Tones. [laughter] we would not like to hear any more of those interesting ring tones. Please remember so silence your phones. If you want to take pictures, take videos, etc. , and tweet them, yes, the hashtag trib fest 19 is how you will do that. We will take questions at the end. The mic will be passed around. If you want to get the attention of the mic, please look around as we move to that portion of the program. Quickly, im david priest, the chief operating officer of law fair. I worked in the Counterterrorism Center at cia both before and after september 11th. Now revisiting the terrorism issue from a different perspective. Im here to bring out the best expertise from our four panelists, bobby chesney, one of the three co founders of law fair previously served on the president s Detention Policy Task force. Now the third chair in law and World Affairs at the university of texas where he also directs the robert s. Strauss center. Mary mccord has been the acting assistant attorney general for National Security, the Principal Deputy assistant attorney general for National Security, and for, what, 20 years before that, an assistant u. S. Attorney. Now the legal director at the institute for constitutional advocacy and protection and visiting professor of law at Georgetown University law center. One step closer, lisa monaco, the Homeland Security and counterterrorism advisor to president obama as well as the assistant attorney general for National Security and chief of staff at the fbi to then director robert mueller. Whatever happened to him . [laughter] shes now the co chair of a Data Security and prif si group. Privacy group. She teaches National Security law at New York University school of law and also a security analyst at cnn. Last and certainly not least, Nick Rasmussen is at the end. He was director of the national Counterterrorism Center or nctc after serving in government positions in both the george w. Bush and obama administrations. Now senior director for National Security and counterterrorism programs tat Mccain Institute at the Mccain Institute for International Leadership and a professor of practice with the Sandra Day Oconnor college of law at Arizona State university. Thats a lot of background and experience to bring to bear on this issue thats confronting us today. So lets start off with laying the stage. Bobby, what is domestic terrorism, and what statutes do we have to help us address it . So the first thing to understand as we grapple with the definition of domestic terrorism is there can be and in fact is often a difference between what we might describe as the ordinary common sense definition or sense of the phrase and what particular legal definitions there might be. So lets just start with the common sense understanding, which is usually described as Something Like the following illegal acts of violence, where the mental state of the person conducting the act, where the intent is to have a coercive effect on government policy, and or to intimidate or terrorize a civilian population. So theres this motivation that distinguishes it from pecuniary crime, you know, trafficking violence, that sort of thing. Thats just the common sense understanding. What makes it domestic instead of just terrorism and generally would be where the nature of the threat actor doesnt have a substantial foreign tie. The plots not emanating in the form of direction and control or development of the plot, etc. , from abroad. That is to say, its simply one of us doing it here. Thats the common sense understanding. As for how its spoken about in statutes, thats where it gets kind of tricky, and there in lies a lot of the Current Issues at this area. At the federal level, we have a variety of what we might describe as generic Violent Crime statutes. Killing of a federal official, for example, a type of murder statute. But then we have a slice of federal criminal law thats specific to terrorism. You can find it title 18 of u. S. Code, subchapter 113b. Theres a laundry list of these offenses there, most of them are International Terrorism focused because thats an area where of course it is the federal government. Its got to play the lead role. It is widely believed and said that we dont have a domestic terrorism federal statute. Its true that we dont have one thats labelled as such. And i think were going to talk as a panel about whether thats an important gap that needs to be closed, simply for the symbolic purposes, and all the things that practically follow from the symbolism. But its also the case that some of the terrorism statutes in title 18 actually do apply to domestic terrorism scenarios. So as a practical matter, the question is when can the federal government get involved in charging . If its a terrorist attack, thats purely domestic, but it involves explosives or attacks on certain types of targets, federal officials, transportation hubs, in those scenarios federal law terrorism statutes can be charged in those scenarios. The practical gap, theres two, gunsnd other forms of violence like weapons or using a vehicle that dont involve explosives. So domestic terrorism using the most common method of attack would be guns. Thats not covered at the federal level unless some other way of approaching it happens to be triggered. Secondly, you may have heard of something called the Material Support statute. It gets complicated because theres more than one of these. The one that everyone has heard of is like an embargo that flat out prohibits any provision of support tangible or intangible to a Foreign Terrorist Organization thats been formally designated as such. We dont do that with domestic terrorist organizations. So thats a separate gap. And whether any of these gaps should be closed is a separate question that i think we will talk about. Quickly, you mentioned federal, federal, federal. But for an issue where there is a murder using a vehicle, a gun, or a weapon, states will prosecute that. Theres no scenario involves an act of violence thats not going to at least violate general Purpose State laws. So in our own most recent tragedy in el paso, here in texas, there is capital murder charges have been filed by the d. A. In el paso. It doesnt matter that we cant file a federal domestic terrorism charge in order to seek the Death Penalty in that case. It might matter for other reasons. Going back to previous cases of Mass Violence in the United States, theres been a lot of talk after almost every one about what needs to be done and not much has happened because of it. Lisa monaco you wrote recently regarding domestic terrorism it is time to turn from talk to action and confront this threat. What specifically do you have in mind . What should be done to fill some of these gaps that bobby mentioned or address other ents of domestic terrorism . Thanks for mentioning that piece. I wrote it with ken who has my some role in the white house as counterterrorism advisor for president george w. Bush. That piece we wrote was really about calling on all of us, political leaders, citizens, to put aside political tribe, put aside the partisanship and really do our duty is how we put it to focus on the most urgent threat we have as a nation, domestic terrorism, gun violence, Mass Violence, russian attacks on our democracy, all of those are things where ken and i both feel we need more bipartisanship and nonpartisanship. So on domestic terrorism, in particular, i think theres a few things we should do. One, we need to call it by its name. We need to call it out. Here i would cite some a good move by the department of home land security just last week in issuing a strategy paper that says in quite clear language from the department of Homeland Security, domestic terrorism and mass attacks are as great a threat as foreign directed terrorism, as foreign terrorism. Thats a given the headlines and the incredible tragedy that communities like el paso and dayton and others have faced, that seems apparent, but it hasnt been said. It hasnt been said, and it hasnt been said enough certainly by the federal government and experts at the federal level. So weve got to call it out. I think we also need to put it on the same priority list. We have to put it on the same plain as foreign terrorism same plane as foreign terrorism. Which is not to say that we should be ignoring or downgrading our approach and our focus on foreigndirected terrorism. I suspect theres a lot of unanimity on this panel on that score. But we need to reprioritize or recalibrate how were thinking about domestic terrorism, because with that follows resources, focus, leadership which gets to one of the things i think we really need to do, one is a patho domestic terrorism statute. Mary has written about this, and she can talk about it more, but doing that i think will apply the same to acts of violence that are directed to intimidate, the same as we have for foreign terrorism. We also need to restore the job of the Homeland Security and counterterrorism advisor in the white house. So that role, the one i had has been downgraded. The person who serves in the nowdowngraded function of that job i think has been put into witness protection after, you know, he had to make a statement about the whole sharpie gate i dont want to get off lets be clear. There is still a position there. It just doesnt report directly to the president as you did. There is a position. They are calling it the Homeland Security advisor. Hes been downgraded within the structure. What does that mean . Is this all just bureaucratic baloney . No, and heres why. When i was in that role, the idea was, and president bush started this, i think quite rightly and quite smartly, to have one person operating at the most senior level in the white house whose job it was to focus 24 7, wake up every day, focused not on the next summit, not on the next foreign leader engagement, but on threats to the homeland and to report directly and immediately and i can tell you i did which is why president obama gave me the nickname dr. Doom [laughter] because every time i saw him, i was bringing him bad news. But structure matters; right . And how you spend your time matters. I met with him every morning, in the oval office, and briefed him on terrorism threats, cyber threats, you name it. Terrorism was always at the top of the list. So i think it matters. It means theres focus in the white house at the top, at the leadership level. It means you have somebody in the white house who can convene the cabinet, which i was able to do, operating at my level, with a direct kind of empowerment from the president of the United States, to coordinate our response to terrorism events in this country and abroad, to coordinate policy. You need to have that responsibility resonate in one person. We can talk about other things i need to be done, like funding for community and Grassroots Efforts to kind of intervene when people are going down a dark path. Gun reform, you name it. Lets go back to the statutory side first. If any of you in the last couple of years have read or heard anything about the need for a domestic terrorism statute at the federal level, it was probably attached to the name mary mccord. You have been beating this drum for a while including more recently after the most recent attack. Tell us, what specifically do you have in mind . What would a federal domestic terrorism statute have, and whats the benefit of doing it . Sure. And i will tell you, you know, i was thinking about this, and i think lisa was before me, holding the role as assistant attorney general for National Security, before i was even over there in a similar role, but as a an acting, we were thinking a lot about domestic terrorism and whether there was a gap that need to be filled. I left the government in may 2017, in august 12, 2017, most of you in this room probably recall the unite the right rally in Charlottesville Virginia which ended with a vehicular attack, a domestic terrorism attack by a man who ran his vehicle into a crowd of counterprotesters killing one and seriously seriously wounding dozens of others. I watched that and i saw what happened, and i thought this is the same kind of terrorism weve been seeing across europe and other places on behalf of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, like isis, for the last couple of years because frankly the vehicle had become almost a weapon of choice in a lot of the attacks in europe. That was the u. K. , france, germany, elsewhere. So i immediately wrote about it, that very next day to say we have a gap in our statutes because if this person, james fields in charlottesville had pledged to the leader of isis before he committed his attack, just like if shooter in el paso had pledged right before h committed his attacks i can guarantee you either both of them would be charged with crimes of terrorism, International Terrorism for attempting to commit that attack on behalf of a Foreign Terrorist Organization. So we have a doublestandard. And as lisa mentioned, you know, crimes in our country are societys way of expressing their condemnation for activity, that its beyond what is permissible in a society of laws and of the rule of law. So there is that moral equivalency that we need to have, i think in the way we approach terrorism, but beyond that, because people will say to me, all right, so is it just semantics . Is it just moral equivalency . i dont appreciate efforts at lawenforcement and our government put forth to combat that threat and more importantly the way that you as Community Members can be aware of the threat and looking out for things you might see in your own community. We know in the area of International Terrorism in as many as 70 percent of the cases there was somebody, a bystander, a family member, a religious leader, a mentor who saw something going wrong in that persons life before they decided to commit a terrorist act and the same thing holds true when were talking about ideologically motivated attacks that are not based on a Foreign Terrorist Organization but on ideologies, extremist ideologies whether its white supremacist extremism which we know right now is the most lethal ideology when it comes to terrorist attacks and deaths in the us and it has been that way for a few years or whether its Animal Rights extremism or an artist extremism. When you commit an act of violence to coerce, thats terrorism so the gapas bonnie mentioned is twofold. Youll hear this a lot that there are 51 crimes that would apply to domestic terrorism but those are specific as bobby indicated. Use of explosives or attacks on Us Government property or government officials. Theres no crime applies to use of a weapon to commit a mass shooting, to intimidate or coerce thats not tied to a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Same with the vehicle. Theres no crime that would apply to stockpiling weapons, intending then to be used in committing a mass shooting for ideological purposes and it order to commit or coerce. So as ive conceived of a statute and i talked with people on capitol hill, talk to civil rights and Civil Liberties groups, ive talked to the Oversight Board, ive been trying to talk to as many people as i can to this about can we have a public proposal that satisfies all the concerns. The basic outline would be your criminalizing things that could be prosecuted in state courts, murder, kidnapping, assault with a dangerous weapon but when done with the intent to intimidate or coerce, to influence policy of government through coercion this would be, when done in the United States under us territories that would be terrorism within the territorial jurisdiction of the us and i say that instead of domestic terrorism because it would apply to a terrorist attack on behalf of isis or al qaeda. What would be a kind of violence to intimidate or coerce. What that would do would also form not only for Law Enforcement to aggressively use the types of tools theyve used to combat International Terrorism, we can talk about those. Thats like online undercover personas, sting operations that some people criticize as being too aggressive and i understand that but those are things in thatprevention so it gives Law Enforcement more of a predicate , they can do some of that now, i dont want to suggest they cant but when they know this is the statute that their predicate in their investigation on it makes it, he gives them about thats more direct as opposed to calling it Something Else in order to use those tools. It would also allow for the criminalization of the stockpiling of weapons, knowing and intending those are to be used in committing a crime of terrorism within the us jurisdictions and thats probably more complicated than we want to get into here , what it would involve if there intending to do that but you may recall Christopher Paulus on, Us Coast Guard lieutenant was recently arrested for stockpiling an arsenal of assault rifles and other weapons and had written extensively about his fouryear plan where he was going to be accumulating weapons, accumulating targets and ultimately commit Mass Shootings intent on creating a white state. Because there was no applicable federal crime he was charged with possession of a violence or, unlawful and Unlawful Possession of s beuguse he happened to have drugs in his home and Unlawful Possession of a firearm by a drug addict because he had drugs in his home so these are all fiveyear offenses, a maximum of five years. We would call them minor offenses, those of us cuban prosecutors and theyre not prone to violence so the magistrate judge ruling on whether to detain Mister Hassan prior to trial that im not going to be able to detain him. You have not even charged him with a crime of violence. The government appealed that to the District Court judge and said no, i will detain him but its a serious concern when you have somebody so intent to commit a mass attack causing Mass Violence that really there was verylittle to charge them with. Last thing and i know we need to move on, people say what about hate crimes . There are federal crimes and the government has been using those recently, thats why you heard the us attorney on bash after el paso to his credit investigated this like domestic terrorism but his next breath was we will be looking whether to charge him with a hate crime and you might think live at . Thats because he didnt have a terrorism offends the point to and hate crimes until that. Robert bauer at the tree of life synagogue in newark has been charged with hate crimes but hate crimes are going to feel that gap and they serve a slightly different role within our criminal justice scheme and we can talk more about that if people are interested but it is one option that is a fruitful option and a good option thats being used, it just hasnt completely come out yet theres that statutory side but also the mechanics of government which is how the does the federal government, it might surprise you to know that immense amounts of money are dedicated to terrorism inthe federal government, especially countering it and yes , we have nick here who ran the national Counterterrorism Center for three years, was a deputy for 2 and a half years before that and has said publicly that absolutely none of that time was directly focused on domestic terrorism. Nick, how do we understand . How does the public understandhow the national Counterterrorism Center wasnt focused on his threat . As you pointed out on the nonlawyer of the bunch so i would fully subscribe to the comments made before methat talk about we need a better legal framework. As a practical matter the way our government approaches domestic terrorism challenges that we face is just different than the way we approach International Terrorism. And a couple of things happened in the last couple of years that brought that home. One is when i would go abroad and meet with my counterparts from other countries and i would about international versus domestic terrorism, they would look at me as if i was bringing some lexicon to the table that made no sense they didnt make any such division or create any such divide. They talked about terrorism that they were confronting. Why were you americans complicating this and i was thinking about it in two different ways and secondly when i thought about things like the tree of life synagogue massacre that mary referred to and i thought how my friends and colleagues in the demonstration responding when an event happens like that and i knew from my long experience in the white house situation room sitting alongside mary and lisa, i knew exactly how we would have kicked and swung into action having been an individual type sizes or al qaeda. We would have at the cia, defense department, state department, treasury, every National Security agent would have been around the table with us trying to figure out what piece of this can we help solve or address . On the other hand as soon as that person is identified as being a domestic terrorist and not being in any way linked to an isis or al qaeda all the rest of us in a metaphorical sense push ourselves back from the table and look to the right and say fbi, over to you and its become then simply an fbi matter to treat as a Law Enforcement set of challenges and i dont say that in any way being critical to my friends and colleagues at the guy. We can to leave them alone on the Playing Field whendealing with a set of issues. And to their credit they are ramping up their game against that set of issues. Youve seen fbi officials in testimony talking about that what i think the rest of the government may need to catch up in terms of its ability to contribute to solutions on this terrorism to fill in that part, why is it important to have a whole governmentapproach in that area . One of the things we learned since 9 11 is no one tool inthe toolbox is sufficient to deal with any of our National Security problems and certainly not terrorism. We put it out of the way of our terrorism problem, we spent our way out of it with foreign aid, always need to be key. Intelligence is part of the equation of course the same is true with domestic terrorism. Mary pointed out the department of Homeland Security as i think that the pics game at least partly with the document last week acting secretary mack delaney released that says that the department of Homeland Security will be approaching this set of domestic terrorism issues with renewed urgency and a sense of real prioritization. The question is will that follow with resources and programsand personnel , all those things that we bureaucrats view as metrics to find out if youre serious. And i thought about my own organization, the national Counterterrorism Center, not the dodgers question but i thought all the energy that went into creating an mg pc and it was explicitly told in the early days focus overseas, focus on this International Terrorism law and that living where we live todaymakes no sense. Why would you have your premier Counterterrorism Organization , one of the best minds and access to the best information on terrorism related matters and wall them off from this set of terrorism concerns . We would agree its probably out of the pot now and if you go around American Securities right now in texas, you are right to be worried about individuals inspired by isis or al qaeda, that threat is out there but the far more pressing issue as mary suggested is that posed by individuals motivated by White Supremacy ideology and hate based ideology like antisemitism or Something Like that so bringing mcb into the game alongside fbi, alongside Homeland Security, its not a silver bullet, doesnt mean the good guys are here and will fix the problem but it comes closer to what you said which is all of government approaches to the solution and one last point on the whole of government solutions, youre talking about dealing with these challenges, whole of government means the department of and Human Services and their ability to Bring Mental Health resources to bear. It means the department of education is part of the equation. Clearly some of this stuff is happening in our schools including middle schools and high schools so all of government is what you ought to be demanding whether its democrat or republican and thats what some of us on stage have been talking about. Let me go beyond the Government Back to you lisa, your written about the importance of getting buyin and cooperation and working with social Media Companies to talk about the environment that breeds domestic terrorism. How can we build on that model of working together within the government sometimes well, sometimes not but build onthose successes to improve that relationship . Theres so many of the same friends that all of us in our decades of experience ive seen in the International Terrorism front in the fight against al qaeda, the fight against isis that are now migrating and have migrated to the domestic terrorism front and the online space is the perfect example. The individuals are getting radicalized the same way in the domestic terrorism context that they have and we see now unfortunately for years with regard to isis. When i served in the white house and was working so closely with mary and nick and others, we were really focused on this problem of individuals radicalizing online and then the other part of the world was isis and isis of using social media platforms which was of course designed to promote community, free expression, etc. And literally being abused and turned to a completely opposite purpose by radicalizing and inspiring individuals to violence and to spew hate and to inspire actual attacks. Were seeing that same phenomenon now in the domestic terrorism context and it makes sense when you think of how much time we all spend online so the same individuals who are disaffected, who are looking for some sense of community which by the way is why ihate the term loan will. We heard the phrase loanable terrorist whether there inspired by isis or White Supremacy. There looking for community and finding that Community Unfortunately in a hate filled place online. So how do we combat . Weve got to work with those who know these platforms best. Thats what we found in the isis example. We also found the government was not the best messenger when it came to trying to counter messages of violence and hate whether there from isis or from the ku klux klan. Though that startsirst with a relationship of trust quite frankly between governmental entities, Law Enforcement intelligence communities and the social Media Companies. What weve seen is social Media Companies doing a much better job at policing and moderating content from groups like isis and taking that off platforms, sharing information with the government to make sure that information is coming down from places like facebook and twitter. We need to have them do the same thing when it comes to violent extremism and inspiration that comes from domestic groups. Thats easy to say and a lot harder to do because its a lot more complicated when it comes to domestic grievances inspiring individuals to violence and it should be, quite frankly because we live in a country that prioritizes and protects free speech. So it is, i dont say this to minimize how complicated it is but we first need to agree that its a problem worth talking about. Im going to do something that as a moderator is difficult. Im going to both get personaland try to generate tension among the panelists. Bobby, working at the university, working closely with a Johnson School of affairs, Lyndon Johnson said you do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in light of the wrongs it would do and harms it would cause if improperly administered. Mary made a great case earlier for a federal domestic terrorism that you and what it should include. What are the dangers in legislation that is perhaps rushed through, even though thats hard to imagine when we debated it this long but legislation that is pushed through, what harm could come from an illadvised federal domestic terrorism statute . When you started off with an lbj quote i was a little nervous because he was a little offcolor but thats all right. I think what marries talking about, not surprisingly is very well considered but that doesnt mean thats what we get enacted so if we want to forecast what could go wrong at the federal level, a couple of possibilities and here i will channel some of the feedback that i sometimes get when i talk about the same ideas and youll hear pushback from various supporters. What concerns federalism and as we point out where not talkingabout situations where stuff isnt criminalized. There are usually some federal statutes but always state statutes so theres a question that makes some people nervous from the point of view of the seemingly expansion of the reach of federal criminal law and therefore the primacy of federal jurisdiction in some cases. I think that term is a little overstated all although there are other contexts where there are questions about whether federal law should supersede the choices but thats a different topic. The bigger concern is onei think is unlikely to materialize but we occasionally your members of congress mentioned it as a possibility. In my opening remarks i mentioned that with Foreign Terrorist Organizations one of the most powerful tools we have is the Material Support statute. We formally designate certain or in terrorist organizations as such and at that point it becomes a crime to give any sort of aid to them and even to provide, to become a member of the group is subject to the groups control. Its banning the organization and if you were to do anything like that at the domestic level your porting some serious firstamendment problems and at least as importantly , the policy can of worms, a pandoras box opening up by doing so is best envisioned simply by imagining that we have a Domestic Organization mechanism and imagine you were liking the idea because you had an idea of what sort of extremist distasteful groups might end up getting the band. Now imagine someone who has the debt opposite ideological viewpoint that youve got and they got this tool. Is it possible they might start banning groups you think as outrageous that they arebanned . As you say, as lbj warned, some things are possible that we might not want to happen though i was testifying in congress about this on tuesday and the senate Homeland Security committee and by the way i want to put a plugin for that organization having that particular committee having taken a very bipartisan nonpoliticalhighly functional approach to this. I went to washington and it was okay. But you came back quickly. As quick as i could. But you didnt use you all. Always. So i see no sign that were going to go there but every now and then it comes up and there are people who say fill in the blank to be designated a terrorist organization. That doesnt mean that necessarily want to pass a Material Support statute but if not what are we designating it . Id just say its those concerns that complicate the job that i was talking about when it comes to online, the online space. How do you, one Person Organization or category of speech that is offensive to one and odious to many people , maybe perfectly acceptable within a freespeech context. You thought about that intersection between legislation, bad legislation and the risk, the dangers, the First Amendment concerns, freedom of Association Concerns so how do you respond to somebody who says this is too hard to get that next right . I can create the tension myself. Ive had it with a lot of other conversations. First of all to be clear, something that ive been writing about or suggesting would designate these domestic groups and what bobby is referencing is against some numbers, some people on capitol hill said why do we do that and i dont think most lawyers think thats a bad idea which the First Amendment challenges would probably be insurmountable and if you surrounded them youd be left with such a small fraction of organizations, an organization that only engaged in violence you could designate without running afoul of the First Amendment but it would be easy for an organization to say we do all these other things too. Hateful speech and this is also a problem to what lisa mentioned, people speech is protected by the First Amendment , violence is not. So with social media where do you draw that line . To what somebody might be saying over the internet that is portable, that probably everyone in this room would agree with no matter what your politics is horrible but if it doesnt actually incite imminent violence is probably protected to go back to the things ive been talking about in terms of a federal statute, ive met with a lot of the civil rights and Civil Liberties group and there opposed to it and there opposed to it for one significant reason and that is the distrust they have in Law Enforcement. They are worried if theres another statute created that the fbi and other Law Enforcement will abuse that statute and target their resources to things that could be labeled a threat but that are not the real threat that were facing right now in america. And certainly historically there have been instances of that happening, particularly in communities of color and vulnerable populations and i think you all are probably aware of those abuses. I think its a legitimate concern and i dont downplay it for one minute. So my question then when im talking civil rights and Civil Liberties groups, how do we ameliorate that risk . One of the things ive suggested is not just congressional oversight but also public oversight. So yearly reporting by the fbi, by dhs to congress, public and open. Theres no reason this would need to be classified on the number of investigations of terrorism investigations their opening. Are theyresulting in criminal charges. The number they close by category. Islamist extremist terrorism, white racially motivated terrorism, animalrights terrorism, anarchist extremism. The categories that would allow the public and congress to see Law Enforcement, are you putting your resources toward the actual threat. Are they commensurate withthe threat . If you open 100 cases of terrorism and 90 are animalrights extremism and 10 are white supremacist, we know theres something really wrong here. And so thats one possibility. Another possibility i have suggested that is actually in congressman shifts bill is to have the primacy of Civil LibertiesOversight Board to review the use of this tactic after a period of time for enough of them to have data to collect as we would get much better data about terrorism if we had the statute. Right now we have horrible data, the best thing we have are from places like the Antidefamation League , southern poverty law center. Its not from governmental organizations because theres just no clear recording of it. But these kinds of things, privacy and Civil LibertiesOversight Board has been using the recent years to bradley usually the review surveillance programs of the Us Government and other programs and to get a good hard look at some bipartisan committee. I met with their staffers recently. They looked hard at what are the privacy and Civil Liberties concerns ofthis program . Is it being administered correctly and legally and what could be done to provide more transparency to the American Public about how these authorities are being used . Thats another possibility and one last thing i say is the possible creep into this new statute unlocking sometimes i think people are thinking maybe foreign intelligence authorities but right now when were talking about crimes occurring in the United States, for talking about using criminal tools, criminal tools already exist. Things like undercover operations, sting operations but other search warrants, title iii warrants when appropriately predicated. Subpoenas, the same kind of things Law Enforcement used to investigate other crimes area and so it doesnt create any new investigative tools. It would merely allow those tools to be used and they can be used already in defense of domestic terrorism but it would make abetter fit. Right now were trying to fit square pegs into round holes when it comes to what Law Enforcement is driving towards. Will go to questions in a moment to formulate those but i want you to reflect on that fromyour experience. Theres a sliver of good news to take away. There is room for bipartisan Common Ground on a set of issues. I have like mary and serious conversations with staffers from both sides of the aisle boy. There have been hearings in which we clearly see Common Ground. There are democrats and republicans want to find ways to improve our statutory framework. This is not like the gun issue in that regard in which theres a problem solving sense. There are still real problems and mary through those problems in ways you might manage those problems but at least its a real debate among people who genuinely want to cause solutions that will put us in a solution to do more than just use these kind of crimes of violence which is i think you said at the beginning, it doesnt make sense call these things normal crimes of violence when they are in fact carried out on behalf of a hateful ideology. While we have you it would be a shame not to take advantage, one of the successes of the national Counterterrorism Center is the interaction with state, local and tribal entities on issues that previously there was a large gap on. Were sitting here in texas. What could the federal government be doing to build on the successes of ngc and applying it to domestic terrorism . Radicalization process that we talked about earlier , we spent a lot of time and energy and resources looking at how that process unfolded whher a young man or young woman was becoming recruited, radicalized and approached by al qaeda or isys and we learned that process unfolds the same way. At least mary described the same way whether it involves a person acting on behalf of of a white supremacist or hate based ideology like that. So theres a lot of learning gone on in the federal government and that learning can be shared with Law Enforcement and it doesnt have to be burdened by concerns about pacification or this is too toxic to be shared a lot of this is just pure Simple Science and what it does is put us in a position where communities become the first line of defense is what we need to happen. Its communities that will find they are the ones who see, appreciate, understand and can predict where these incidents will happen long before federal Law Enforcement and thats not a slam against fbi or federal lawenforcement capabilities. These individuals grow up around us in our community so we are the ones most likely to need to be equipped with the knowledge we can say wait a minute, that person looks to be headed in a bag direction and that happens, then we can use tools that kick in before the crime and these tools you use before the crime are the ones you want to be using. Jim currently used to say when we had conversations about terrorism , if ive involved its already too late area were not talking about someone being charged with a crime and you get back your way out of charging someone with a crime but ideally you get to a point where you can offer or diapered someone who may be consuming a full ideology but they haventactually gotten to the point of picking up 11 and doing something and this is where the federal government can domore to make communities better prepared. Lets hear what youre curious about. If you have a question, raise your hand and remember to phrase your question in the form of a question, not a speech. Howdy. Testing. [inaudible] testing. [inaudible]. [inaudible] a domestic terrorism statute and signaling it needs to be a priority for the Intelligence Community so the lead Intelligence Organization is the fbi. Importantly it is part of the justicedepartment. It is tethered to oversight and Civil Liberties protections that come with being part of the justice department, reporting to congress, etc. First and foremost cause of all the things that bobby and others have said about the real dangers of getting too far afield when we are talking about speech that is protected by the First Amendment, you wanted to be tethered to a structure. But what it would do is it would signal to the Intelligence Community including the fbi that this is a priority. They have established since 9 11 a tremendous set of relationships with state and local Law Enforcement as well as community organizations. As nick pointed out and as mary said, the individuals going down a dark path and who and up committing heinous acts of violence and in some cases massacre are among us. None of us here would be advocating some type of report on your neighbor structure but what were talking about here is being aware, understanding that the solutions to this are going to come from communities. Those communities have to work with state and local federal governments, entities, Law Enforcement and the light that informs what theIntelligence Community is looking for. Hello. So i use a lot of those online forums and you see a lot of that stuff on there. It varies a lot depending on which forum youre on, you might go on reddit and never see it, you might go on 4chan and see nothing but. Is there a way to regulate the anonymity these groups enjoy . Who has a duty of monitoring online content . I let others jump in and let our engagement with the tech sector to get our arms around his problems with the jihadists. And it was a challenge. I say we gave ourselves maybe a b or a c in terms of our performance and in terms of their performance and its that much harder to do this in the space youre talking about where youre talking about all kinds of offensive stuff because its not tied to a Foreign Terrorist Organization area its harder for us as a government to expect that companies will take that material down but i would say you have to put the burden on the companies. They are the ones maintaining and profiting from the platforms and the good news is i think theyre beginning to accept that responsibility. One minor indicator that i think they get is are starting to see a migration of people who used to work for People Like Us to work in those companies. Why i hate to see that outflow of talent from the government of capable people are tremendous Civil Servants i want those people working at places facebook and google because they bring a sensibility about National Security and about Community Safety to those companies that might not exist in quantities that we want otherwise. To the point mary was going to make, there is no entity within the federal government or any state and local governments that im aware of whose responsibility and authority is to monitor any Online Platform of the type that you describeso thats a direct answer there. Theres lots of good reasons for that. But thats why the onus needs to be on the company that operates those platforms and it needs to be on the communities, the users of those platforms and there needs to be a lot of communication with government and the Law EnforcementCommunity Based on what youre seeing their. One quick point to andone last thing. Theres a lot of confusion about this as a basic point but the First Amendment only applies to government actors. So private social Media Companies and they are private, they can ban anything they want and will not violate the First Amendment just like you in your home can ban somebody from your home if you dont like what theyre saying. The restaurant industry, same thing. Putting aside Racial Discrimination and things like that. I think the social Media Companies look to government as a crutch because they want government to make them do it so they can say to their users we are being told to do this but they need to step up and listen to what their users want. And monitor a little bit better they hate on their platforms. I do a lot of work on this information and the larger problem of various problematic speech online. The bigger platforms are all to varying degrees very engaged on this issue in particular, very actively involved. I dont think they need further nudges at this point but thats not where the worst conversations are taking place and the worst inspiration is taking place in ever more marginalized platforms. As he gets further into the dark corners its harder for the hateful ideologies defined by random coincidence certain audiences. But it also gets harder to spot them and for relative governmentactors to deal with that. Youre talking about stuff like the daily stormer. An actor that does not want the government to help it and wont listen to the government and i mean, ive seen daily stormer as the first result on google whence searching a jewish issue. How do we counter that when the Tech Companies are not being good actors . To the point all of us are making, the platforms and Search Engines have got to see it in their business interest which means their users and consumers need to demand that of them if they see it in their business interest to pushthose search results down. Theres a cross cutting concern that we can take a lesson here from the fbis success in finding americans who been radicalized by the Islamic State and you go through the endless and binds and see the public destroy the investigation. Almost invariably the open investigative shot was somebody saying publicly in a place the fbi could observe it something on social media that drew attention so as the conversations theyre describing move into cryptic channels and other channels that are immediatelyvisible to the public , theres a loss of intelligence leads so its a bit of a tradeoff. Less inspiration but also less opportunity to watch the scary conversations. Thank you for joining us again. I actually worked in the Intelligence Communityfor seven years and i know , ive got a question ill try to make quick. I know terrorism and radicalization doesnt fester in areas where the overton window doesnt expand to buttress up against that so what would your recommendations be for either the government or us as individuals to try and shrink the overturned window and not to wear radicalization doesnt seem acceptable . Was the quick question answer to how to stop radicalization . I think understanding the drivers of it would be a start although i dont think any of us up here as social scientists were not as wellequipped maybe as others read it we all studied this and maybe bobby has warned that is not to be, i cant emphasize enough that its got to be very ground and not government down. As i mentioned earlier read and like when the government undermines, leaves and president obama and leadership tries to invigorate a program that was called countering violent extremism, we got tremendous pushback from communities that felt like they were being targeted much like they felt like they were targeted as being terrorists, a terrorism investigation but they were now being targeted for counseling and responsibly and the onus on them for countering extremism in their communities. So support for i think nick mentioned support for grassroots organizations. There are organizations like life after he and others that work with people that have started on that path to radicalization , towards violence and the communities coming together to talk to you about how they can spot the precursors and what things they can do. Some of the obvious things, better educational opportunities, better job opportunities, feeling more like youre actually a part of the community. Welcoming communities, communities that dont make people feel like their outcasts and theyre not welcome. Many times we found whether somebody who ends up committing a terrorist attack were traveling to join a Foreign Terrorist Organization like somebody who is committing a terrorist attack for ideological domestic purposes, these are people who work in search of something that they could be part of thatwas bigger than themselves for their own life was not fulfilling. So we need to provide more things that people can feel like they can get behind. We got climate change, all kinds of stuff going around that people could be getting behind instead of violent extremism. Weight in on this because the mtv sees you had no kidding experts working on radicalization in a foreign terrorism context. You could fill this room with the papers they produce. Take out the classified ones in your mind and put those aside but from what you can talk about, what are those kernels they found of ways of cutting off the radicalization process mark. It ends up being a lot of grassroots involvement and early involvement and thats why timmy we thought somewhat positively about the dhs, department of Homeland Security predicate issued on domestic terrorism one simple metric to all of you to watch for whether this in ministration or future and ministrations are serious about dealing with this problem and that is are they willing to Fund Programs to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year because this is not a problem to be solved with one big dollar i take program from washington but there are nongovernment organizations in almost every largesize community who do this work in a Community Setting but they can only do their given resources to do it. So getting 50,000 or 100,000 to a group in minneapolis or chicago or los angeles or boston to do this work can be far more effective and having some big program out of washington. The challenge is when you get grants to organizations like this youre sometimes going to fail. And youre sometimes going to give money to people that dont end up using it perfectly appropriately. To me is a cross of doing business and its something we have to accept it as my metric for whether we are serious. The question had branded in terms of the overton window, and the useful concept about the outer boundary in both directions of whats acceptable discourse and whats the fair Playing Field. Topdown, the inputs can make things much worse when rhetoric that is irresponsible and divisive shifts in the overton window towards more extreme ideologies, winking and nodding towards them. It makes the problem, thats got to stop. Please join me in thanking our guests. [inaudible] weeknights we are featuring book tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight the theme is the left and the right. Michelle malkin offers her thoughts on immigration policy. Shes interviewed by republican representative chip roy. Jeff merkley provides a firsthand account of conditions for migrant families at the un southern border and former utah republican congressman jason jacobs argues liberals are trying to undermine the trump presidency. Watch the beginning at 8 pm eastern on cspan2 and enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. The black hills of south dakota are a very sacred area. The black hills i believe at one time or another there is a piece of the rest of the world here somewhere. We are in the epicenter of sometimes testy relations between native and nonnative people. This weekend that cspan cities tour takes you to rapid city south dakota. We will tour downtown to see a collection of lifesize statues of every american president and visit the Journey Museum where the complex history of this area is told. Im looking at the custer expedition , the venture picture take away is that the game changer. Situated in the western part of the state we go into the nearby Black Hills National Forest to see matt rushmore, the state top tourist destination. And we will visit the crazy horsememorial and other places in the black hills as we explore the life of this lakota war leader and contentious history of these lands. Join us this saturday at noon eastern on book tv and sunday at 2 pm on American History tv as the cities tour takes you to rapid city south dakota. As we explore the american story. Sunday on today, the smithsonian institutions Peter Leopold on the history of terrorist and manager in the us economy. The Supreme Court ruled that a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit the cause of a terrorist. Its sort of a nonstory. Any botani will ll you a tomato is a fruit but in fact the 1883 i put a tariff on vegetables and not fruit. So a importer of vegetables mixed pointed out that the tomatoes he was bringing in from the caribbean work fruit and he didnt have to pay a tariff. The battle went on for quite some time. And eventually the Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes were actually vegetables. And it is an interesting ruling in that it had repercussions beyond just tomatoes themselves. Sunday at eight eastern on q a