Good afternoon, everybody, welcome to the new American Enterprise institute, this is my new event on our first stage and so im nervous. Im danielle with the American Enterprise institute and im pleased to welcome chairman Michael Mccaul to aei, to our new stage. Chairman mccaul is the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Hes been a representative of texass 10th district for six terms if thats right but prior to that you have extensive experience in National Security. He was the chief of counterterrorism in National Security in the u. S. Attorneys office in the Western District of texas and served as texas Deputy Attorney general under the current u. S. Senator john cornyn so today we have a lot to talk about, theres a lot in the news and a lot of things we want to cover but today the chairman and the committee have released this report. A National Strategy to win the war against slaus terror. Maybe youd like to take a couple minutes for our audience and lay out the ideas that are contained herein. There are copies of the report outside for you folks to take afterwards. There are a lot of familiar faces in the room. I want to thank my staff, miles, jake, katie who were instrumental in putting this document together, weve really been working on this for the last three months very intensively and then of course the events of last saturday occurred making this report very timely, on saturday we saw three terrorist attacks occur in in country. One in new york, one in new jersey and one in minnesota, its an evolving threat and i think this report demonstrates the relevancy and the reason why we need this report, i think its important to note ive already submitted this to mayor Rudy Giuliani and i intend to submit this to hillary clinton. I think moving into the next presidency, whoever it is will need to adopt a new counterterrorism strategy, weve been operating off outdated strategies from the Bush Administration and now under president obama very different strategies, what we try to do is to take into account the current threat, the evolving threat that we face today that was very different, say, pre9 11 or even in years following 9 11 and how has it changed . People ask me whats the difference between bin laden, al qaeda, isis, baghdadi. I think the main difference is the digital age. The fact that bin laden was very top to down commandandcontrol, very primitive in his communications, couriers, now we have this new generation of terrorists who are very savvy on the internet, they know how to explait it to both recruit, to train and to radicalize from within. And all these threats need to be taken into a new strategy which is what we do in this 30plus page document with over 100 policy recommendations, a very substantive document. Weve seen through the internet theyve been able to recruit 40,000 foreign fighters from 120e different countries. Thats something weve never seen before but weve also seen this radicalization from within that accounts for a lot of the attacks i think weve seen in the United States. This is the individual on the internet looking at the propaganda, getting radicalized and the next step is an act of terror. I was with the 9 11 ceremony at ground zero, very moving ceremony and then met with the new York Police Department and their Intelligence Unit the next day really to go over the state of security in new york and that was just a week ago, this case did not come up its the one that you miss that keeps you up at night but i can tell you what the evolving threat as they see it and as i see it as well. As weve seen isis with basically two directives coming out of raqqah, syria, one come to syria and join the fight, the other one kill where you are. I think with the some of the military successes we are starting to have now in iraq and syria, youre seeing that message more along the lines of go ahead and stay where you are and then kill by any means necessary. By any means that you have. Whether its picking up a knife in a Shopping Mall in minnesota to developing Pressure Cooker bombs like the boston bombers to pipe bombs to running people over in the street. So we have to adapt a strategy. I think thats what we do in this document, we can get more specific. If youd like thats the overarching theme that we have to evolve with this evolving threat because its not like it was prior to 9 11, the idea of hijacking airplanes in a spectacular event is probably not a likely scenario anymore, what is more likely is an active shooter, is an ied going off and a suicide bomber or a bomb and a last point of departure airport coming into the United States like the flight from chairo to jfk or what we saw at Sharm Elsheik airport. So thats kind of a broad brush view, if you will, of the threat that has evolved that we see today, thats very difficult and challenging to stop because it is so pervasive over the internet. 200,000 isis tweets per day and the propaganda is in so many homes now across the United States and the world and how do you stop that from influencing on a global level . I talk a lot about the military strategy which is important to go on the offense and take them out where they are so they cant conduct these external operations in the United States. We talk a lot about the political reconciliation, diplomatic, but the counternarrative is important as well and the war of ideas r ideas is equally as important in terms of the ideology in this generational longterm struggle that we face thats not going to end in my lifetime but i hope it ends in my childrens lifetime and we have to be better prepared to deal with that ideology. Let me press you on a couple of questions. Obviously the report is not a gimmick. I read through it in its entirety. Its a cersere series of seriou recommendations for major policy changes rather than a quick fix to anything so i dont want to put you on the spot, particularly when it comes to the attacks that happened in minnesota, new york and new jersey but i do want to ask you a question about the socalled lone wolf. Its not a phrase i love, actually, because i dont think they are lone wolves, theyre part of a broader network. But nonetheless, what weve seen, particularly with the new jersey afghan immigrant whos now an american is that he had posted on facebook some jihadist sympathies, he had gone to pakistan and to afghanistan several times in recent years. His father had reportedly the New York Times is reporting just now his father had told the fbi that he thought two years ago he thought he had terrorist sympathies. Now, obviously things slipped through the cracks but where do we draw the line in these sort of situations . Should we be reading peoples facebook pages . Should we be following their twitter accounts . Is that how we do that . How do we balance that out with privacy . You talked about it a bit. Talk about it some . Its always the balance of we have to do in this in a constitutional way in the United States. In terms of vetting individuals coming in like the San Bernardino black widow we should look at social media. We admit people into the country from a safety standpoint. With respect to people in the United States, obviously the constitution applies, the First Amendment but at what point is it protected by free speech . At what point is how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mother protected by free speech . So with all this propaganda what weve tried to emphasize is that its no longer just one group, its a Global Jihadist Movement powered by the internet, powered by their ideas, the force of ideas and so when you say lone wolf that tends to in a lot of peoples minds downgrade the threat like its not that big a deal, just one kind of nut case. The problem but when you have multiple lone wolves lining up, we know there are ties internationally, he went to pakistan and afghanistan, he purportedly got married and brought her back in the United States, we dont know where she is today, she may be back there. Weve seen some of his writings where he talks about al awlaki, he talks about bin laden, talks about the new jersey bombings in his writings do what we try to emphasize is that you cant downgrade it by saying lone wolf that its a Global Jihadist Movement and we need a counterterrorism strategy to address that movement. As it exists and we need to look at the internet, they say whats the difference . Well, bin laden and al baghdadi have a 7th century mindset of world view, but this group is powered by the engine of the internet that they can exploit. They can use encrypted communications to communicate so we cant even see in many case what is theyre saying like in paris and brussels, weve encouraged the private sector to leverage, to shut down twitter handles of jihadists, to put up counternarratives on google when a jihadist terminology is searched in the engine. We think these are positive but at what point do we treat it like, say, child pornography . If you post or look up child pornography on the internet bull arrested by the fbi. Why cant we look at algorithms and maybe look at this propaganda in the same way consistent with the First Amendment and the constitution . Are we not . No. Really . We are attempting to monitor social media but theres no attempt to shut it down. I think you talk about cyber ops, cyber operations, theyve been there have been limited attempts to shut things down internationally. Remember theres an intelligencegathering aspect to this as well. But, again, i think that differentiates these new terrorists from the old ones is there ability to spread this throughout the internet. So i asked the question and i begged you know, this is a healthy discussion to have. At what point do we allow this under the First Amendment . At what point do we just shut it down . Good question. One of the things that you talk about in the report is you detail the number of plots that there have been. Now when someone is arrested, nothing happens, there isnt an attack so, you know, that is the challenge to us. Had we arrested 19 people the day before 9 11 the attacks wouldnt have happened. There would have been an outcry at their arrest, there would have been questions about the arrests and suspicions and profiling and everything else. Talk a little bit about what people arent seeing. Because i think that thats an important narrative that isnt out there. And im always very i always praise Law Enforcement what tae dont know, most people weve arrested over 100 isis followers in the United States since the beginning of the caliphate, the islamic state. Weve had 100 plots against the west, both europe and the United States. And we have over a thousand investigation in all 50 states. That shows you the numbers and we do a Terror Threat snapshot out of my committee every month and the frightening thing from my perspective and i try to not try to inflame things but the numbers keep going up, dani, theyre not going down. This movement is expanding globally not shrinking even though were having moments of military success now against them. Why is that . Because of the power of the internet so again those numbers going up, concerns nypd and every Major City Police chief and the fbi in terms of how can we stop it . We cant stop it all, thats just the fact of the matter. This will not be the last time we see an event occur in the United States and certainly europe is far more wide open than we are. They are in a pre9 11 posture and they have completely open borders, we talk about ours, they dont share intelligence the way they should and they dont utilize databases as effectively as they should. Thats part of our report is to share that intelligence better with our foreign partners to make sure the biggest Homeland Security mission is keeping bad people and bad things outside of this country not allowing them to come in but you know what . Through the power of the internet you dont have to travel to syria. You can get radicalized here and then kill americans as they are directing people to do so. But now weve been talking mostly about isis and about the radical jihadis coming into the country but, of course, kaemd, and you reference al qaeda in the report, al qaeda still out there, in fact, al qaeda has spread dramatically largely under the radar over the last eight years, one of the questions i have that is you talking about the regions where these terrorists operate, where these groups are operating, whether its Subsaharan Africa or the middle east or south asia. Wherever they are that in fact theres nothing we can do theres nothing we can do about stopping the flow unless were willing to address the problems at their core. And one of the questions i want to ask you about was this term that you used that we need to break the movement and that we need to break the movement back there tlamplts not just a military strategy. The president looks to put it as a binary sort. Were were doing x or its war. You say we need to do more in these countries. What are we not doing . What do we need to do and how do we ensure through nonmilitary means these groups arent flourishing . So the great focus of the previous two administrations have been core al qaeda and we have decimated top leadership, a. Q. A. P. Still exists. In terms of external operations theyre still one of the greatest threats that we have but were not looking at this as a global movement. When you look at the destabilization of the middle east going on today and Northern Africa where i just came back from sinai and egypt, camp north up there, tunisia, got briefed by the libyan team that is in exile after benghazi, they thrive in safe havens and power vacuums so, yeah, the military aspect is important. A military strategy is important but equally as important is governance and stability and thats where i think the political diplomatic piece comes in to play is that this isnt going to be resolved until we have a political reconciliation in syria with mr. Assad. Iraq is not going to be resolved until we get rid of isis there but also have govern nantz. We have no governance in libya at all. Its a failed state. Tunisia is a fragile democracy but per capita more foreign fighters than any other country in the world and then, of course, isis is very privilege in egypt to the point where theyve taken down the russian airliner. So i think the political stability and, of course economic stability comes with that. Theyre not unlike some gang members who want to be something, part of something greater than themselves and they may not have the Economic Opportunity that we, say, would have in the United States so all those factors, i think holistically need to be taken into account to address what is, again, a Global Jihadist Movement. So do we need a whole new strategy to approach these parts of the world that differs dramatically from what weve been doing up to now . Well, we havent had a military strategy in about four years. I got briefed on isis four and a half years ago and the skiff, weve let it fester. Weve let it expand, weve done very we had a policy of containment, essentially, not to defeat. So i think the military strategy is sort of just now coming into play. I do think thats very important but i think balanced with that is, again, the political, diplomatic and then following the war of ideas, the counternarrative approach that weve failed miserably. We talk in the strategy about a marshall plan, if you will. Not occupying countries, were not occupying countries. Those days are over. But a way to assist these countries where they can have governance. The biggest thing in libya when i was there was that you have two military dictators that cant get their act together without a unified military, you have no governance. So the governance has imploded and in those power vacuum, safe haven is precisely where the terrorists thrive and breed and out of which they can hit the best, europe, and the United States. Lets brit inge back to the United States for a second. Everybody loves to hate tsa. I heard the director of tsa at a speech this summer saying, well, you know, before i was there i used to hate it, too. He goes, well, actually i still kind of hate it. That thats probably a shared sentiment around the room. What im trying to figure out, and you referenced the needed fixes domestically and say we havent updated since 9 11 but why is it so broken . Its really getting the department to move forward in the modern technology age. Ive had great discussions with admiral neffenger. Tsa does more than screen people at airports. Tsa stops a lot of bad people from getting on airplanes and coming into the United States, it also stops a lot of bad things like bombs from getting on airplanes. Last point of departure airports. Those concern me. Cairo has been over there not very secure. Istanbul airport, not very secure yet we have flights coming into the United States but i think with respect to screening domestically at airports what ive been pressuring them to do is really look at all the technologies out there that you can leverage where, imagine this, your print is a boarding pass. Or your facial recognition is your passport. I predict in five hopefully not ten years but hopefully five this is going to be the modern age of travel. Where you wont have to carry documents around and what better what i to identify the person than through the biometrics and also the screening itself will not be people taking their shoes off and getting shook down like i got today. I got put in secondary, by the way, randomly. The guy in front of me did as well, it was kind of odd, two random secondary searches but rather you walk through a panel just like in the white house theres a lot of technology in there youre not familiar with or know about but yet youre being screened and imagine that is the vision i think and what will be the future of modern day travel is to walk through panels and not have to go through the ait, not have to go through the shakedowns, not have to take your shoes off and travel documents will be biometric. Okay, that sounds awesome, im getting on a plane tomorrow i would love that. But why . None of us are from silicon valley, were not on the cutting edge of technology but youre talking about this. I understand what youre talking about and yet we dont see a lot of evolution. I mean, theres not a dramatic difference between what happened on september 1112, 2001 at the airport and what is going to happen to me tomorrow or happen to you today. Why is there no internal mechanism . Wheres the breakdown here . I think precheck has been is a good program. It takes people that are trusted travelers out and helps i had to make sure tsa was coordinating for the first time with the airlines and the airports with respect to personnel flows so we dont have the lines, basic stuff, theres a lot of Good Software technology out there to integrate these systems where youd have more effective flow of travel, but the ai. T. Machines are a new thing since 9 11. Canines are visible. There are things in place but you know what . They got a failing report card when the red teams went through, guns and knives got through the machines and thats a problem. More than 90 . About a 90 failure. Thats not a good grade. Particularly when youre talking about aviation. People say why do we have to keep doing this stuff . Is it really necessary . Well, i would point you to the threat briefings i get when it comes to al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to what isis did, aqap has been targeting a the aviation sector for years with cartridges they tried to get on the plane to blow it out, to nonmetallic ieds, then to see isis develop that for the insider threat. This is not getting through screening. This is an insider vetting problem where you have a corrupted or radicalized employee putting a bomb on an airplane. That, to me, thats an easy thing to do and its something that does keep me up at night because we have to properly vet these employees whether it be in cairo or cuba. Cuba is letting 100 flights per day in, tsa back channelled to me they didnt think it was up to speed security wise and yet now theyre coming in. Marco rubio tweeted out i think today that they have no air marshals on the flights into cuba. We were assured by tsa they would have federal air marshals. There are none on those flights. Why is that . Well, they do have a tie to iran and venezuela. They are still a communist country and so i attempted to go down there to inspect the airport myself with a congressional delegation and the government of cuba denied my visa application. Shocking. Lets talk for a second again about in some ways circle back a little bit to new york and new jersey and i will let you all get a chance, a word in edge wise, i promise well turn to questions soon but i want to talk to you about what has become extraordinarily controversial and that is the question of refugees and immigration. Donald trump and donald trump, jr. , got some attention today by referring to refugees as skittles. Wouldnt eat a whole mouthful if you knew there were three bad ones in there, something that offend it had makers of skittles and should probably have offended a lot of refugees and immigrants. Now im an immigrant so im a big supporter of immigration. I want to know what i want you to know where i sit on this. How do we have and Intelligent National conversation about this . Because i dont think weve been voog one up to now. How do we do that and do we have the tools that are necessary to actually let people in who need us . Because thats what america stands for. Its a country of immigrants. How do we let people in who need us but not let in the people who are going to be the San Bernardino bombers . Well, and thats the key. Im Irish Catholic so we were a nation of immigrants, compassionate nation