threat. On 2016, dhs launched a countering violent extremism Grant Program, a predecessor to current program. However, weak management of that Early Program undermined Homeland Securitys ability to determine the effectiveness of the funding and concerns about the inherent anti muslim bias in some of that funded projects eroded trust with minority communities. Local Community Leaders were in the best position to know when and how to engage with the vulnerable individual and ensuring the department maintains a trust for local community has to be a top priority. In 2020, dhs relaunch the program under the new name with the new Public Health focus approach. Through this new Grant Funding program dhs supports the efforts of local partners who seek to raise awareness about the Domestic Violence extremism threat and develop communitybased networks to provide support to individuals who may be radicalized or radicalizing violence before the crimes are actually committed. Our witness to date represent four of the organizations that have received grants and either fiscal year 2020 or fiscal year 2021 grant cycles. The projects executed over a period of two years represent the wide variety of violence prevention efforts that are funded by this program. The Office Support projects that implement promising practices as well as those who propose to test new and Innovative Solutions to terrorism prevention. These projects fall into a number of categories including enhancing threat assessment capability. Challenging online mobilization narrative and establishing or enhancing local prevention frameworks. The program has demonstrated some promising early results. But it is still relatively new pretty although dhs is started to process to ensure an independent review of the efficacy of the projects funded in the 2020 grant cycle that review is still not yet complete. Continued oversight of this program will be necessary to ensure the mistakes of the past are not repeated today. And i look forward to hearing from the Witnesses Today about how they have ensure the protection of privacy, civil rights, civil liberty and their work with individuals and local communities as well to measure the impact of their projects. It is most importantly get this right and whatever we can do to curb these horrifying attacks we must do immediately. With that i thank you again for joining us today. In the chair would recognize the Ranking Member if he is here for. Yes i am mr. Chairman can you hear and see me . How are you welcome. Coming to live off the floor. Thank you for holding this important subcommittee hearing on the department of phone security target of violence and terrorism Grant Program. Thank you so much to her witnesses for joining us today. I look forward to hearing your testimony about experiences they have had with the program is grant recipients and particularly 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 a larger number of communities in the future but over years the terrorism landscape has evolved and will many grants focusing on terrorism have created as a result of the 911 attacks, the current Threat Landscape has a combination of both international and Domestic Violence concerns. We must address and involve our approach so its tackling these new and emerging threats and allocating federal dollars in the most effective way possible. I believe he must do all we can to protect our communities and equip them with the tools need to combat and prevent targeted violence and terrorism in whatever form it takes. The targeted violence the tv tp Grant Program is one such tool that can help communities build and strengthen the resiliency capabilities and prevent threats before they arrive. Just last april i co led a letter to the House Appropriations committee that was focusing on all of these various funding streams asked them to increase funding in fiscal year 22 from the art terrorism prevention which is now operated the center for preventative partnerships and programs. And the tv tp program itself. This letter highlighted the fact that in recent years, more americans have been killed by domestic violent extremists than by international terrorism. On the number of domestic terrorism investigations conducted by the fbi has doubled since 2017 bring threats from foreign terrorist organizations remain very real, these figures demonstrate the landscape is changing so too must our thinking. Recently our country has experienced increased rates of violence. Ranging from heartbreaking mass shootings, to attempted assassination of a sitting Supreme Court justice. We must do more to combat violence and address its root causes no matter the ideological motivation. So democracy is protected. Violence of any kind is unacceptable. As elected leaders it is our responsibility to find solutions that will promote and protect the safety of those we represent. The tv tp Grant Program has a great amount of potential to enhance these important efforts. At the same time, i think it is incumbent would make sure the money is well spent simply spending more taxpayer dollars will not fix the problem. We must make sure federal grant dollars are spent efficiently with clear objectives and measurable outcomes. This Grant Program must be transparent and accountable to the American People and it must ensure Civil Liberties for all americans are protected. Leader public on the oversight and management subcommittee remain committed to work with my colleague to help strengthen the security of our local communities and to bolster and approve dhs programs designed to achieve this goal. It is imperative we continue to advance bipartisan efforts to increase funding, accessibility and resources to programs that enhance the safety and security of communities around this country. Targeted violence and terrorism can occur anywhere at any time. We must remain committed to empowering local leaders and local Law Enforcement to strengthen this resiliency nature dhs has the proper funding to support their efforts. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on the important of the tv tp Grant Program the way save use these grant awards to protect their communities, and any recommendations they have to improve the Program Going forward. Thank you, mr. Chairman and with that i yield back. Ranking member i could not agree with you more. The mission to protect american lives and terrorism, very Important Mission but we have to make sure every taxpayer dollar we invest in this mission is optimal. Thank you very much sir. Members are reminded the committee will operate according to the guidelines laid out by the chairman and Ranking Member the fabric third colloquy regarding remote procedures. And without objection members not on the subcommittee shall be permitted to sit and question the witnesses. And now i welcome our panel of witnesses. investigator for the department of Defense Research institute project on terrorist propaganda as well as Strategic Advisor to the Un Security Council managing the violent extremism and the third witness Deputy District Attorney with the vla District Attorneys Office where he is served over 25 years and currently works with the hate crimes unit within the organized crime position. The final witnesses Lieutenant Colonel commander of support bureau and Deputy Director of the Michigan State police. Hes responsible for strategic leadership for the Emergency Management and Homeland Security division and intelligence operations divisions which include the state of michigan Fusion Center. Without objection the witnesses statements will be inserted in the record and i now ask each witness to summarize his or her statement for five minutes. Welcome, sir. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, thank you for having me today. Members of the committee thank you for having me to testify in relation to the center for prevention programs and partnerships. As the chair sadaam assistant st professor of communication at American University and a faculty fellow at a Research Center focusing primarily on domestic extremism and terrorism the pluralism Research Innovation lab. Between the two appointments i work at the intersection of the communication violent extremism where i try to understand how the communication influences people to engage in violent activities on behalf of ideologies that we see domestically and internationally. My work in this area stems from the events of september 11, 2001 which instilled in me a drive to find ways to understand why people get engaged in such evil and find ways academically to protect americans from this kind of violence and to this end of the last 20 years i studied violent jihadist extremists from the far left into the far right, irish republican dissident groups, violent Animal Rights activists, single issue terrorists, christian extremists and every other you can find. I sit in front of you today to discuss my experience with the program. At present the program where my research has intended to understand disinformation and conspiracies perpetuated by far right extremists and other intended audiences and more importantly how to prevent them from engaging in that disinformation and conspiracies. I focus on the far right in this project because i know how important it is for the government to use its budget efficiently getting the most value for every dollar spent and to that end i sought to develop a project that addresses the most significant threat to security at the moment, far right violent extremists. Most simply i want to get you the most bang for your buck. Im glad to say today this project has been a relative success resulting in multiple deliverable as well as a large workshop intended by the foremost experts and white ring extremism and disinformation. I hope the work continues to be at use for this regard. From the outside of the project the program has been very enthusiastic and supportive of any research that ive done. Personnel, some i will mention by name later have been in Constant Contact throughout my work and sought to help me address associated research at every turn. One specific challenge ive run into is the early goings of the project related to the impact of the covid19 pandemic that led to the degree i could meet collaborators, Research Participants were other colleagues face to face despite the challenges posed and the limitations it put on my research, they continue to support by facilitating the completion of deliverables that could be worked on without facetoface contact some include the development of training modules for stakeholders that help them build resilience into disinformation within their communities as well as modules for those who would train others to help build resilience. After the Covid Protocols were lifted we were able to hold the in person workshop understanding the disinformation and future threats and one of the themes of which was focused on lgbtq plus communities which as we saw just a couple of days ago doesnt seem to be a target of the right. I understand my role will be to testify in more detail about my experiences to gauge the value for the American People and to this end i offer my full endorsement. Not only has the program funded a range of research that addresses a variety of threats facing the country but it also demands accountability. Very few programs require measures to the effectiveness. The field is ripe with pigments that pose professionals, permanent media figures, twitter experts independence have long commented on the effectiveness of certain practices to reduce the risk of violence but provided no evidence to this effect. Cp three doesnt allow for this loose commentary. The demands for Research Accountability and improve intervention effectiveness i believe the Program Provides excellent value but before turning to your questions to provide further details on my project i want to thank on the record john wilder of cp three hes been my Program Manager and with my project a godsend on coordinating, organizing and demanding accountability on my part for my my project is effective and with that i look forward to your questions and also apologize in advance if you hear my dog during my testimony. So thank you very much and i look forward to your questions. Thank you and your dogs comments on the congressional congressionalrecord will be acct objection. Now i recognize you to summarize your statement in five minutes. Welcome. Good afternoon, chairman, Ranking Member and distinguished members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify. The president and cofounder. It is essential to focus and the Public Health approach to the allocation of resources with local governments to mitigate risk factors and enhance. The recipient to focus on these areas one outside of the training and second was an innovation grant for the prevention of domestic terrorism and counter violence. A data informed county executive city managers and elected leaders to prioritize risk specific to the jurisdiction and to allocate. Publicly available open source that the national, state and local level nor is there any personally identifiable information. We are grateful for funding the approach and for the commitment to protect the community and we focus on hate crimes and domestic terrorism and over the next few weeks we will be competing. To facilitate. In 2020. And that influenced the domestic terrorism and how the hate and bigotry. The communities in the prevention. And the participants for the district attorneys. The implementation of the grants over the last has resulted and the Grant Funding is stretched. [inaudible] the data in the selection by latching the data informed means to the proposed solutions by the state and local level. Let me end by emphasizing we must accelerate the efforts with increased resource allocations and not be discouraged by the mistakes and we cannot wait for another or the School Massacre [inaudible] thank you for your attention and opportunity to share. I look forward to questions. Thank you very much. They hate crimes unit prosecutes all serious hate crimes that happen at the county of los angeles including any case that is committed by an organized hate group and the cases that are either complex in nature or require a seasoned Deputy District Attorney. In this capacity, my primary role and my secondary role is i do Community Outreach. I worked closely with our partners, communitybased partners ranging from the jewish groups and including members of the Lgbt Community as well. During the time that i was prosecuting the hate crime case is about three years ago i came across an issue. I had a defendant that committed a crime of violence against the lgbtq committee here in long beach and this has gone all the way to the highest levels of in my office if this position was reached to include 200 hours of community service, obviously the goal was to try to raise the awareness when it came to the lgb tq community. When we reached out to the stakeholders, i was immediately asked what did this individual do and when i described what happened and the nature of injury what i was told by the director was this individual has committed an act of violence. One of the things that we know is that hate is not innate. In the bias program one day when i was doing Community Outreach i was on a call with the city attorneys office. On the onetoone program at that time i met the field operations. I said there was a need in the county specifically when it came to trying to address the bias. John wilder is our program analyst. One, we want to focus on counseling. To see if they can determine what the risks of the animus are and where they came from. Second, we are going to be working with the Community Based organization. I think the program is really amazing and what its going to permit us to do is develop two things. One, and offender centric study, not a very large one and two, the tools and the modules that are necessary to try to address explicit bias. I look forward to the questions and thank you for inviting me to participate. Thank you. Now id like to recognize the Lieutenant Colonel to summarize his statement. Welcome, colonel. Thank you, chairman. Ranking member meyer and a distinguished members of the subcommittee for allowing me to discuss the targeted violence and the Terrorism Prevention Grant Program. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Deputy Director in charge of the field to support the bureau of the Michigan State police or msp and in this role i oversee the Emergency Management Homeland Security division as well as the intelligence operation of other areas. The individuals have targeted others and committed acts of violence leading to death. The targeted violence Prevention Grant is a tool that is helping us in michigan to hopefully prevent the incidences before they occur by establishing the Behavioral Threat Assessment Team. They consist of multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional partners who are on a pathway to violence and intervene by providing them with productive alternative outcomes. The acts of violence we recognize the need to develop the threat assessment capability in our state to ensure the prevention frameworks are adopted that would allow multiple stakeholders to participate in communications addressing radical violence. To address the behavioral threat assessment management gap in the terrorism targeted violence framework we are developing one regional concept Behavioral Threat Assessment Team that covers three counties. The three counties include the State Government and state capital of michigan and have a combined population of just under 500,000 people comprised of both urban and rural communities. This behavioral Threat Assessment Management Team reserves a conduit to the concerns and poses targeted violence and provide referrals to independent programs as a form of prevention. This multidisciplinary change is comprised of professionals from the local community to collaborate to increase communications throughout the protocols and work with individuals who brought risk factors of the targeted violence and terrorism. Using the grant funds we have the specialists onboard within the next months that are responsible for developing and managing the team providing intervention and threat. To respond to the coordinated approach to successful targeted violence intervention and prevention. They help us to expand this team statewide. For those at risk of becoming radicalized in the targeted violence. We are also sensitive to the protection of privacy civil rights and Civil Liberties. They pose a Public Safety risk and will be treated with of the same constitutional protection as any other individual encountered by Law Enforcement. As a part of this grant we receive the funding from two parttime contract analysts. To increase awareness to the risk factors radicalizations process. Today we fired one of the parttime contract analysts to assist the liaison coordinator. Finalize the educational materials and help the joint Community Awareness briefing with the partners and the state intelligence numbers and conducted one of the scheduled training sessions. Once the initial groundwork is placed into the program is established, the Liaison Officer into the Michigan State police will be capable of managing the program independently without the sustainment of the contract analyst beyond the performance period. Thank you for your time and opportunity to share our experiences and at this time i am happy to take any questions you may have from me. Thank you, lieutenant for your testimony. I want to thank all of the witnesses for your testimony as well. A reminder we will each have five minutes of questions for the panel and i will now recognize myself for five minutes of questions and my first question as you know this Grant Program potentially is a twoyear cycle. Fiscal year 2020 just coming to a close, so the question briefly you can tell me what your programs are able to achieve. All of this is based on the fact it is bringing in open source the last 20 years from the Government Agency strategies for what is playing out. Over 150 partners and after, we found 86 of the participants agreed or strongly agreed its there to have the skilled prevent violence based on the training and similarly we found 73 were actually willing to engage with family or friends they were concerned about and thats an increase. So it went above where promised and weve already sent the initial results and we are working with them to develop recommendations and see. Thank you mr. Chairman. This project was designed the first of which was meant to inform the second phase and before i describe what we have achieved so far let me describe the base of the project. This project hinges on the idea of the attitude inoculation the idea being if you expose somebody to a weekend a form of an idea in the same way the body is exposed they can develop resilience to that idea. Theres about 60 years of research and communication showing is an effective means of helping people prevent being persuaded by these sort of ideas so the first phase was meant to develop deliverables and training that help people develop their own inoculation messages, so in the years so far thereve been four major outcomes. Number one is literature based around inoculation and disinformation. That literature is a boring word. To make sure that its digestible by people that are going to use it and its been boiled down to so people can understand it. Second weve developed reading lists for people for the information but the two major hallmarks of the first phase. My focus is on the far right of the information specifically, different communities have different kinds of threats. So i wanted to train the communities to address those informational threats they sent specifically. It is against this very idea in areas around the country where the idea is starting to percolate based on searches and Search Engines that are anonymized. Based on the threats identified. Now recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes of questions. Welcome, sir. I really appreciate all the witnesses testimonies today and thank you for hosting this important meeting. At the Michigan State police and Operations Center implemented their statewide Liaison Officer program. The goal of the program of courses to provide training to Law Enforcement and private sector partners across the state to enhance awareness and also strengthen collaboration. Since the implementation training, can you share how the information and collaboration has improved between the Key Stakeholders and what have you found to be best practices and information sharing and how can other local communities implement similar prophecies to strengthen the collaboration . Thank you for your question. Weve only been able to get one in place and its been mostly in the updating of the educational materials. The officer trainings and initial meetings with federal partners we have numerous Liaison Officer training sessions that will occur with three coming up in august and september. We had in future trainings we expanded the ecosystem stakeholders. They not only get comfortable with Fusion Centers to provide information. We havent seen the increased suspicious activity reports but an increase in the request for service. But we cannot say if this at this time is attributed to some other factors but we are going to continue to look at these impacts from the training sessions as we move forward. To continue to flourish and increase and we also look to the stakeholders to help us continue to identify how to improve the collaboration and information sharing. With the meetings and state agencies that are interested in the Behavioral Threat Assessment Teams and additionally by combating the cp three coordinators into the Fusion Center we have more direct access to resources and as well as having the regional coordinators expertise and implementing the targeted violence and terrorism prevention programs and last, we have engaged with the profound experts on the topic from Michigan State university to collaborate with us as we move forward. As far as your question on best practices with actionable relevant and timely information to stakeholders and then build a network of multiple disciplines that have regular meetings. Identify that mechanism and how the distribution should occur discussing appropriate interventions and joint training sessions and fosters trust and demonstrates the effectiveness of the interagency and multidisciplinary collaborations and then we continue to look at what has been done in virginia and North Carolina and florida. As we continue to move forward. You mentioned the importance of protecting privacy, civil rights, Civil Liberties throughout the work of the behavioral threat assessment and ive seen the state of michigan just in recent months the individuals who were accused of participating in the kidnapping and in the realm of Domestic Violence extremism protecting the Civil Liberties not getting to the point which has been alleged conducting operations. Some of that is a little bit more rightward than the focus on the prevention side but could you provide more details into that process and how your department ensures that in the course of doing the work and also protecting the Civil Liberties and civil rights more broadly . I can provide a lot more information. I believe we have our intelligence Operations Center. It is a six page document that is posted online and i can and sure that gets to you as 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 that is embedded in artificial orders and policies to ensure all members continually have those at the front of their mind. Thank you mr. Chair man. A couple of questions. In terms of the screen or my personal research. And then overall. This grant we are halfway through the money we spend to add another 5,000 to it for a grant i got in graduate school in my dissertation. So about a halfmillion give or take a few thousand. I would say somewhere between 550 to 580,000. One thing you said in your testimony and i thought this was a witness testimony as well you credit for its program for the use of measures of program effectiveness. Then you say the field is ripe with pendants posing as professionals. It is a form of insight and terrorism whereby a communicator has access to a platform and big audience. Then you go on to say you really cant predict who, what or when but one person will view it that way and might act on it. They also say with respect to the 2019 El Paso Walmart mass shooting. You are talking about Tucker Carlson. I am not a big fan either. I would say that one walks the line is another one from the left. You tell them they are not welcome anymore anywhere. I wouldnt think that, no. But you mentioned a point earlier where it all relates to data and collecting data whether one connects to the other end of it is to research and trying to conduct now not relating to the project but another Research Project im working on. Just because the term doesnt mean that a legal incitement isnt. Is there a debate that needs to be had about whether it is allowed to occur. Youre talking about some restrictions that buy your own definition is different than where the Supreme Court is about whats protected. Its not a legal restriction im arguing for. Against that communication because it is although its not legal incitement, it can be argued to relate to the behaviors that take place later and though its not illegal doesnt mean we cant do counter persuasion. Its a communication device unlike any other. So the last plaintiff you bring me back to that, have you been paid by dhs to study Tucker Carlson as a terrorist . No. Has that been a feature of your research . In the formally. Sufficient to the point that you were willing to say. We can find where the line is that the debate needs to take place and thats what i enjoy about these sort of things. They do have implications even if they are not legally actionable they need to be talked about. Will. Is any international act. In the affiliation for publicity about the grievance. In the performance standards and accountability measure to evaluate the effectiveness of the project for the outcomes and measure . You can test people to see how they feel about a particular topic before and after they receive the treatments and thats the plan with the experimental phases of the overall project. In terms of the training that ive done. Theyve been useful to the specific communities and we can actually do statistical analyses of the response to see whether there is enough proof improvement in the actual strategy moving forward. It demands these kind of valuations [inaudible] this is the only definition that we need and in terms of that, only 25 the same thing we asked about the Public Health approach. These were the elected officials and leaders for the future development and recognition and without this [inaudible] that was important and the training i mentioned this earlier other training over 85 if we strongly agree the skills and knowing what to do in various situations and this was an increase of over 30 and that is a huge increase because we are talking about 6,000 for a total of eight hours of training. It is a huge increase in the willingness and the skills and then the other thing its one thing to say i know what to do but the question is am i going to do it and about 75 or 72 were willing to engage when you talk about the standards its not about if you see something Say Something but how can people that you know recognize and then how does it help so we want our own networks and then we saw that increase. Did you want to Say Something, sir . Thank you, representative. One of the things that i think is interesting about the program is the reconciliation and education and counseling as we are dealing specifically with criminal defendants who are being placed on probation and are likely completing the program. I think theres two interesting things we can talk about here when we talk about that choice. The easiest metric we are seeking to get permission to track them to see whether or not they commit an offense and if they did, did they target the same group they targeted the first time. Its not so much recidivism but targeted and selected recidivism and i do feel having the ability is a quantifiable factor that we can look at. The other thing i would like to mention to this committee is this program is making a deliberate effort into the arena and when i say that, one of the target participants thats going to be working with us they ended up all over the National Press because they came across a man and his ethnic wife. They got out of the car into started saying things like only white lives matter. This is all being recorded by the victims wife. Whats interesting here only the court has jurisdiction over the individual who struck their truck with a shovel, after talking with him and his attorney saying we would like you to participate in the program, she and his wife had both agreed to participate in the victim reconciliation with the victims and in this case, the victims had to sit down with the defendants and whats interesting there i think is metrics when we try to make it quantifiable can be difficult but having the victim and the defendant to sit down to talk about what happened, for the defendant to be given the opportunity to apologize into the victim the opportunity to accept goes way beyond just the defendant as a victim. It involves the entire Community Whether its jewish, africanamerican, whatever 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 significant results. Thank you for your question. Thank you very much. Any other members that wish to ask questions. Seeing none, would you be interested in a second round of questions . I would, mr. Chairman. Okay, lets move to a second round. I will try to hold 25 minutes. Im going to ask Lieutenant Colonel you are running the Fusion Center of michigan. We in Orange County california also have a Fusion Center and they do some great things from cyber to intel trying to prevent bad things from happening. One of the concerns that ive heard is the communication not being as good as it should be and that sometimes communication is not from the bottom back to the Fusion Centers. Any thoughts . I think we have seen over the years the communication ebbs and flows. I would say weve been doing this since after 9 11. We are light years ahead of where we were and everyone would agree but i do feel that the communication is effective. We can do better and i think the communication between the Fusion Centers throughout the nation include the work of the association is doing to keep everyone together is also very good. We always can do better and sometimes we are limited by the information that gets pushed to the local level and that is what tended to delay some of the actions that we take. Can you elaborate on that specific point please . The last one about getting the information pushed out . This is why we want to get the Liaison Officer program in place because that is going to put people that are trained in the process of identifying information that is relative to the Fusion Centers so we can look at the information and say we need to go further on this or no, that is constitutionally protected theres nothing more to do but we have to get that information pushed to us whether its from the fusion Liaison Officers were the general public through the see something Say Something in michigan we have an okay to say School Tip Line and that is what generates. If i may interrupt, you said something interesting, which is if you have information that is constitutionally protected in the context of a possible clear and present danger, how do you resolve that issue . If it is a clear and present a danger i guess i would question what is protected in that regard. Sometimes we might get information that somebody could just have a beef with their neighbor and they push data to the Fusion Centers. Thats not something for us to act on. Thats different from information we actually look at as a criminal nexus and we need to look through more. In a situation where you do have that balancing act versus the possibility of something terrible, you do have two resolve that and hope you make the right decision. The Fusion Center personnel as well as throughout the nation are trained very well and very much understand what they can and cannot do based on the code of federal regulations. We look back at 9 11 and because of the misinformation and the silos that we operated, Homeland Security was created to eliminate a lot of those silos and you just said things could always be better. I guess my question to you were to be how do we make sure we keep continuing to improve because i am bothered. You all do a great job. You have thousands and thousands of data points and youve got to figure out what this stuff means. But any thoughts on how we can specifically improve on what you do in the constitutional confines of ensuring that we prevent the next horrific thing from happening . I think that we continue to leave egos at the door and continue the open dialogue and collaboration. The nongovernmental organizations as well as the overseeing of civil rights and Civil Liberties and the constitutional protections. We all have to be engaged with each other. Thank you, chairman. And again i appreciate the second round of questioning. The frustrations and concerns that the money can only go so far and the goal of the Grant Programs are too kind of spur additional insights and information and hearings like the ones we are having today where we can evaluate what that number needs to be. How in your view has data to helped detour the threats in your community is and is a corollary, how would the increase in funding allow you to more efficiently achieve the desired outcomes of your program . One individual i know of data already provide information to the field analyst. Providing attendees field Analyst Contact information that facilitates that reporting collaboration investigation. Nothing came from this report it does demonstrate that its providing an effective identification and reporting process. To appropriately resource the gaps to identify as we move through the process. This could include increased staffing for the personnel and the Liaison Officer at the local and state level you to the implementation of the Threat Assessment Management Teams and the local and state level we at least want one district to provide trainings for additional skilled workers. Once the management teams are in place we need to make sure we have the bandwidth to handle the request for service because we know we are in training and more Community Engagement education we will get more increase in the request for service. Turning back to earlier i would welcome if anyone else wants to address this what weve heard from many applying for grants across the board. I would be curious for your own experiences how challenging with the application of funding and how did you find that relative to other grant processes that youve undertaken throughout . From the other grants to the process itself. And anytime you have to follow the instruction and as long as you are doing it there are timelines to make sure you do this two weeks ahead of time. This is a place where you have to daughter your eyes and cross your teams because you are dealing with the government. If you want to get the funding you have like 200 pages of compliance. It is part of the process. A lot of head nodding on the clients front. Its a fact of life when you are dealing with any sort of government money. I see my time is close to expiring so i will yield back. Thank you again. Your paper says we are working on a Research Project geared towards understanding how disinformation and conspiracy perpetuated by far right extremists persuaded the intended audience is and how we can prevent these audiences from engaging in this disinformation. The concept is part of that theory, right . Doesnt a Research Address the concept . No. Lets talk about this a little further. So, from what i read it means random. Random although guaranteed to occur. It means it is random when and where it will occur but it will reliably occur. If something happens that is random but we talk about the terrorism, you are attributing to a donald trump or a Tucker Carlson. What you said is not true. You can attribute something at random. If you remember in biology class or, biology classes the best example, when i was in biology class you would take a petri dish and sneeze into the petri dish and then close the petri dish and then three days later bacteria would grow somewhere. You cant predict when and where but that is attributable to the sneeze. A better example may be not biology but if you are sitting on your front porch and, North Carolina, right, and youre looking out on the horizon i know it gets hot ive been to chapel hill. You see dark clouds rolling in on the porch you know lightening is going to strike somewhere. You dont know when or where, that is attributable. I will leave for a moment for someone else to decide between randomness and something caused by an efficient cause. Let me get a couple more examples. You had no hesitancy to include january 6th and with respect to the el paso shooter you set a saidTucker Carlson is a terrorit with respect to the buffalo attack but then you said you thought Chuck Schumer walked the line when he said what he said about you wont know what hit you addressed to the Supreme Court justice. Why does that walk the line . Because it isnt as direct as people replacing you in your country or as we are going to walk down pennsylvania avenue and then not walk down with those people. These are implied directives. Maxine waters said you tell them they are not welcome anymore anywhere. That isnt terrorism is that what i understand . Earlier i said yes that would be. I said these are instances of terrorism. How about this, im going to ask you one more. The republican. With banning abortion, they want to ban interracial marriage. Is he a terrorist . Not on that quote. Not that would inspire anybody to do anything. It was frank james, the guy in the buffalo new york subway who shot in the subway and i dont remember what else needed, was he inspired by statistic terrorism of, say, black lives matter and criminal race theorists . Im not familiar with the frank james case. You have to explain, and the quotes you are attributing to it. You are not aware of the brooklyn subway attacks that happened about two or three months ago . No, i am not familiar with it. Okay. Let me see. I think i may have done this one. Hillary clinton, this decision would kill and subjugate women. What an utter disgrace. Is that a statistic terrorism . There is no implied directives. If you cant see the difference between mentioning something that will occur and in applied directive like we are going to walk down pennsylvania avenue, one implies that there is a justifiable notion to words and action and i could talk about the theory that underpins why my argument is the surgeon cases are statistic terrorism versus others are not. Time but doesnt allow for that. Let me try to get at this one other way. Is calling republicans White Supremacists itself the form of statistic terrorism . No. Just like democrats communists and socialists isnt. But one of the accounts on twitter, Washington Post said identified and said she was a domestic terrorist and she has had death threats. Is the Washington Post a terrorist . For identifying her, no. We are out of time but go ahead and finish answering. I can do this all day, mr. Chairman. There needs to be an applied directive to whats happening. And again i am more than happy to send information to the panel and like i said i like having these conversations. I know its kind of a gotcha game but i like having the conversations because ultimately it means less violence from both sides. After the hearing, you are more than willing to give written. I know we dont have time but i will send you the material and the link implied say you have a better idea where im coming from because its kind of a lecture. I am here. I apologize for being late. Today is election day. If you want to ask the panel of witnesses some questions. As you know we are currently involved in an increased domestic threat and violence and one thing that has been cited is the decision by the Supreme Court on abortion and so i wrote a letter and i was joined by some members of the committee and the chair asking them to remain vigilant and come up with a plan to deal with this to kind of get ahead of the game instead of reacting. But i would like to go back to talk about this with the research that countered the misinformation campaign. One of the big ones from some of the rightwing groups is a great replacement theory. And thats being used in the context of the abortion issue, so all those things kind of come together. I wonder if you could talk about how we could prevent online forms of perpetuating untruths and how we can tackle the situations if we are expecting a rise in dangerous attacks. Could you share some of your research or findings on those kind of topics . Absolutely. And mr. Bishop would like to supply the left and the right its useful for any kind of ideology. In my research the idea is to prevent alternately violence that perpetuates from the extremist ideologies so i mentioned earlier inoculation is. Its a strategic counter persuasive strategy whereby there are two major elements. One, you essentially worn a target that hasnt been exposed to an idea or has been exposed minimally but there is a third actor trying to use them for their own devices and may try to get them to engage in behaviors they might not otherwise engage in. Americans especially very much value of their 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 like is you can approach people, and i have and said listen i may not agree with your political points of view. Thats okay. You can have whatever beliefs you have i just want to make sure you dont engage in violence and there are people out there that would have few engage in violence. Step two is to prevent counter arguments against what they are going to encounter. My research into 60 years of research into the context have shown when you do this theres a couple of pretty cool things that happen. Number one, the experience what is called reactives in response to that, so what they do, i guess the best way to explain, have you ever been in a story and you just want to window shop and somebody comes up and wants to sell you something, that a gross feeling you just want them to go away, that is what they experience in the propaganda so they get angry. Number two, they attributed less credibility to the person that might try to persuade them down the line to think they are less credible and what i found in my research the most important thing for me number three, they were less intention to support that group or that person. They might still ideologically believe whatever they want to believe that they reported less intention to get violent on the back of it so i argue and i have argued one of the key things we need with respect to disinformation in the u. S. And elsewhere is comprehensive literacy in schools to help kids understand when they are encountering information that might be false. Its not their fault or the governments fault that we dont have this its just Digital Technologies have advanced so quickly into the technologies where people can create their own content has advanced we havent been able to keep up with it so we need to arm people who dont have the capacity to identify true versus false information from anywhere. They dont have that capacity and we need to help them with that and the research ive been shown thus far would benefit that. There are boundaries like there is with any counter persuasion strategy or any communication strategy but thats what research is for and what we are parsing out. The department of Homeland Security is paying attention to this . There are grants for this or how can we preclude that a suggestion . I hope they are. They gave me more than half a Million Dollars to research it, so i hope they are paying attention. I dont want your money just to go out on a field somewhere. Thats one of the things we mentioned a couple times on the program. One of the things that we are very cognizant of this needs to reach people that they need to use it. Ive conducted a couple trainings already with people around the country rightwing, leftwing and everything in between to help them develop inoculation messages in their communities against the specific disinformation problems that they face and 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 misinformation they face and its not just coming from what my focus is being the right thing they see it coming from all over the place and they want to prevent people from being taken in by it and most importantly engaging in violence on behalf of it. Im preventing violence, people can believe whatever they want. These inoculation trainings are meant to help people to help others prevent them from engaging on any kind of disinformation that they encounter. Will thank you very much for i dont need to come back mr. Learned a lot. Thank you and good luck today in your election. Thank you. Are you there, would you like to ask five minutes of questions . Going once, going twice. I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony today and the members further questions. This was a good hearing today. Members of the committee may have additional questions for the witnesses and we ask that you respond to those questions expeditiously in writing. The chair reminds members the record will remain open for another ten days and without an hour and 35 minutes
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