This is two hours and ten minutes. Thank you for coming. My name is seth jones, the harold brown chair and director of trance National Threats project for the center of international studies. We have a fantastic two sets of panels on what is an important subject and i think increasingly important subject and part of the motivation i think from Suzanne Spaulding and i in looking at this and i have to give you u credit, suzanne, for being the brain child behind this, was to look at some of the recent attacks including el paso and the synagogue attacks and note that there has been a dialogue debate within the u. S. About how to respond to it. The degree of threat and how serious it is then how to respond to it. So what we like to do is move in the following sense. Were going to begin with a discussion about the evolution of the threat. And how domestic terrorism, i know some of the terminology for these groups is the racially motivated violent groups. I cannot promise the panelists are going to use that term, but just be a little aware that were talk about roughly the same subject. Then well move into a second panel which well debate and discuss some implications and ways forward and some of the issues that i think we have to grapple with. I wont read through the bios, but we have tried to include a combination of people on the fist panel with experience and looking both at the violent extremists, ones that have been motivated or worked with alqaeda and the Islamic State so we have nick, senior director for National Security and kournt terrorism programs at the Mccain Institute and many of you will know him based on his government work including most recently, as now former director of the National Counterterrorism center. We then have to nicks right is rebecca winer, assistant commissioner for intelligence analysis at nypd. There was an oped published last week from an nypd standpoint that looks at this issue and then george selen. Senior Vice President of programs at the Antidefamation League and former drek r tor of the office for Community Partnerships at the department of Homeland Security. So youll have a range of different views on this subject. Couple of points of order before we begin. One were going to have f a discussion for about 40 minutes or so then we will open it up to questions. From you and please remember this is about questions. If you start giving a monologue, cut you off and ask where that question is. So just speak into the microphone so raise your hand. Well call on you. You can identify yourself and then ask your question into the microphone, that would be great. Second, if theres emergency, we dont expect there to be one, the csis policy is to move over National Geographic museum which has a fantastic cafeteria and is located next door. That was not an indication to go there before or after, although you can always do that if you want. So with that, we will start and i will sit down. Thank you again for coming. What would be helpful is to get a sense, particularly after 9 11, u. S. Government focuses a lot on the threat from alqaeda then the Islamic State, but weve now added other kinds of extremist threats into the u. S. Attacks from far right, left and others. But how do you see this issue e violaing ov i involving over time . I will use the broadest of brushes on how the threat picture has evolved over time and ill do that mindful of the fact theres quite a number of people sit ng this audience who have f had their hands on various National Intelligence estimates or other key documents that have frame d this problem for our policy community. So with apologies to some of those folks who might end up shaking their heads as i generalize about the nature of the threat. In the period since 9 11. In the period right after 9 11, certainly for the first several year, we were very alqaeda focused. Thats not surprising. That was the terrorism threat that was most proximate to the United States. Certainly in terms of the homeland, what we were the most concerned about. Still very much in our mind in those early days, had a model in mind of an organization that was trying to penetrate the United States. That was trying to, to in a sense, infiltrate operatives, think sleeper cells. Think clandestine covert op r e operations to get individual inside the United States in order to carry out terrorist attacks and we developed quite a strong capability to detect and mitigate against that kind of threat using our Law Enforcement tools. Of course over time, as alqaeda me tas sized to use a word that often gets used and as alqaeda became not just an organization that we were dealing with in south aig, but became a Global Organization with a series of potent and lethal affiliate groups, the challenge and pressure placed on the Homeland Security apparatus to succeed in that endeavor got quite intense at times and then i would argue the threat began to shift to one that actually became much more of a in some ways, more challenging threat dynamic. That of the socalled home grown violent extreme iss. The idea that we were not as threatened daytoday by that sheep sleep rer cell insurgent from abroad, but instead, it was most likely the individual who would be inspired, motivated, who would be encouraged, propelled into action by an ideology or in some cases, but actual individuals overseas connecting with them. That became a much more difficult and challenging problems in some ways for Law Enforcement because of course identifying those individuals in the absence of the kind of usual Communications Patterns you see when groups are operating was not going to be easy. That was already a problem. At the time isis kind of came on to the scene and in a sense, i would argue at least for a period, supplanted alqaeda as our principle terrorism concern overseas. The isis phenomenon i would argue only accelerated those trends that were already in motion in terms of the home grown violent extremist problem becoming our principle homeland terrorism problem. I wont go into why. This is a sfophisticated audience. You know how capable Islamic State was and is in its ability to use modern tools of communication to motivate individuals. But that hve model is one that i would argue translated very well to this new kind of threat were talking about today. These are again most likely to be individuals operating outside o the group structure, a formal group structure. They are not drawing their direction or capability in most cases from some kind of playbook that a group publishes. They are not carrying a lanyard necessarily around their neck that says i belong to this group and it follows this structure. So it will be interesting to hear rebeccas comments on this as she looks at the case load inside new york city, but at least in terms of volume, if you go by what the fbi is saying publicly and director wray has been up front on this, the case load theyre managing on this set of terrorism concerns has come to be at par with the International Terrorism set of concerns. Thats something ill close by saying this. And particularly when im in the overseas environment where people are saying arent you americans all spun up over domestic terrorism right now. I say yes, we are, we should be. But dont forget you almost cant go a day or two or week or two without reading in the United States press somewhere in the arrest, prosecution or disruption involving what we would call International Terrorism. Propagated by isis or al qaeda. So its not as if one went up and the other went down. Seems we are dealing with a problem of rough parody right now. Ill stop there. Rebecca, turning from nicks overview, historical overview to new york city and the area that you take a look at. Two questions. One is how are you see iing thi play out, this international and domestic terrorism play out of new york and the second is on the domestic side including domestic groups far right extremists for example, how do you do you i mean, what how are they structured . How informal is it . How do you characterize it . Thank you so much, first of all, seth. Thanks, everyone, for having me here. Its great to reflect a little on this threat collectively. Nypd has a slightly different but relevant view on the matter. If we understand this threat, if we call it motivated violent extremism, we have the tool Kit Available to understand it. What were seeing in new york looks in many ways very similar to the homegrown extremist landscape. Youre dealing with a similar set of actors who are aggrieved, angry, often disenfranchised in some way or another, who are seeking an ideology that justifies their violent intentions rather than driven in a formal way like we saw years ago with al qaeda driven by that ideology. Counterintuitive counterintuitively, graphically more diverse. So our textbook examples are slightly broader spectrum than we might think. The radicalization process is somewhat similar to what were seeing among hves, online, subcultures that are spanning from open to closed forums to twitter and instagram to forums like wired and discord and telegram where individuals are consuming and disseminating propaganda that loo,s liks like propaganda similar to isis. In terms of defining ideological pillars of these groups, there are texts that drive whether its the lone actor or the formal groups, similar to what we were seeing for years in the isis, al qaeda and hve world. Its different books, its the turner diary, not milestones or the management of savagery. There are more similarities, i think, than differences. The mobilization to violence also bears similarities. Tactically youre seeing the lowtech, do it yourself tactics we see in hve. Unite the ramming, straight out of isis playbook, the Mass Shootings we saw in el paso and christchurch and in pittsburgh. So, i would say that what this means for local Law Enforcement is that we need to rely upon the tools that we have developed starting from 9 11, but i think in the 20092010 time frame where things shifted radically to the hve, the lone actor from within. And this is a conventional suite of Law Enforcement tools. If we cite some new york city numbers, just to give us context, and i think this goes back to your point, nick, about numbers. There have been 32 disrupted plots against new york city since 9 11. Weve seen a couple of shifts since that time frame. If you frad it into two phases, the first nine years and the second nine years, you see 12 incidents in the first nine years after 9 11, 20 in the second nine years since 9 11. So, thats a pretty dramatic uptick. And the actor has changed quite dramatically of the 12 that happened in the first nine years since 9 11, two would be adriptadrip atranscript tributed to homegrown. Since 2019 there are 15 in the homegrown context of which two we consider white supremacist extreme. In terms if youre trying to way international, hve and domestic, were seeing more international hve. That said weve begun looking a lot harder and we go back to 2017 when James Harris Jackson traveled from baltimore into new york city to fatally stab an africanamerican man. Obviously, he did this because new york he thought of as a Media Capital where his attack would have a force multiplication effort amplified by the media which is in certain ways which helped drive cesar s sayock. This is a spectrum of activity. I think impiven the similarities in the hve and white supremacist context, we shouldnt be terribly surprised to see what weve begun to see in terms of individuals who you wouldnt characterize as one or the other. If you look at den arthurs in 2017 who killed two roommates in florida, fascinating example of somebody who switched allegiance from the division of Violent White Supremacist Group we look at to isis. This case decided for a lot of different points. Among them we ought to remember people looking for ideology to justify violent intentions will often look for multiple at times conflicting ideologies. Well continue to see this blending and blurring and keep us busy. Can you talk for a second, to what degree are you seeing, at least in the new york area, threats, so intent and capabilities from antifa or the anarchists as well, and part of the reason i ask the question is because these groups or networks or individuals feed off each other. We do see that in new york. New york has been a center of gravity for the Anarchist Movement for quite some time. What we tend to see among formal groups, i would say the concern that were most focused on is the idiosyncratic low and opportunistic threat. That said, were often interested in formal groups and we see this reciprocal violence. If you look at the proud boys antifa brawl that happened outside the Republican Club a year and a half ago, thats the kind of threat we have to take note of. Our local Law Enforcement need to make sure the streets are safe. We view that as reciprocal, we view that as important, with he view that as less likely to result in the same kind of mass shooting, copycat, subculture of more profound ideological hate that many son of these other actors ive talked about. Theyre important but in terms of threats that were weighing our resources against, thats a much more familiar fact pattern. George, from your perspective, both where you are now and where you came from at the department of Homeland Security, how do you see they have compiled a lot of figures and data on the domestic threat front, so how do you see that . Second, picking up on what everybody up here said, how do you compare and contrast it with the threat we saw the first decade and a half after 9 11. Thank you, seth, and suzanne, for convening this important set of conversations today. Its great to be on the panel with esteemed colleagues ive worked with for a long time. In terms of laying down the data, three particular points i want to make sure that we understand in the context of this conversation. The first is that calendar year 2017, according to adls data, we saw a 57 increase in antisemitic incidents across the country. Now, you might be wondering, why is that relevant . That same year, according to fbi and dojs own data, there was a 17 increase in hate crimes and bias motivated crimes across the country. The reason that i lead with the statistic on antiseat mettic incidents is because we often know across the country, and weve seen this in case and case again, incidents of antisemitism are often the canary in the coal mine if you have an incidence of an antisemitism, theres xenophobe yeah that happens in that same zip code. Weve seen a marked increase in bias and hate motivated violence and crime across the country. In calendar year 2018, over 90 of murders and homicides that are attributed to ideologically motivated violence, were at the hands of white supremacist, white ideology. Thats in the context of the past decade of data that shows that us 73 of violent extremist related murders and homicides, death, actual killing of people and was at the hands of right wing, white supremacist ideology, not islamist inspired jihad terror here in the homeland. As we look at the indicators of growing indicators of hate and bigotry, coupled in context with what were seeing overall with murders and homicides in this country, we know weve got a combustible mix. To the point that that nick started to allude to what weve seen in the post9 11 era coupled with what recollerebeccw york, the tools and instra frur of the federal government that had been building from the bush to obama. Administration, the ecosystem, the infrastructure for prevention, for tools, for state and local governments, for communities to prevent and intervene in the process of radicalization, in the Current Administration have been decimated in the past twoplus years. When we look at the staffing, when we look at the programs, when we look at the authorities, theres been a marked cut in those. And so when you look at the data of the threat and when you look at the resources applied to potentially prevent or intervene, those two things arent adding up. So, nick, you spent your last job in government looking at this the terrorism threat from a global perspective. I mean, whats striking, if you look at the last couple years, particularly from the far right threat is that weve seen attacks in christchurch, in uk the fins burg mosque attack, the mp joe cox. To what degree do you asee this as becoming or maybe it already was a much more serious global issue or at least wush oone thas across europe and australia and new zealand. I want to be cautious about that because theres a lot to learn about this. What i can confidently say is theres an international or a transnational dimension to this problem. And so, again, some of my arguments since leading government is, we need to do more to understand that. Does that mean it is going to look like isis . It is going to look like al qaeda . Of course not. But there may be a transnational dimension to this, an International Dimension to this. Clearly what we learned in the aftermath of christchurch suggested that that individual had international contacts. He traveled internationally. He engaged internationally. He found himself among likeminded travelers, fellow travelers in this movement. And so, to me, that argues simply to understand the nature, that transnational nature. That means opening a conversation with partners that would perhaps be broader than it has been in the past. And, again, i sea this not with any sense of pride but for all of the years i spent sit