Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Combating Extremism Terrorism 20240713

Policymakers and the public from homegrown american terrorism to the United States drone wars abroad and around the world to the challenge. The changes with the societal changes id like to first begin by introducing jessie who will begin with a presentation before we jump into the panel portion. Jesse was a propagandist who ran revolutionon muslim in new york citybased organization active in the 2000 z. Connected to a number of terrorism cases and connected the ideology and transformed it for america creating englishlanguage propaganda. The radicalized in 2011 following his arrest and incarceration in the u. S. Hes now executive director of the parallel networks and after the presentation i would like the rest of the speakers to join me on stage to provide an introduction for each of them we will discuss the new initiatives, the changing Threat Landscape future of terrorism prevention practices at the relationship between. We will save the last 30 minutes or so for the audience qanda and handed over to jesse. So, good afternoon and thank you for attending todays event. We are certainly honored to be ohere. Id like to express the gratitude for hosting todays event and a Civil Society approach to preventing terrorist and targeted violence. Todays important for us as it marks the release of the hate and Extremism Initiative called con troll. It is a magazine that will be issued in print and online and we will be passing around some copies it is a component of the omextremism we have been buildig out since we got started. Stored. You can see the cover of the First Edition here that went online this morning that the initiative is more than a counterr narrative tool it is part of our innovative and holistic approach to address the threat posed by enhancing and mutually reinforcing extremism here in the u. S. First a little but on the projects background. Its important to realize it is not a standalone initiative. Its more than just a magazine for more than over a year now with many supporters and in particular the counter extremism project and the team of researchers have been working on advancing a comprehensive program to assist in combating the threat by the far rightwing extremism in fact my partnership was announced publicly june 4, with an event right here at new america that documented the legacy i once felt as a propagandist and mitch while he was with the nypd. Since then we have learned a great deal and after researching networking speaking, w publishig reports and designing programs we launched the ecosystem we will discuss in more detail and again which control old delete will now be incorporated. The project controlled and came about as a result of much effort since the inception we have been putting together a network of former extremists, victims of extremism, activists, researchers, supporters and others to believe in the model. Thinking about this started a year ago during a week of activitactivity that made its id we needed to get moving in fast. The adaptivity included the life synagogue attacks which occurred in the midst of the scare and individual white supremacist who tried to get into a barricaded church and proceeded to shoot two elderly africanamericans at the supermarket in kentucky. Of course things have gotten a lot worse since then that we started to serve alongside those of the former geologists to help us expand going forward. They led the Largest Organization for over two decades and the movie American History x. Myself and otherstw like bad this also here today and people like hope africanamerican woman whose father was murdered by a white supremacist and she actually is in contact with the individual and providesin a sort of support and empathy. These have been over the past year into the same time we supported and informedd one another. It is a byproduct of these yearlong efforts and its the beginning of our answer particularly in the rightwing space. So, id like to talk a little bit about our unique approach to the problem. We believe they offer an unrivaled insight particularly within an amazing collectivert f others spectrums of activities. Activities. They drawn largely from the transdisciplinary model. Its one that sticks in approach that expands the activity so that ones that have typically been standalone help lines with no outreach and a little tlpublicity and marketing and cannot reach the targeted Audience Center because they are not connected to a Broad Network or movement we think of it as creating an alternative network and movements you might describe as one that t seeks to rifle in the size and scope and the cohesive worldview than network with extremists. Only then we believe you can map the impact and measure the results of the oriented engagements which will serv sera cornerstone of these efforts. A bit more on the history and how this template was established. Its based on an initiative in june 6 months ago. When i was a recruiter from 2003 to 2011, i collaborated with several to develop the first englishlanguage magazines. Fourthte were trained they launched their own initiative called inspired and became over the years it out did the design it for the people of consciousness and we included articles that deconstructed the ideology including the testimony of those like myself and offered a positive alternative worldview that we call that i am one of civilizations model equally applicable as we address what is the perceived threat from the far right for the sco states that they categorized as western civilization. A month before the launch be inaugurated the hub and we will embed it there. We launched the issue on the first pronouncement of the socalled caliphate and before the launch even got to the community and sympathizers to believe that it was about to launch a new magazine and that coupled with the media rollout the generated publicity to respond as we invaded their eco chambers that is essentially the only counter narrative project that has been utilized over the platforms like telegram where those including the far right by mainstream social Media Companies butl facebook, twitter and youtube to remove the extremist content. When we first launched, they were angry and kept popping up in the discussion groups with a magazine because we have multiple networks. O is led them to engage me in private discourse with reputations be provided and reputations we provide and we then found evidence of the ignorance of the leadership and ability to respond to the arguments back into that works spanning them with evidence against those they hold as leaders. For examplee after reading the telegram and coming over to threaten you on twitter, ive established that relations and im supporting a prominent individual that caused quite a bit of fanfare when he returned back but it remains free of the absent criminal charges and several have arisen as a result of the indebtedness in the englishlanguage telegram network. So now each article and each edition serves as a standalone piece on the website and itsts utilized for linking the engagement over the social media and putting into the extremist conversation prints online. Its also for prevention in 2020 we will be in hard copies and control visiting cities around the United States speaking publicly with our team to raise awareness and promote our Intervention Services. Now that we launched this week and use the same method for domestic extremist collectives while also discussing the reciprocal radicalization. So the magazine becomes not a standalone product built under if you build it they will come hypothesis or something insignificant first the name of the magazine its something that we utilize as a paradigm conducting of the personal and collective transformations. They offerse the unique framewok for storytelling and transformation. The first stage is to polls in the process when confronted with this ideology. As holocaust survivor once dated between stimulus and response to thise space there is the powero choose the respondent in the responsed wise or growth in freedom so the approach is dedicated to this realization. Control transitions which essentially looks at altering the course to recognize we need to look not justog at the respoe to extremism and how we react to it create alternative sources with grievances by nonviolent mechanisms. It turns to delete hate and asks us all to recognize in such a tumultuous period only the whole of Society Approach can address these i and the surrounding isss and when applied they contribute to the message of the magazine had an underlining technology that can transition into a paradigm and process for individuals and alterations. This is where the oneonone engagement is occurring and the First Edition of the magazine and other support staff have facilitated it stands for support help for individuals and families and under that umbrella we have a 24 7 helpline and access to it with unrivaled access to online extremist networks with government or social Media Companies weve already conducted 100 interventions and many with hugs of extremist movements for example the young female propagandists are here with us today and offer a sort of case study of those that have benefited from the network philosophy. Wthe contract goes to disengage from the extremist movements and offer them support as well. We have shifted to provide the only support services to the tourism related offenders returning to the streets after their incarceration and we utilized the case studies to conduct research and recommendations on how to address the concern it offers a deficitbased approach then it is our asset base that seeks to build out a network that can transform essentially into a movement. They dont simply offer a message. They offer a coherent worldview and the own axioms and develop eco chambers where opposition is drowned out by noise and confirmation bias and extremist recruiters think multidimensional he and remain fluid and are able to entrust almostlu instantaneously. Its an effort to match and reverse engineer the extremist method of the team knows personally. They can utilize influencers and shape shifters and concentrates on formulating the network built that comes together synergistically and offers complete worldview and alternatives to the extremist the chamber. First it generates safe spaces and hosts of our activity. Each entity shifts and is hosted there and taken together the system permits these energies to the transition in a manner that creates opportunities for individuals and groups to experience the same meaning of significance in the sense of the offer. N second is research. The understanding todays evidencebased initiatives with measurable outcomes must precede implementation. We seek instead to learn by doing and then measure outcomes. Extremists divided and associated with topdown social science also meet the implementation of the ridatadriven interventions no longer appropriate in the climate that has already shifted. We first start the growth of the parallel network and then we measure engagement effectively owns the network. And can be juxtaposed and measured against the expansion of the networks we seek to alter there is currently too much competition and not enoughgh collaboration. The victims of extremism in shape shifters all disciplines independently but their engagement in the activity is the life of the ecosystem to allow their individual efforts to magnified. T becomes less about the individual and more about the movement. Think about the way the charismatic preachers and propagandists operate underdi these grants still become individual icons and representatives that embody the mission of the respective causes and organizations. The magazine will help us go down effective alternatives and positive messaging was. That will lead to broad marketing increasing Public Awareness about the Intervention Services and safe haven and it will expand partnerships into shape shifters are influencers and continue to provide the means to expand the movement. All of thesene feed off of and into each other and so from a social service perspective, they are designed to approach the issue of the violent extremism as a phenomenon to demarcate each component of the brand so that it will fulfill education, harm reduction, intervention, counter messaging about Restorative Justice and reimplementation. The whole of social sciences. We will also release a report on the project to pursue other initiatives as well. We have been networking with a peace Building Community and a put together an Impressive Team to organize a center for the study on destiny of traumama to translate the magazine into arabic to expand our influence into the muslim majority world and using the newsletter to take the same approach looking into western europe and canada as well in social Media Companies looking for their support to make sure that users are provided access for go light upon light will cover cover extremist related activity even the Grassroots Research in journalism and podcast and online videos and media to have content to enhance resilience with a world that has the collective non polarizing consciousness. We have been advocating for a megovernmental focus focusing specifically on the intervention space that has public criticism of cbe and to provide an a alternative for go this as a tool to the toolbox like those with targeted interventionop to put together a proposal for next year that would lead tont uniformity and recordkeeping to train and empower with Key Information with those standards of communication and those that replicate Substance Abuse treatment to rely on former addicts and training. And then to utilize our partnerships w 2020 that will be a volale and contentious year for certain in the united etates in particular to educate those on the front lines with a better understanding of risk indicators after our visit we will retain content if something comes up than they can support their own localized efforts we are very honored to be here today as a society we need to look at the space between stimulus and response to recognize each of us does have a role to play and to address the consequences of polarization as Elbert Einstein once put it no problem has ever been solved with the same level of consciousness that created it we see nothing than a paradigm shift i look forward to todays discussion. Thank you for joining us. [applause] now for some quick introductions. First to my immediate left is the ceo of the organization he cofounded with jesse morton and also a founding principle at the Guardian Group and Security Consulting firm prior to his work serving as director of intelligence at nypd working with principal counterterrorism advisor responsible for the cyberarenas. Research and interventionth specialist recently working on initiatives to counter hate and until early 2191 of the most prominent figures of the International Movement in the United States National Leader commander of the National Socialist movement for over 25 years and now will end the violence by extremism and radicalization working for those parallel networks. Thank you for being heree today. Lets start with a focus of parallel networks that we can discuss policy in the United States. Talk about the existence and similarities of the jihadist tactics and propaganda and how they feed off one another in the new neonazi social platform called the base that ties into al qaeda and also far right groups looking at the symbols. So that we have three primary principles between the far right and to some degree you have this notion that community is under threat so that is the characteristic of violent extremism and then to protect yourself to be justified than the real issue which is resistant to change in alterationn to preserve traditionalism and that is with regard to the idea with regard toto islam and to go back to a caliphate and that characteristic that goes to a utopian path but just returning to the 18 hundreds it is the framework upon which modernity can be expanded in line with their preconceptions and interest. So really what we see someone from 2003 through 2011 to focus and replicate almost to a t the approach of when the jihadist were at the top of our concern especially after attackma bin laden when homegrown extremism was growing. So that is key if you look at those images of the people pledging allegiance like aku bakr albaghdadi successor it is almost identical with the kidsod in the woods with guns pledging allegiance if you look at the images of groups and five or six young men in the woods watch the propaganda videos. With those individuals training and shooting it is framed just like it would have back in the heyday of the onset. s if you talk about that recipe that is disseminated they come out to the kitchen a new kitchen completely remodeled and teaches like he is on a cooking show how to put this in your home with basic household items. The group promoted this on the far right there may have some semblance of Osama Bin Laden the with those far right efforts to take them down it was very much the very first case of isolated dadicalization and then they called for a takedown but we adjusted by migrating to other platforms and then to prevent a takedown with the service agreement. Its a topic you could go on for hours about. A thank you. So talking about some narratives and that changed a bit depending on another ideology. I think what he was saying with the farth right with the infighting and to be thinking about they are never satisfied with just the one group it ends up fracturing these intervention points with Law Enforcement and with us is interventionist to s say this group looks like it is fracturing lets talk to these members or a typical scenario to check in on them and see what they are up to. Thats where community can mix with those agencies that are out there and i know from the Community Perspective some of this has been a challenge seeing these groups coming up but it definitely leads to them falling apart. And something that comes back over many years it is a divisivegr topic so these are good opportunities. Also the hate groups that were identified so what is the nature and how many are violent quick. It is hard to categorize because you dont have to explicitly call for violence but of keeping that data point often times because it is affiliated with this network it will commit violence of other realms in their life so it could be anywhere all the way to the National Socialist movement and the fact that there is an indication that the far right is harder to understand and to demarcate with racist violence but there is so much different phenomenon from what we have seen with the transnational ideology and its adoption by almost f every single facet. So im wondering if you can talk about the Nazi Movement in the first place and also tell us what the process has been like what your experience has been to combat this narrative. S literally anybody can get involved if they had some sort ofof trauma i come from a normal family but literally there is a brotherhood and a network of people for me it was more ideological but once you are in there those various tactics we utilized our recruitment tactics somebody was religious we would use christian identity. If someone was into politics or they had a bad experience than we would use that. But one specific to will and thats what we have to look at its like you are part of the bubble and you dont see outside theet world. So to keep people outside is important for kindness and compassion and get them to understand there is a world outside that bubble. Because a colt is a bad thing not to join the movement to hate anybody oral press anybody but i am a patriot i want to protect my country and my peoplent and a lot of people are joining for those reasons. So outside of that bubble is where you say they are just hateful. Is not something that draws me there. That experience. Thats what you refer to as the Counter Culture when everybody is susceptible to recruitment quick. Yes. You have to understand and explain it to people. We have an answer forr everything we had two or three video games and at least those podcast where they can call in and ask questions with online chat. So it is that cold scenario so almost everyone you know. Your friends or family those who dont have that Network Everyone is inside that bubble ivery person that you know and one of the females that i brought out and said what are the things that we can do . And why we have that uncounterculture idea and she said we need something to offer that the people that are inherent understanding because you could have all the education but if you talk to people who have been there there is a disconnect and will not understand. Maybe they seem they know what they are talking about. And we are almost just predetermined to fight against anybody coming m into criticize the ideology. So you believe the answer that you want to believe like the holocaust you can look at the literature and say thats the truth because you want to believe what the movement said. So to break that down nobody just snaps the fingers and says im out of the movement. And it is critical to the process. The simple way to break it down c they understand that world. So talking about bringing people in it depends on the person to spark that interest. Had you keep the Movement Together with all of these different movements and then how do you get them out if you got them in a certain way cracks is that a tactic. With the National Socialist movement one of the things that we found from a lot of different groups to speak at clan gatherings or skinhead concerts wasnt just the head of the National Socialist movement but all the different groups to take that into consideration. That this is a group the new york confederacy and things like that and then they would focus on that. Different groups would have a different niche. National socialist movement is said religion was for home and family that is one of the most divisive things in the movement early on between christian identity atheist, all of these Different Things. Not giant clashes they are ideological to say once the war breaks out because they dont believe. In our god. And so for us in our structure so you have Different Levels. Thank you. Can we talk about spreading of the message so what about the extremist messages how do you use that t to your advantage knowing what they could tour could not do quick. And with that jihadist and that just emulates but some that we espouse publicly so they put us on cnn and fox news but we concentrated we knew if we could get the anti islamic to have more awareness to arm us at the ammunition to create that further divisive polarization and if we had anti muslim sentiment we could confirm they were waging a war against islam. So wasnt so much the Mainstream Media so we had mastered that artform but its very interesting the way media works because you would think there would be an overwhelming interest with the work we are doing. If we are out there promoting the white civil rights, nobody wants to cover those stories so it is that sensationalism and a symbiotic relationship between the terrorist movements and its so easy to exploit that and then immediately what you do to draw media to your website and then you are higher in the rankings with Google Search now not anymore theyve made it worse without realizing it but the importance of getting into the Mainstream Media is key to the work of a recruiter. For us with the National Socialist movement we had a guy who was a journalist that was submitted to the press to send out mass emails everybody but something that would jump out because the National Socialist movement so we became experts of how to manipulate and then to reach the public through the press like nothing we ever did before. We announced they would be here but anything to generate activity and it will be no matter what because spending time and energy in the city which is a small number by comparison. The press will come out that comes out then even better were to be a tactic we started to wonder why in some areas the press was not covering us but if we clashed with the other side guarantee coverage. So that takes away looking at it from the side of the left as well they think everyone stopped the movement by initiating violence by having people in the movement but it does just the opposite. So they would say one time in mississippi into below the police were ported off like a handfull of people it was police and press and those were the National Socialist movement and that it was the most boring and uneventful rally so they lost theer movement why cant we have that street fight . They knew what the National Socialism movement you cannot attack somebody i have done this for 27 years total never not have one purse of the National Socialist movement arrested for violence ate a rally because that was our guidelines. If you were hit you defended yourself but to say that people were wishing for that violence is incorrect. Because. So the far left that doesnt work. So now to combat that what is the strategy that to incite violence is the way to push out that bout one that violence lead is the alternative quick. There are a few different ways. I feel like in this country everybody has a right to protest and you should have a right to do that. It is complicated because in some ways there was hardly anybody there but the counter argument from the other side if you allow it so it depends on the way people look at it. And they are counter protesting but once it crosses either side is wrong. Thats were Law Enforcement needs to come in and typically they do. And thats good but we are ignoring completely. From street level protester. So i am thinking that the violent extremist groups are one step ahead everybody tries to counter that to change course and if they are actively pursuing ways of mainstreaming counter narrative with the work we are doing. What are we missing . I think no matter what we do there will be an echo chamber in some area of the internet. They will find a place online sor offline but in that space it was like 100,000 videos. What is that about . Is just them to say screw it we will just go here and we can share like we want. Thats just the way it will go. Now will they moderate . Each company has a different way of looking at it. So in that sense they want to socialize andh hear from each other and what the next steps are and what they should be doing. The interventiono trying to create some sort of standardization platform those are important things to keep up with. Its positive forward thinking. We need to understand what thats going to look like. We should beer very wary around the revelation of privacy because what is happening is the migration, its true that because people are migrating facebook is losing followers of those that shop and spend money and abuse of privac due to priv, those like soft onrushing storyboards they are basically creating a telegram of crypto currency but they dont want to talk about it although they are aware of thats what they would create. There t were two people stumbled across it haphazardly so we will be talking about that two or three years down the road when someone notices it. The takedown is never going to work in andd of itself. It has to be informed by the video that took two years to launch and they thought it was counterproductive for those committed to the ideology and the same thing we are seeing n now. Its only amplify the message of those more prone toof actually progress so they are migrating with the lower numbers but they dont allow us to speak in the narrative that says if you cant speak you might as well act. That is a good point id like to expand upon that a little bit. That is one of the things we used is to say, and ive tested this myself on facebook i was banned from facebook just because of my name alone so we set up an account and then have somebody anonymously on all Different Levels i could go on for five hours but theres just one example on facebook wi we ft that profile up with pictures, send an anonymous message from a different address to facebook and say the head of the party is on here, this was years ago before all the deal about facebook and twitter and all that kind of stuff and how it was banned instantly. Now in another same as that, we would point out like the new black panther party. They would have certain people say things like delivery white man, every child. We show that and it wouldnt be deleted if you posted a symbol, that account was deleted. The reason i mention these things is because a lot of people think and it has good intentions. As recruiters in the movement it didnt discourage us except if you are being treated unfairly others are allowed to promote violence and you guys in the movement so it gave them back proof. Im simply explaining this is how they will get further radicalized. If there were ways around it is another one like russian facebook thats where we just find different ways of doing that and it becomes more difficult for people trying to counter violent extremism and to prevent it when they are not there. Its sort of like the forbidden fruit. When i was a kid i remember a 15yearsold and they are the ones that started the whole movement and they were censoring things and things like that. Never in life did i listen to rap music and f15 im watching 2020, nightline, these sort of things. Im watching nightline and they come outhi and say my music was banned in florida. What did i do, i drove to the nearest record store and i had to find out what it was about so its quite the forbidden fruit like adam and eve if people say this is something you shouldnt look at and you shouldnt be able to check into that, it is going to have that effect and it answers a little bit of the question you asked earlier abouo how to get them out and what brings them their. Believe it or not and this is something i learned from talking to jesse i said a lot of people in the movement by the kind of close minded about certain things because of the racial issues and things like that. He said they are not closed minded, they are very openminded and i thought i had to think about it for a minute. If i hadnt been more openminded i never would have gotten into this in the first place, so that is one of the key components, some of them they are just closed minded and impossible to reach, but the people that came as they are open minded and looking at alternative forms of historyms d politics and tired of the republican and democrats, before we can get to the audience qanda i want to make sure we can zoom out a little bit. The u. S. Is a joint Terrorism Task forcece that has teams in cities across the country. Country. Can they answer that they prioritized domestic . They should. There are a couple to date having been a policy priority rifor the u. S. Or the white supremacist threads it is changing then theres the sense that unlike al qaeda and the United States that are declared foreign terrorist organizations, the fbi particular investigative tools are used to get leverage over the individuals. For the most part, the groups havent been categorized in the same way. They are in fact transnationals, and ones that argue they have a group in sweden, you could call that an fto. The committee has come out in favor of declaring these groups thereby enabling them as the joint Terrorism Task force to have thece same tools and great and investigate those organizations. When you get the strictly domestic bliss organizations that dont have the international presence, you get to one little more complicated because they will not fit into that box. Then the question is can the government declared Domestic Terrorist Organization and to date there has been a resistance to do that for them is another contravening set of if i say im in favor of National Socialist ideas and fewer airy and state and they dont act out all night, that is sort of in the pre speech category and its more difficult for the joint Terrorism Task forces and fbi to investigate so theres been a lot of discussion on how you get this type of groups andho create tools for an ongoing discussion that hasnt been resolved yet, the people have talked about some potential guardrails to allow greater investigation over those organizations. Do you feel like that could be a workaround are there any two restarts from that . There is an organization that has a threat for the foreign entities. I absolutely think that that should be a tool in the tool kit for u. S. Law enforcement that seems to be the first step. Some people have called for a 9 11 Style Commission for combating domestic terrorism. Do you have any thoughts on that . The 9 11 commission called for is if more time for studying them to know the nature of the problem, there are potential nearterm workarounds people talked about in the analytic piece and that seems like a viable. Im not sure if in my perspective you need to go to the whole process to be involved. Looking at ukraine and put the things this is one example among others in connection with violent and putting in charlottesville and theyve traveled to meet with members of the movement so in your opinion is the draw for americans i think we touched on this a little bit and then what is the lesson we need to learn if we are not paying attention if anyone wants to jump in on that. Its interesting because we talked a little bit about the message but its also an indication we should start to worry about sustainability that we established after world war ii. I think we really need to start to consider it economically, politically, socially and they are much more serious than we imagined. Its one of the things when we conceptualize the scope of the mission would have to widen it to include polarization when we see the consequences of the social fabric tearing apart if the polarization enhances it then the only thing you have to do to increase the act is the underlying pool so this is true across the globe. What you get is more support. The new phrase calls for i aderless resistance and people said screw your optics i am going in and he was talking to the old right ability as a peaceful mass movement. Now when he won shtick they ridiculed him as counterproductive, part of the problem. Now when you speak like that, they consider themselves radicalization preventers because they dont advocate. Now the entire chat group goes after them because the bill is becoming more accessible because of the manifesto in the ideology that is a byproduct of that. At least from my perspective guys were always talking about how the weekend or european chapters and how do we go back . There. That is our utopia jesse was talking about earlier that they want to get back to so that is the gold. How do we get there i guess the group that i was and it was all about taking that my crow and making it macro and now theres these different groups accelerating everything across different aspects of the internet which is anything is an excellent. They want to use islam as an accelerant, anything they can find to use and then have died in going over to europe this is a sort of new phenomenon actually to go over they were starting chapters throughout europe, australia, the uk and that is sort of the beginning about how they made it available within the movements to move them much bigger. A big part of the reason people are going over there is to get the training and combat experience. Its to be able to fight and train and things like that because the thought of people in the movement and this is going to break into awa civil war or Something Like that and you want the training that is why we were sending people into the military alltime for years and years. There was a confidential fbi report that came out and they were talking about the numbers and how many were in the different groups and they were fairly accurate in that study. Since then, by the time i left about 50 of the membership has military in the past which was before that we are talking like 10 , 15 . By the time i left it was about 50 . Thank you. Now to you if you could raise your hand and please identify yourself and your affiliation. You will hear liberals, progressives use terms like brightness, White Supremacy as an explanation from them or should it seems given what you have said today theres not a lot of utility inho those terms im wondering what you think of the two terms. It seems there is a lot more complication in how they use those terms. I guess it depends on the individual with a wide array of the way people look at it, for example the National Socialist movement is where hee i spend mt of my last 27 years we called ourselves the civil rights organization. Most will tell you they were not white supremacists. We knew publicly speaking we gave a patent speech or wmething. We knew that those words where not going to go over well with the public. As long as i can remember i didnt call myself a white supremacist. This is a word that is used often by the media. There are people in the movement it just depends on the affiliation and it depends on how that is looked upon as far as the terminology. The other part of the question is how does the outside world view that. [inaudible] we are not moved by any other motive. It was all about identity, the idea that you are fighting for your tribe not like im in this because i hate of the people you want to hold them down. We are like the men at the alamo, we are standing up, we are the last line in the race. These are things i would say to inspire people and get them motivated in doing that. A lot of them see it as an attack on their solidarity and attack on their people rather than the countermeasure. I hear very few groups talk about we want to hold them down and thats nothing but a bunch of drunken guys at the background s barbecue. They see it in a larger picture thats why its more difficult to break but because they see it as more of a worldview that is why it ise more complex. Imth worked with jason kessr and i was trying to get him out of the movement. We had some breakthrough and definite rapport that when they put him on the spot in an interview and accused him of being elitist premises, he tried to use the biological race argument we are not supremacists because we look at the data it doesnt mean we are superior just certain aspects. On the aggregate, we outperformed so it provides the justification the problem is there is no counter against it. You are armed with information that feels like a white supremacist is a label being categorized as it its very attd a similar mistake and it merits of dealing with the threats posed that made it more decisive. Getting added from the ecosystem approach you offered essential insight that helps us understand the phenomenon as political social movements i think that is the right way to think about it. There are two things i want to huravert defeat to articulate t. One is the idea of feet and receiving existential threat theres always existed and will always exist. The different is the context that makes those ideas relevant so if we are combating them in context it is pretty depressing right now like where are you looking on the planet. So what is your strategy in terms of dealing with the context with many different areas of the world into different militant groups and the conscious of the local levev is important and having a chance at reducing the prominent of any one group and relatedly, and that is in the context where the polarization is up and a lot of these groups essential perspectives have become mainstream as you articulated and it leads to a situation. The related issue thaa related d on is the dilemma of their communities have in the risk of shining additional light on them increasing their products. So they made an argument in the publications on the groups that once you shine more light on their activities and behaviors, they actually reduce in terms of relevance and violence and whatnot. But the wellorganized groups are seekingve to gain greater recognition by virtue of the behavior whether it be violent or nonviolent and they are pushing for the thing tree Media Coverage as a critical measure of success in a buildingg block to further their objectives. So, as governments and as a member of the Civil Society, as craft, how do you, what is the right medium an mediaman coverat youre not actually doing i willl answer briefly and matcmitch might have something o add as well. I think you used a very important term. We are constantly looking at the Academic Work that goes on in a study and everyone is noww a far rightwing expert and the interns are better than they do and quite frankly a lot of the stuff is published so far into the thing. But its always missing the context and if i want to shape behavior, i cant shake the individual if i dont shape the environment and makean it conducive to be able to affect thfix thebehavior im trying to. This is just something thats never discussed into some 2020 for us is crisis management. We are not trying to create a paradigm shift tok get people o talk to each other. We are trying to predict what might happen. The overwhelming point of the allocated attention on White Supremacy is an issue but the way that its being covered by virtue of b the groups, unfortunately i have to say that, the way that its been covered isen only amplified and the Democratic Party that has made White Supremacy the key narrative of the election and so now we have strategically the manipulation of that in conjunction with other organizations that claim to be nonviolent in the same way that the Organization Rules were dont hit back unless you are hit drawing like mad max to come shooting at everything they do this by the sake why is chris supporting this on cnn . I am curious about the connection of the demarcation and Mainstream Media that we are talking about. Because a lot of what we talk about seems pretty hateful. So are those Different Things or to what extent so if the media is a major sourcen to prepare the ground for what you are doing and what do you do about that . A lot of what is on msnbc and espoused by Rachel Maddow is incredibly hateful if you think in those terms not just but als also. Thats one of the biggest things of the misunderstandings of what is going on with the far right right now that why we only talking about with the info wars. They are worth talking about in the Mainstream Media spends a lot of time talking about breitbart. Lld now we will recruit a whole bunch of people today and to spend time with the backyard conspiracy theorist if we just dont give a platform. In a way that this is very weird it draws people in and we want to talk about it but just as much on the far right as the far left it with that centrist liberal stuff that you see in canada it becomes problematic. So we want to be careful who we are giving that broad platform to. Reading about the interventions that you do what is your relationship with Law Enforcement to intervene with domestic terrorism . How do you assure people that you are making sure youre maintaining your privacy. There is no mechanism to investigation to interdiction. Those that utilize informants so when you report like dad on the statement of fact it never goes to trial people dont realize a statement of fact is only enough evidence to charge a person it has nothing to do. Ith the underlying investigation. So hate is reported you hate the new government and then to provide practical alternative so later they are claims of entrapment. We have no contact with government. And then they can refer them to us that would be a lot better place but now we have protesters everywhere. Unfortunately their hidden. Do you take government money quick. Do you have grants . Mcveigh altered the ability to provide access with legal mechanisms so counter messaging probably not. There isnt enough evidence i bet talking about individual then it could have been different and we need that. So looking at government involvement. That was not successful in the space i know in canada with that process those that are in that space and for them to get involved in the top 10 percent so to talk about where things are a Public Safety risk and if it is meant for us to go talk to these people at community organizations. Having the mechanisms not every guy has a radical thought or a White Supremacist Group and then to have these conversations and then begin the process well before and Law Enforcement could do some work. It is a very large scenario. And then it makes more sense for go so there are Community Groups that come into play. So depending on different standpoints or viewpoints that they try to present we need to be cognizant and yes government should be at the table for sure but. So the idea with the Civil Rights Movement and that certain objective like desegregation for example. So what was the objective . What do they want ultimately quick. The way it works is that they were under attack and they say of course black people and minority groups and especially going back to the 19 sixties and Voting Rights for blacks are women. So now its like we flip that. Now they have hiring quotas sometimes it gives a less qualified person a job or a more qualified white person does not get the job this is what we are trying to overturnn. Hate crime charges i know when i was in the movement i hammered on that. If you do something that is illegal but now you have somebody with no criminal record and did not even have a speeding ticket. Nothing. He gets into a fight and it was caught on fight on tape and he took it too far hes doing eight years in prison for fighting. He didnt kill the other guy. Because hate crime charges were addede onto that. These were all designedhe to help other people and to give everybody equal footing but in a movement to turn that around this is used to oppress white people so of course it needs white civil right advocates for the movement to save themmth so if we take away the talking points and that the movement is using and make it a fair type of thing then you take those away. We have time for one more question. I am from american university. First of all thank you very much and with generational differences within the Movement Across different groups do you have experience generational conflict so when you work on intervention how to use insurer to stay current to reach those who dont trust any adult . We were looking to get that funding that the interventionist wee have that we work with a lot of mlunteers andte facebook monitor groups and stuff i would never find on my own. And then to scroll down and everything in discord that afternoon. We have to recruit the white men to do this work. If you dont attack with that generational problem than this is significant to the point where recruiter is like me shame of the idea of the caliphate in the english language so many more people were trapped there if you look at the data than those people that traveled there were heavily influenced by the organizations that i establishe established. And then they mock the boomers. So then there is that and if we think about that generationally. I was looking at a youth symposium in those ideas that came from what do you know about facebook . I want to know many of them dont use that at all. So we understand the way they frame those discussions we need to teach them how to use instagram and twitter. And their idea identities and have conversations and what things are they willing to share. That is from a Research Perspective thats what we need to look at not just with violent extremism in general but what content makes themk go. So we can learn a lot from them and that shapes what we should be doing in that space talking about interventionec especially with the youth are vulnerable populations. Excellent. Thank you all for coming and thank you to our panel for joining us. [applause] thank you. [inaudible conversations] something i want them to addresses violence there isnt just one clearcut answer but we need to initiate that discussion for what options are available to prevent that from happening. The question i have for the candidates is how do you combat drugs and healthcare quick. An issue important to me is focusing on our criminal Justice System to rehabilitate our offenders and support a positive relationship between the community and Law Enforcement and the mass incarceration rate and help those who are impacted by the heroine epidemic and to help those in poverty with the prison pipeline and help juveniles. Its important to me as autonomy that we are currently not being protected by the Us Government although we should b be. Hello welcome to another edition of question time