followed by the assistant attorney general. demers. >> thank you. good afternoon. welcome back. our next conversation is about ongoing counterterrorism efforts at home and abroad from threats both international and domestic. t conversation is award-winning journalist and esteemed home security ms. jeane reserve. >> thank you, rob. so we heard from acting secretary wolf a little bit earlier about the constellation of threats facing the country. some are new and have have intensified. we're going to look at that landscape a little more closely now with our guest this afternoon. jay tabb is the executive assistant director of the national security branch of the f.b.i. they cover terrorism, espionage weapons of mass estruction. you've had a very successful career and bring a lot of nowledge and expertise. i want to start first because i am still trying to reform myself as a news reporter with the news of the day. we heard yesterday that there had been three arrests of individuals who allegedly posed a threat in connection with the gun rights rally that's scheduled for monday in richmond. let me ask you first have there been any additional arrests? >> good afternoon. thank you very much. i want to say thank you to the homeland security security group and the wilson center. thank you for hosting the f.b.i. here and thanks for having us. the answer to your question is yes over the last few days we have arrested six individuals, three that were arrested in maryland and three more that were just arrested down in georgia that are involved in the group known as the base. the nature has to do with their advocacy for violence and their conspiracy to conduct violent acts. unfortunately because we're so early into the process there's not a lot i can say outside of what we put out on press releases. >> can you tell us about the charges they are facing guest: the individuals down in georgia, the newest individuals that we've arrested and are coming public today among other charges were involved in a conspiracy to commit murder. >> of whom? >> can't talk about that right now, jeane. >> these are state charges? >> they are state charges. >> they're likely to be additional federal charges? and additional subjects. >> so once again associated with this group call the base which until yesterday i personally had not heard very much about. what can you tell us about this group? >> i would turn everybody to the court documents that we've put out but the base is a group that largely recruits individuals on line, we would categorize them as racially violent extremists, they're a neo nazi group that have called for a white ethno state in the united states. >> is it a coincidence that the base is al qaeda translated? >> i don't think -- i think it simply is is a coincidence. i don't think there is any direct correlation at all from what i've seen on their media. >> can you tell us anything about their size, their reach, their influence? >> no. i can't because i don't know that we have strong estimates on the number of individuals that share this ideology specific to that group. we don't investigate people based on their membership and group. we investigate them specifically in this area for the ideology married with violence or threats of violence. -- to affect social or political change. >> i have read that this group is something of an umbrella for other groups of neo nazi sentiment. is that correct? >> i don't know that i would call it an umbrella what we find is individuals that claim membership in this group is they also have affiliations with other individuals like minde that -- like-minded that subscribe to similar ideology and might have -- and i should say this also, there's not a lot of physical membership with these groups. there's quite a bit of virtual memberships. so you and i would meet online. we would have like types of things posted on our social media. we might visit similar web sites and how we might make connections. >> is there cross ferretization -- fertilization with groups overseas? >> there absolutely are. the christ church attacker in new zealand had significant connections to like minded individuals in numerous western countries and he had traveled extensively to western countries. >> and was he part of the base as well? >> not that i'm familiar with. >> not with them. ok.i've always read that this group, the base has training camps in north america. what can you tell us? >> i will refer everybody back to the charging documents. there was absolutely some training that was done amongst the members that we arrested. i don't know that i would call it a training camp. >> i know because i read the complaint on those arrested yesterday that they were believed -- they are alleged to have a machine gun and ammunition and gone to firing ranges. can you tell us more about the folks arrested's today what they had in their possession? >> i have not seen anything regarding the arrest in terms of what was found in subsequent search warrants. >> one of the group we found out yesterday was a canadian matthews was his name and former military and was said to training. ives in the charging documents i don't see any reference to explosives, only to the machine gun, ammunition, and drugs. did you find anything relating to explosives? >> i don't believe we found anything related to explosives or explosive components. i haven't seen the search invent riss. just familiar with the briefings. -- regarding the arrest in the last few days. >> in a news report they referenced the possibility of them weaponizing drones over this demonstration scheduled for monday in richmond. what can you tell us about that? >> i think that's probably an area we shouldn't talk about it just talks about further investigation. >> so this is ongoing. we will learn more. >> i think so. part of the timing of the disruption of this investigation and i think everybody in this room will appreciate this is not an independent investigation by the f.b.i. these were conducted off of two separate task forces in conjunction and coordination with the joint task forces down in richmond, which is protecting the lawful rallies that are going to happen on monday. and a big reason why we disrupted it now was based on the timing of the rally on monday and the intent of some of the individuals to potentially conduct violent acts down in ichmond. >> are you saying that the folks who were just finding out about now who were intent on hurting somebody that richmond was also their focus? >> no. unrelated. that specific conspiracy unrelated. the individuals in baltimore definitely had an intent. >> do you anticipate more arrests before the rallies on monday? >> specific to this group of individuals? i don't think so. >> what about other groups? >> and i don't think so. [laughter] lear that up pretty quickly. because our sedgets get a vote, i have no way to predict what some of these individuals might do between now and monday or even monday. we know there is a high degree of interest in some individuals from both spectrums in the ongoing debate around gun ights, around ethnic and racial issues that potentially has them coming to that event on monday and might end up with some sort of criminal activity for which they might be arrested. >> despite the ban on firearms in the capital square. >> look, i think virginia law enforcement authorities in virginia specifically the state police, the governor's office et sets, they're doing everything that they can to make that event and all events around than monday as safe as possible. >> it's a flash point. it's a big day for demonstrations in richmond, gun issues particularly enflamed in virginia right now. also martin luther king day. and historically in richmond this was the day they celebrated the confederate heroes on lee ackson day. so a lot of potential conflict points built into this event. how worried are you about monday? >> so i think the f.b.i.'s got a fair sense of worry about monday because of all the factors you just talked about and because we can't account for everybody and everything. we have a degree of interest individuals we know are saying that they will be there. and we have no way to predict where rhetoric turns to violence. we just don't. and i think frankly that's the landscape for us right now domestically is that we have a hard time predicting where just talk turns into action. and it's so difficult to disrupt sometimes because that amount of time between somebody talking hateful and turning violent sometimes can be just days. >> and sometimes you don't even hear the talk. >> absolutely. more and more our cases and our investigations are around individuals that are incredibly insular that aren't involved in a conspiracy or plot with anybody else. the individuals that we call home grown violent extremists or domestic violence extremists on the domestic side that literally the only people that might see the change in behavior is very close family or friends. and of course they don't have a tendency to tell law enforcement. >> so prevention is the goal. how can you do prevention in this environment? >> i mean, we're doing it all the time. unfortunately, our job is that we can never be wrong on this. and if somebody is successfully attacks us here in the homeland we failed in some sense. >> if there were any indicators. i remember hearing about the people who did the shooting at the kosier deli in new jersey that there was absolutely nothing that would have put them on the radar. not only did they shoot up this deli but they had a phenomenal amount of explosives in their van. >> that's right. i think we are increasingly challenged with disrupting individuals ahead of time. because to add to the issue of them being insular, to add to the issue they might have diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health, to add to the issue many are juvenile offenders in the federal system and even in some state systems, add that with along with the other challenges which are they're utilizing encrypted application first their communication and they're make it more and more difficult domestic law enforcement and security services like the f.b.i. to disrupt. >> i want to get to that encryption but before we go there i want to ask you given the difficulty of detecting these people proactively is this just a risk that americans are going to have to live with ongoing? >> sure it is. what i would say is you've already been living with it. maybe you didn't know. >> but it's intensifying. the numbers are going up. >> i don't know if -- the numbers of mass shootings, yes. the numbers of violent acts perptrate by these individuals or plots, yes. but i think also our counter terrorism machine in the united states is much more adept than it was 15 years ago, much more mature. we have 4,000 joint terrorism task force members in addition to the f.b.i. from something like 600 agencies. i mean, it's incredible the number of people that we have working in this space. >> so let's skip to encryption. do you have the phones of these individuals that you just picked up? >> i would presume that we do. i have not again seen anything from any of the searches but i would presume that there were electronic media that was obtained when we arrested these individuals. >> you don't know what kind of phones they are, whether or not you've been able to get access to the information in those phones? >> i don't know. and i think also just specifically to these cases probably way too early to even talk about those things. >> not too early to talk about spence cola, however. to attorney general talked about it at some length. any progress? have you been able to unencrypt those phones and the data? > can't speak to exactly where we are on the two phones of the shooter in pensacola. i will say that we are working diligently on those phones and we are receiving some help from apple in that work. >> because apple pushed back. the attorney general said that there had not been in substantive help from them and then they said wait we found about the second phone late in the game and said they provided something like nine giga bytes of information to the f.b.i. including cloud backups of the devices. what do cloud backups not give you? what's missing? what do you >> to be clear because i think there's been some conflation over what the attorney general said. apple has absolutely responded to legal process that we served within hours of the investigation beginning within hours of the event. so apple has been assisting right from the outset there. as is commonly our practice and as you know, those two phones were damaged. our common practice is to attempt to see if we can get the phone working and then make some attempt to get laufl access to the phone. we had search warrants. and then if you're not able to go to the phone manufacture and ask for help. this notion that apple said we weren't delayed, we weren't delayed. we simply follow the process that we know is the right process. >> you don't just go to apple, you go to outside vendors too. >> we absolutely do and the american people would want us to do that because we have a lawful to search the phones. >> and tech experts have been surprised that you haven't been able to get the help you needed from those outside companies to get into those i phones of the pensacola shooters because they were older models. they said you should have been able to get in there. why haven't you been able to? is it because of the damage that was done to the phones? >> i would be speaking way ahead of my knowledge level. also back to your question about the cloud i don't know exactly you get. i know it's something to do what physically is on your phone and the cloud backup may not include that information. >> cyber security of course is part of the f.b.i. as well. you know what apple and the other tech companies say. if we allow you in that's going to give access to bad guys to hackers criminals authoritarian governments. they have a point. >> they do have a point and i want to make it very clear. the f.b.i. very much values strong encryption. and data protection is actually part of protecting your information is part of our charter as the f.b.i., it is part of what we do. so we are incredibly thoughtful about what we're asking for here. but what the manufacturers and anybody that's here, whether software or hardware manufacturer what they're asking for is liken to you having a room in your house that i can't search with a court authorized an actual ant, with judge-ordered search warrant. your ld be me coming to house and i would search everything in your house but one that only you had a key to. argument is going around and around and around for years. and o we break that cycle come up with a solution? to take? going >> i think a partnership between the individuals that make the devices and our legislators and our it to decide what is a way to do it and still protect us from nation state adversaries. >> haven't you been discussing that for years? >> we've been discussing it. i don't know that we've gotten everybody to the table who has an interest. >> who has been missing? >> i don't believe we have the right people sitting in the room talking about how to make this happen. i think the issue had some steam five years ago. i think it really moved for a few years and then kind of lost a little bit of that momentum. i think now it is back. >> is it going to end up in court? >> i have no way to know that. you have to ask the department. >> let me turn to domestic terrorism. we have a domestic terrorism domestic terrorism, the phrase is getting thrown fair amount with some of these recent events. but the folks who you just arrested who were allegedly posing a threat in richmond were arrested on weapons charges and alien related charges not terrorism charges because there are no terrorism charges is stic terrorism charges, that correct? >> that's correct. statutorily defined in u.s. code 18 but there are not actually any penalty force that after that definition. so unlike the support to terrorism where it's illegal to materially support a foreign terrorist organization we have nothing like that in the domestic front. so what we find right now is we made roughly over 100 arrests in domestic terrorism and of those about 60% were on state and local charges. about 40% were on other federal charges. >> i know you can't take or tion on legislation potential legislation. can you tell us what difference it would make if there were penalties associated with domestic terrorism to both your investigative techniques as well as the charges and potentially the penalties? >> i think it would really depend on what authorities it came with. so it is hard to give an opinion on what would that actually do for us unless we were talking about what authorities you would have. yes it would be nice to have a charging statute that makes it illegal to conduct or attempt to conduct violent acts in the united states in furtherance of a social and political change. maybe including ideology consistent with a group like the base. sure it would. to have a charge that allows you to charge that versus a gun charge or immigration charge. but i think as far as assistance to your investigation beyond just having a charge there has to be discussion over what authorities? would it give you enhanced wiretapping? done very e thoughtfully. we have to have a clear discussion about what are you going to do with that. we currently can conduct a wiretap. do a title 38 wiretap. >> let's talk about fisa. i figured we would just throw it right out. >> as you certainly know the inspecter general issued a pretty scathing report and cited i think 17 errors or owe missions in the application to surveil carter page. the f.b.i. has said it plans to improve that process but now the come out and been critical of your plans saying go far enough. do you have any response to what he has to say? >> i'll get to david chris in a second. the very first thing is we made mistakes. we omitted material facts and we ade some mistakes in the fisa applications. we owe the american people and our country better work. you deserve and expect that from the f.b.i. you should get better work out of us. >> why haven't we been getting it? >> we made some errors. again, 37,000 people were an organization of humans. humans make errors. the small group of individuals that were involved we looked at the process, we proposed 40 changes to change the process. the f.b.i. survives on its ability to elicit information. my job is to collect and report information and that reporting evidence.on is used as it might be used adds intelligence. i am only of the day, as effective as my ability to information.ve me so we take very seriously that responsibility. so i just want to be very clear. we're absolutely taking responsibility for errors that we made and we're fixing the process. i haven't looked significantly at what mr. chris wrote. he's certainly in a position, he is a career professional in this area. he certainly is in a position to tell us that we need to do more and perhaps we do need to do more. >> iran. the f.b.i. and d.h.s. did put out a bulletin in the wake of seoul manie killing warning of threats. we heard from the secretary early this morning no credible threat at the moment. >> that's correct. f.b.i. feels exactly the same way domestically here in the homeland. >> have you seen an uptick in cyber activity by iran since that attack? >> globally, yes. >> here against domestic targets in the u.s.? >> no actual intrusions. i believe that there's been an increase in level of activity and you will have seen that we put out some bulletance in the cyber space which i believe that the acting secretary referred to that both have put out that have basically tried to get our private sector people that we think could potentially be tar