Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing On Social Media And Terrorism 20150511

The longest war. Mr. Bergen . Mr. Bergen thank you. My chance today is to outline the threat from the newest wave in domestic jihadism in the United States. We have identified 62 at individuals from public records have try to join isis or newsworthy al qaeda affiliates or trying to do so. They come from across the United States. We found cases in 19 states. James komi says that some of these are not public yet. They do not fit any public profile. They are bosnian americans this creates problems. Unlike in the case of alshabaab which attracted somali americans mainly from minnesota. That was a very focused group of who was going. This is across the United States. We found american females. These are a group this is a group of misogynistic individuals. Yet we found about 1 5 of the 62 females, a number of them are teenagers. This is a new phenomenon this is a relatively young group. There were teenagers as young as 15. The only profile that they share is act to on the social media. In some cases, directly communicating with members of isis this is a new development in the way that jobless terrorism jihadis terrorists are recruiting in the United States. A recruiter comes here and recruit somebody increase the sale great to cell. That is very rare. That did happen in lackawanna. You may remember the lackawanna six case, where there was an al qaeda recruiter who recruited six yemeni americans from buffalo to new york to go to a Training Camp in afghanistan. We also saw that also in minnesota, in 2007, when veterans of the somali war went to minneapolis to recruit americans physically and bring them to somalia. But that is were no longer seeing that model at all. In fact, of the 62 individuals we found none of them were physically recruited by a militant operative, cleric returning foreign fighter, or radicalized while in prison. Instead, they selfrecruited online, or were sometimes in touch by twitter with members of isis in syria. Why would americans abandon what is after all a usually very comfortable life . A lot of these come from, you know, come from comfortable backgrounds and are intelligent individuals. Why would they be attracted to isis . And i think there are sort of, perhaps, three reasons. First of all, of course, a terrible nature of assads brutal war against his own people is an attraction. Secondly, the claim that isis created the caliphate, which i think is a powerful attraction for idealistic fundamentalist muslims. Thirdly, isis is presenting itself as the vanguard of the muslim army that is signaling the end of times. And that it is basically the vanguard of a group that will usher in, you know, the perfect, true islam when the savior of islam returns. Now, you know, i was just this morning looking up the saw a very large number of americans Something Like 4 in 10, believe that we are in the end times. So, this is not such an uncommon view that were in the end times. So, isis is presenting itself as ushering in the end times, which is another powerful kind of attraction. It also presents itself as a real state with social services, and that claim is not completely false. Although it certainly is probably less true than they present it. And for some of the western recruits, this is an heroic and glamorous thing. We have seen people tweet on isis. We have seen isis fighters say it is like playing the call of duty, but in 3d. There is a heroic aspect of this. Finally, what is the true level of threat . I would say the true level of threat in the west is not as much as Something Like 80 of americans believe, that isis is a serious or fairly serious threat to the United States. Well, it may be a threat. It is clearly a big threat to american interests in the middle east, potentially. But so far, only one syrian foreign fighter carried out a successful attack in the west, which was the frenchman who attacked the Jewish Museum in brussels on may 24, 2014 killing four people. Of course, that doesnt mean the threat doesnt exist. It is worrisome, but not existential. And related to that point, of the 19 individuals we found who went to syria, or eight of them were killed over there. So, syria was proving as much of a graveyard as a launchpad for attacks. It is a very dangerous war, as you know. In fact, about half of the men who have gone over there have been killed in a larger sample of 600 foreign fighters that we examined, and 5 of the females. Even for the women, it is very dangerous. So, if the returning foreign fighters are not the issue, what is the issue . And the issue is really what we saw on sunday, which is people inspired by isis taking up on obviously easy to take up weapons in this country and doing something with them. Likely, sundays attack didnt mature in the way the attackers wanted to. But i think that is a harbinger of what well see in the future. So, the real issue is not syrian foreign fighters coming back to the United States. Law enforcement has done a good job of tracking these folks. They come back. There is only one case where Law Enforcement didnt recognize that a particular person had gone to syria, which is the floridian. But the returning problem is really, i think much less of an issue than the homegrown isisinspired that we saw on sunday. And there is very little as a practical matter we can prevent lone wolfs, who are truly lone wolves, from doing these kinds after tacks. Doing these kinds of attacks. The good news is there is a natural ceiling to what a lone wolf can do. For instance, in boston, the tsarnaev brothers were lone wolves. They killed four people. It was a tragedy, but it wasnt a national catastrophe, like 9 11 was. We have to frame the threat effectively, which is it is worrisome, but not existential and nothing on the scale of 9 11. Ron johnson our next witness is j. M. Berger. Mr. Berger is the nonresident fellow in the project on u. S. Relations with the islamic world of the Brookings Institute and the author of jihad joe americans who go to war in the name of islam and isis, the state of terror. Mr. Bergen. J. M. Berger thank you for having me. I think that i would like to start by talking about the lone wolf threat, because thats on everyones mind after the events of this weekend. Isis is in many ways appears to be the first Jihadist Group to kind of crack the lone wolf formula. The idea of leaderless resistance and attack goes back to the 1980s, the white supremacist movement. And people had been trying to make it work ever since. And the problem with lone wolves is that it is too easy to stay at home, generally. People are not going to get adequately motivated to carry out an attack without having social reinforcement. And that defeats the purpose of being a lone wolf, to escape detection by not talking to anyone. Isis has mixed up this formula and there are a couple of reasons for this. The first thing that they have done is they have become a populist movement. They have a very low threshold for entry. And theyre pretty undiscriminating about who they include in their group, relative to al qaeda. It was very difficult to join al qaeda. Al qaeda was a vanguard and an elitist movement. So, that affords them access to more people. Secondly, their propaganda is extremely violent. And it is also very focused on presenting the group as dynamic, and actionoriented. Relative, again, you look at comparison to al qaeda. Al qaedas propaganda, in recent years, especially tends more toward this course. Toward discourse. Were trying to convince people we have the right idea, that we reasonable people would agree with us, that this is the correct thing to do. And isis doesnt care about that so much. Theyre willing to just get people agitated and cut them loose. The third element of change is that isis has changed sort of fundamental underlying assumption that we see in the jihadist argument. Al qaeda preceded from an assumption of weakness. Its argument was based on the proposition that muslims are weak and that they are unable to stand up to apostate regimes in the region. As well as, the reason they couldnt stand up to them is because the west was behind them. The idea behind al qaeda and using terrorism as a tactic was that this is the tool of the weak. We have to degrade Popular Support in the United States for apostate regimes in the middle east. And the United States will withdraw its support, and then well be able to fight these guys directly. Isis has skipped ahead to fighting these guys directly. Their propaganda emphasizes this. Theyre taking the fight to the local regimes. Their message is theyre winners, and you should join us because were strong. All of this is part of a very complex set of problems. Were in a period of very broad social change. People have been talking about social media for a number of years, and often in very effusive terms about how its changing the world. This is the first manifestation of how that really is going to work. What were seeing is social media allows people to selfselect the beliefs and information that they receive. If you have an interest in jihadism, you can find other people interested in that very easily, very quickly. And you can establish relationships with them. This is very different from, say, the 1950s. If you are a radical jihadist in the 1950s living in peoria, you might go your whole life before you meet somebody who shares your views. Today, it takes 10 minutes to find someone who has your views. Today, it provides a social context. Its reinforcement, personal validation of your beliefs. If youre acting out as a lone wolf, theyre offering a degree of fame you wouldnt be able to achieve as a mass shooter, for instance. And its very reciprocal. Theres a sense of remote intimacy on social media that can be hard to appreciate, if you dont use it a lot. When you talk to people on a social media platform and talk to them every day, you feel like you know them. You feel like theyre somebody who is in your life. And so, somebody tweeting from syria who is a member of isis can develop a very emotionally powerful relationship with somebody who is sitting in the United States. And that is part of the reason that we have seen people are more willing to mobilize in the name of isis than they were in the name of al qaeda. Isis radicalization and Recruitment Practices take place over a spectrum. Theres no one thing that they do to try and recruit westerners or try and recruit locally. They attack this from every channel in every direction using a variety of styles and using a very large number of people, because isis is a large organization. It can afford to have 2,000 people who tweet 150 times every day. It can afford to have a ratio of two or three recruiters to every one potential recruit who may carry out a lone wolf attack. If theres an area in which we are trailing isis in this struggle, i think its probably a question of resources. Of course, the problem that we face with that is that nobody can really agree how to use those resources. Our efforts at encountering violent extremism have a lot of problems that are inherent to them. And we also have a problem from a Law Enforcement perspective. If youre monitoring 60 or 100 people, it takes 500 people to do that, to monitor those people even on a partial basis, let alone 24 hours a day. If these guys jump in a car and drive to texas, theres not a lot you can do. Ill save most of the rest of my thoughts for the q and a. I did want to talk about the prospect of an isis organizational terrorist attack. Isis has money and manpower to spare. We have not seen that they have an intent to carry out a 9 11style attack. Theres reason to think they might not be as skilled or competent in such an attempt as al qaeda was because of the training cycles they use. I think we should not assume that thats something that couldnt happen, though, that they couldnt make an attempt. And i think were much better prepared to prevent Something Like that today. I dont think isis is an existential threat, but i do think we need to have realistic expectations expectations of what they might do, so that when something happens, we dont overreact in fear. Thank you. Ron johnson thank you, mr. Berger. Our next witness is mubin shaikh, an expert on radicalization and terrorism and encountering violent extremism. Hes consulted on the topic of isis with the u. S. Special operations command, central command, nato, interpol, and other agencies. First of all, mr. Shaikh, i certainly appreciate and thank you for having a change of heart after 9 11. And for all the help and support youve given this government in terms of trying to counteract this and also trying to help other young people who might be inspired. Look forward to your testimony. Mubin shaikh in the greeting of jesus christ, peace be unto you. To the esteemed members of the senate committee, on september 11, 2001, i was driving to work when i first heard a plane struck the world trade center. Immediately, i said god is great. I asked myself, what if the Office Building i was working in was similarly struck by a plane . I would have perished along with everyone else, just as those innocent people perished on that day. For me, september 11, 2001 was for all intents and purposes the beginning of the end of the commitment to my extremist mindset. Allow me to explain. I was born and raised in toronto, canada to indian immigrants. I grew up attending a very conservative brand of koran school, boys separate from girls, sitting at wooden benches, rocking back and forth reciting the koran in arabic but not understanding a word of what was read. Contrast that with my daily life, attending public school, the complete opposite of the madrassa. Here, i could talk to girls and have a normal, functional relationship with them. When i left the koran school at age 12 and moved into middle school and high school, i wasnt discriminated against, bullied picked on, or anything of the like. I was actually one of the cool kids. But when i was 17, i had a house party which my hyperconservative uncle walked in on. My uncle and other family members were incensed that i would have brought nonmuslim friends to my home and spent the next few days berating me. Due to the guilt trip, hence the bornagain type seeking to right the wrongs of their past. I would then travel to india and pakistan, and in the latter, ended up in a place. The center of the group, as i walked around the area, i chanced upon 10 heavily armed men. Dressed in black turbans and sandals. One of them said to me, if you truly wish to bring about political change, it can only be done by using this. And he held aloft his ak47. I was completely enamored by them then, a consistent theme in jihadist literature. In the years following, i absorbed myself in claiming that jihad was the only way to change things. And when Osama Bin Laden gave his fatwa, i was on board. Then, 9 11 happened. Wait a second. I get attacking combatants, but this . Office buildings in which regular people work . I realized i needed to study the religion of islam properly. I sold my belongings and moved to syria in early 2002, when there was still some semblance of normality. I attended the class of a scholar who challenged me on my views on jihad, and subsequently spent a year and a half with him and studied the verses of the koran that the jihadists use to justify hate and destruction. I came to relinquish my views completely and returned to canada for a newfound appreciation for rights of muslims in the west. That year, individuals had been arrested in the u. K. With the london fertilizer bomb plot. One of those individuals was none other than my classmate at the madrassa. I thought this to be a mistake. I called to give a character reference to the family. It was too late for him. As for me, i was recruited by the service as an undercover operative because i felt this was my religious duty. I can say that i conducted several infiltration operations, both online and on the ground, involving religious extremists. One of those cases went on to become a criminal investigation. I went to the mounted Police Enforcement team in what came to be known as the toronto 18 terrorism prosecution. I gave witness testimony in five hearings over four years at the superior court, where 11 individuals were eventually convicted. Ive since worked with various mechanisms of the u. S. Government. As you noted, the National Counterterrorism center, the Security Office of civil rights and liberty, three main outfits engaged in the study and practice of countering violent extremism programming. In addition, i spent the last few years on twitter directly observing recruitment and propaganda by isis types online. And i reference appendix a here, that the members should have. Directly, ive engaged with many of them, male and female appendix b. As well as some of their victims that they have tried to recruit. My approach is to show how wrong they are and to criticize from the sources they misquote and mutilate. Thusly, the correct term to describe these attacks in islamic costumes. I personally intervened in cases of an American Girl these predators were trying to lure away by engaging her online, as someone who can show the real interpretation of islam. By this, i have a good understanding of what is happening in terms of recruitment. In terms of countermessaging as well. As the military side of psychological operations which i conveyed at a recent Conference Held in new york, in which the commanding general himself was present. Finally, there remains a massive gap in all the areas ive mentioned. And that a sustainable meaningful approach needs to be created. I submit to you, it is not as hard as some may suggest. That we already have the talent, but just need the direction and guidance in order to get it going. Just three quick points, some questions on terrorist recruitment on prisons. Number one, terrorist recruitment in prisons is happening all over the world not just in the u. S. As for the u. S. , the numbers are actually very low. In the western context, much of this recruiting remains unseen to the untrained eye. And also due to its covert nature and usually does not manifest openly in the prison institution, but afterwards when the individual has left the facility. Number three, greater vetting of the types of imams that offer counseling is needed to ensure that prosocial messaging is delivered in the context of prison rehabilitation programs. By framing this under prosocial messaging, the state avoids having to declare which version of islam they approve of, since we all approve of anything that promotes healthy, productive and rehabilitative components of counseling. I thank the members here with me and hope this is a start in the discussion in dealing with the challenges before us. Thank you, and god bless. Our next witness is daveed gartensteinross. Am i pronouncing that correct . Daveed gartensteinross thats correct. Thats very unusual, by the way. Mr. Gartensteinross is a senior fellow with the foundation of defense and democracies, adjunct assistant professor in Georgetown University securitys program, lecturer at Catholic University of america, and author of the report home grown terrorists in the u. S. And u. K. Daveed gartensteinross its an honor to appear before you today. What im going to focus on in this testimony is the question of what has the u. S. Done . What can the u. S. Role be in countering this violent messaging . With respect to isis, which i think right now is rightly at the center of our concerns weve seen the most dramatic brand rise of any Jihadist Organization. In large part because of the reasons that berger lays out. They are excellent messaging, go far beyond what al qaeda and others have done and take advantage of web 2. 0 activity of the internet, which makes somebody who is alone a part of a group. They also are vulnerable, though its not inevitable to the most dramatic brand reversal of any Jihadist Organization weve seen. You might have noticed that at times isis messaging and the u. S. Countermeasuring has been exactly the same. Often the u. S. Shows the Islamic State brutality, people theyre killing, people theyve tortured. And they proudly proclaim the same thing. The reason is they have a winners messaging. For them, its not bad to show theyre brutal because it shows theyre stronger in other groups, can impose their will. Very recently, as the Islamic State has increasing pressure on it, particularly being concerned about the pressure put on mosul, a statement by aboul suleman was very insightful. It asked people not to show the brutality of the Islamic State enemies, not to show, for example, bombing to kill civilians, not to show the impact of a siege upon the cities. His argument is the Islamic State in its messaging will show the brutality of its foes, but thats always connected to punishment. In other words, they want to show they can deal with their problems. Thats what a winners messaging is. They emphasize their strength, dont want to emphasize weakness. The reason we know they are vulnerable to a brand reversal is because weve seen that before with the exact same organization. Back in 2005 to 2006, you had a very similar dynamic, not identical, but very similar with al qaeda in iraq, which is isiss predecessor. They were known for brutality. It shocked people with its videos, where they beheaded their victims and thought it was a very romantic organization. People wondered if the amir of al qaeda had surpassed Osama Bin Laden as the leading figure in the jihadist world. We remember in the 2007 through 2009 period they overplayed their hand, particularly in the anbar province, where right now, theyre in the process of inflicting similar, although greater brutality on the people. You saw a grassroots activity and you saw it combined with two other factors, a surge of u. S. Troops in iraq and also u. S. Counterinsurgency tactics. This ended up defeating al qaeda in iraq at the time. Their brand went from being sky high to suddenly the entire Al Qaeda Organization wondering what could they do to undo the damage that had been done by their losses in iraq. This was brand reversal. What had once been a symbol of strength, their brutality, was reversed into a symbol of having overplayed their hands and turning the population against them. Now, with respect to isis, its experienced a trajectory of losses. Its been in a somewhat declining phase since october of last year. Its lost territory rather than gaining it. As a result, they started to emphasize other ways in which theyre strong. One particular way has been their expansion into africa, which clearly is at the center of their current strategy. At times, theyve exaggerated their games and gotten the media to report on this. I think the best example is their claim to control the city in northern libya. This is not true, it has never been true, but theyve gotten the media to report it through multiple outlets including bbc and cnn. The reason why is they were able to show a photo of an Islamic State flag on a government building. And they showed a video of a parade with Islamic State supporters. This is a city controlled by multiple factions. The fact that they could have a show of force is not determinative. It doesnt mean they control the city. But it was reported. You have the cycle in which the Islamic State pushes out this message. The message goes to the media and it supporters. Rather than the cognitive dissonance, instead, both are reporting on the exaggeration. They are able to do this where social media penetration is low. Facts put forward are the only relevant ones. How can the United States reversed this message . How can the United States reversed this message . This message . One thing we have to fundamentally do, you are all in government. You understand that our bureaucratic processes would be hardpressed to compete at the gutenberg bible. We need to democratize the process of competing with them. Dealing with the Islamic State as ive outlined, it has a vulnerability that other groups do not. In this case, what would be very effective, is a small cell that is able to operate to see what , the messaging is. What are they hoping to gain . What are they hoping to gain . With Strategic Communications professionals. Often the best voice, fact sheets emma that can be declassified information giving them information were they could serve as the objective voice. If you get reliable information. Right now, i know that this is not often being done. I point ut to the exaggeration i point to the exaggeration, journalists whether print or broadcast, are hearing it from me for the first time. Given that the media and the battle of perception is so central to what the Islamic State is trying to do, the government has to be more quick to react. To understand the strength of this message, and to respond the same kind of speed focusing on the key message at the same speed they push out their own message. Overall defeating the Islamic States messaging decembering does not defeat jihaddism. But this is an important point for a variety of reasons. I say on an optimistic note, i see promising signs were starting to shift towards a paradigm of trying to shift the Islamic States strength. But it is worth following up to make sure were taking the appropriate steps. And there the senate i think can play a major role. Thank you all. Thank you mr. Gartensteinross. We may not have that rapid communication response, but most elected officials have gone through campaigns. President ial campaigns have that within the political world. Rapid response maybe that could be a piece of legislation. We could propose is a Rapid Response Communication Team we pull from campaigns. Trust me we have got those capable individuals within our knowledge base. I would like to talk about the online process. I would like to ask the question. Isis is using social media to connect and to talk by the way, i would like to enter into the record without objection the webpages provided. If you have not read them, it is pretty powerful in terms of the ways isis is using social media. But what is a next step after that . Maybe mr. Berger whoever is more expert at talking about this. They recruit. They talk. They talk online. Then what happens . Mr. Berger there is a series of stages you go through. Typically, someone is exposed to the propaganda that is being broadcast out. They take an interest in this. This isnt just isis, this is how social media works. You find the subject, you take an interest in it, and when you start following it, you see other people are talking about it. You start conversing with them. So what we will typically see it there will be a period where somebody is con psalming this stuff con consuming this stuff in the public. If somebody is seriously interested and willing to take a step further, they will take it to a private format. That can be a direct message on twitter, which cannot be read in the open source or on facebook. More often, they go through an encrypted app such as whatsapp or kick. Which is text messaging with an element of encryption. Our authorities can follow the open source social media but the minute those individuals serious about it Dwight Howard to stick offline we go dark. We louisiana our capability of following that and we really have no idea. Is that basically correct . You can approach it with subpoena and other sources. That is the problem. Silicon valley is resistant to allowing us to decrypt. Even if they would allow it, there will be other sites offshore that will decrypt. We are losing our capability to follow this. Mr. Berger yes, i would also add the ability of government to follow it on open social modia is often murky. Very limited. Mr. Berger people in different agencies have different understandings of what they are allowed to do when it comes to social media. That is somewhere where a governmentwide initiative would be helpful. It wasnt in your testimony but in my prep you have a publication your best guess was there was 46,000 over 46,000 overt isis supporter accounts at best. Will can you describe what you are talking about . Berger it is smaller now. Significantly smaller. Whys that . Berger twitter started aggressively suspending his us a spending accounts. We had a series of steps, if your tweeting isis propaganda, if youre not doing that obviously, we look at who you followed. And who followed you. And sort of analyze the network to see if there was a clear case. It was a very conservative approach to coding somebody as a supporter. Fundamentally, somebody who is not actively trying to trying to conceal their interest in isis. Mr. Sheikh, as somebody who is trying to prevent young girls, for example, or other people that are making those connections, where are they going now . Is there an alternative . They will remain in the orbit of their ticket works. Their particular networks. I will try to engaging them openly online. You are seeing people on the al qaeda side strangely arguing against isis on the larger theological side. They will continue to orbit to their networks. Those that do go off into the what thesapp and kik, i dont follow them offline into that, but that is what they do. There are officials in the u. S. Government going into muslim communities talking, one of the reports we got back, i was surprised to hear is because of the revelations of edward snowden. There seems to be a perception in america that the federal government knows all. And we have perfect knowledge of who is online and who is on the sites and is becoming radicalized. And the members of those communities were very surprised that we had no idea. Can you speak to that, mr. Shaikh in terms of the necessity of different communities to be policing themselves and reporting reporting that from d. H. S. , if you see something, say something. Hollywood has done this, as well. It has given the idea that the Intelligence Services are omnipresent. In some cases, that is a good thing. That people think we can see everything. On the other hand, this is something that the Government Agencies are trying to achieve. To get into the communities and give them something by which they can convince their own communities outside of Law Enforcement, look, these are things you need to watch for. These are your kids being lured over by these individuals. These are your parents are going to end up in front of the cameras as they attend court. These are your mosques that are going to see retaliatory attacks. Things like that. It is an ongoing challenge with the communities. There is a level of mistrust. There are professional naysayers, Community Organizers that are obstructionists in the way they approach this. This is an issue that continues to play out. My final question really springs from a very interesting article written by graham wood in the atlantic. I think amplified by your testimony, the territory held in the caliphate and how that is driving a narrative, perhaps you could speak to that . I think the short sense answer is that is completely true. They control about 9 million people, the size of switzerland, your claim disappears with is an important Strategic Implication which is we need to keep chipping away or demolishing this caliphate. Again what does that inspire in the minds, and the hearts of the followers . What is the call . And what is required once the caliphate gets established . I think the call, and this is where it gets, located, for some, they may feel i want to be supportive. That doesnt mean i want to become a fighter for isis. And i think as a matter for the Law Enforcement community and the congress to think about, if somebody is not actually indicted for a potential act of terrorism, but merely for trying to go to syria, we should be thinking about offramps that arent 15 years in prisons. The problems families have, they see a son or daughter radicalize, they say should we call the f. B. I. Then that son or daughter may get 15 years in prison. In minneapolis, there is a case where something other than a long term prison term for a 19yearold young man is now in the process. It is a model we should be thinking about going forward. Before i turn it over to the ranking member, anybody else want to respond to that . This speaks to what we had mentioned, the debate between al qaeda and isis supporters online. The reason that al qaeda never declared a caliphate is because they did not think they could create something that would have staying power. If it gets chipped away geographically, you will see more people attacking the decision to declare the caliphate in the first place. They are susceptible to brand reversal. Jihadists would turn on them if they lost the territorial advantage. For someone who believes that the caliphate has been legitimately declared, if they dont accept the caliphates authority, they die in a state of sin. This gots to this also gets to one of the joe jihadist debates as to whether it is legitimate. For people who supported, it can be anything from going over there and living in the caliphate. To those or not able to do so, or those were more well situated to carry out attacks, that is one reason they have been so successful compared to other organizations and having a prompt to action. They have a lot of things going for them right now. And that makes them acting essentially from a position of strength and within their very small target audience from a position of religious literacy. One of the goals of u. S. Policy should be deny them that territory and deny them that caliphate . I think so, yes. Make sure those losses are being broadcast, being broadcast from Civil Society activists. As we improve our communications capabilities, one thing it does is allow those who are opposed isis to have a better vehicle to attack with. Thank you, thank you for your responses to our questions. Mr. Berger, i think you used the word murky in your comments. To describe the authority with which our officials have to do certain actions. Go back to mention this again. Revisit this for a moment. Berger fundamentally, i dont think there is a consensus in government that you can do large scale monitoring of social media open social media of american citizens without a probable cause to investigate. In a lot of cases, we have seen some plots and people intending to travel who were detected on social media. More often, social media provides an evidence trail to go after an arrest after youve identified a suspect. Fundamentally, there are questions about how we collect and archive this data and who we collect and archive on it. Do we need to have a reason to have to go after someone . In the case of garland, if we had been sweeping those accounts, we would have a more clear idea the track of radical case for the suspect in open source. You can go after the stuff with subpoenas, try to retrieve the data in various ways, but when Twitter Suspends an account, that information is no longer available. This user had seven previous accounts. And we dont have that available to us in the open source talk about that. And i dont know if Law Enforcement has that available if they have been archiving it if they have access to it via subpoena. Im not entirely sure twitter saves the data, im pretty sure they do. Im not entirely sure. These are the kinds of questions. I think the appetite in the country is not friendly to the fbi should be backing up thousands of social media accounts. These are the kinds of things that i think are in play. When you go from agency to agency, there is a different kind of boundary issue that we run into over the course of some years. I mean several years ago, there were issues in terms of military investigating americans who were in al qaeda in pakistan and afghanistan, military intelligence had to sometimes take names out of documents because the privileges that we are for american citizens in different contexts are sometimes not totally clear how you reconcile that with a pragmatic approach. Thank you. Really a question. And this would really be for i think for mr. Garten is steinross and mr. Berger. Is it more advantageous for us to work with companies to shut down social media accounts that promote isis or likeminded messaging or to keep those open for intelligence purposes . J. M. Berger has done some very good work on showing the disruptive impact that it has. There is a debate amongst analysts as to whether you shut the accounts down. On the one hand, you have their ability to radicalize people to action. On the other hand, you have the ability to gather information on them. I think increasingly, that debate is actually becoming settled. We can see with isis the massive impact that these accounts have had. The amount of people who have been drawn to the syria iraq theater is greater already than it was during the afghan soviet war. In terms of the number of foreign fighters. Social media plays a very big part in that. So i think in general, it is advantageous to shut these accounts down. This should absolutely be a companys decision. U. S. Government has no authority, with one exception. If jihadists get frustrated with getting shut down, they may create their own version of twitter or facebook. And which case, our superiority in terms of Technological Capabilities plays a role. Thats the kind of site we could shut down wholesale. I think without any sort of free speech or constitutional problems. Briefly on this question. And then i had one more. There is utility in shutting them down. The intelligence argument is important but ultimately the goal is to stop terrorists from doing whatever they want to us and so you know you take that into the context of an attack obviously you get a lot of intelligence in the terrorist successfully carries out an attack. In a lower scale we shouldnt give them cart blanc to do what they want because it a allows to us make nice shorts and spreadschetts. I like to focus on root causes. Addressing the underlaying root causes. What are the root causes or underlying causes that compel hensamericans to ensure gage in violence in the name of jihad and when common factors, if any do these individuals share . Mr. Bergen . It is a tough one. Ive looked at hundreds of cases of americans who have been drawn to jihadi activity. There is no ethnic profile. Some of these people on average they tend to be slightly better educated than most americans. On the other hand you have people from criminal backgrounds. Its very hard to make a one size fits all description. In another era, in the 1970s perhaps these people might have been drawn to Weather Underground or the black panthers t promise to remake society through violence. Weve seen that throughout history. But there is no really good answer to that question. Its a form of question of what draws people to crime . The answer is too complicated to say in a very quick and sound bitey kind of way. Thank you. Mr. Berger . I would agree with that. I think what we see is there are clusters of causality. You can see, for instance in the al shabaab in minnesota you can see why that happened, so many from minnesota. You can look at towns, for instance, der nah, where an organization has a long history that gives you some insight into why that group of people goes. But when you look to sort of generalize, its very difficult. Who you know is probably the most important thing. Thats where the social media comes in. If you can know somebody in isis very easily online, then that presents greater risk. Thank you. Mr. Shaikh . And then i will yield my time. Thanks. I share the same caveats on the complexity. I will give a sound bite version. Without grievances, ideology doesnt resonate. Without ideology, grievances are not acted on. I think the intersect between ideology and grievances do play a significant role in this. All right. Thank you. I think weve been articulated very well. Let me focus on one thing related to this question which is what can the u. S. Do . We are this a thats always a good question. Were in the world right now where ideas catch on much faster, whether theyre good ideas or bad ideas. Its easier to achieve a critical mass. That can play off of, as mubin says, grievances and ideology can intersect together. The question is what are we doing to ameliorate grievances . To some extent it is hard. Of we live in a world that doesnt have perfect justice, a world of finite resources and a world of competition. If you look at what companies are doing, corporations in the United States, those who are transparent in terms of decision making, in terms of what theyre doing. The companies that are more legacy type industries and floundering are less transparent and more topheavy. In many ways u. S. Government looks like a legacy industry. One thing we need to be able to do and there are many representatives who are good at this. Be much more transparent in terms of the u. S. s decision making. Theres a lot of hard choices to make. J. M. Berger outlined before, the hard decision in terms of monitoring americans use of social media. On the one hand we understand that people who are on twitter and radicalizing can pose a danger. On the other hand, when we think of the f. B. I. Sweeping thousands and thousands of accounts and archiving them forever, that in many ways seems like 1984 by george orwell. Thinking these through publicly and explaining decisions and what we doing i think it can help diffuse part of that grievance. Moving forward, were in a world where grievances, weather real or imagined can catch on quickly. The u. S. Can feel what it should be to minimize the u. S. Being a target. Good. Thank you all. Thank you, senator carper. Our vote that was scheduled at 10 30 has been moved to 2 00. So we wont have any interruptions. Senator saaa. Of. Senator sass thank yochair manned all of you for being here. After reading your testimony my mainline of questioning was going to be about how you create strategic brand damage to eye sill and future jihadi groups. Before we go there, id like to have a detour. Dr. Gartensteinross, your comments about the interplay between traditional and social media and obviously the media cycles of people wanting to make news today on social media to be picked up by producers on traditional media. Can you unpack your der nah comments. Yes absolutely. Der nah was a case in which you didnt have much social media. Isis essentially started out with Information Dominance thats because reporters couldnt get in to der nah to fact check. Weve had two different sets of reporters who ventured in, both of these reporters, tunisians and libyans, have gotten executed in the last couple weeks. Not a good place to do Fact Checking. When they have this information about whats happening and theyre pushing it out and others arent pushing it it out on social media, the way the news cycle works now, here is information and theres no competing information and maybe youll check with a few sources. Media moves much quicker, much less Fact Checking. Its easier to get an invented fact out there and to have it widely repeated which i think is exactly what happened in der nah. Dr. Bergen, this is not to put you on the spot because i dont know how cnn covered the issue. Can you walk us through how decisions in a circumstance like that are made . Im not familiar enough with cnns reporting on that. As a general matter, cnn has got a very careful Fact Checking process. But you dont know if you reported that isis had taken der nah. Im not here to comment on cnns reporting on that. Dr. Gartensteinross, one of the things thats unique about isil versus al qaeda in iraq is a more decentralized Network Structure as opposed to a more topdown structure. Obviously this creates unique opportunities for them to capture entrepreneurial activity on social media. At the same time it seems harder for them to control their brand. They have a deficit in terms of trying to have a territorial claim with the caliphate. To the degree they have a more decentralized structure and can exploit social media over time do you think that means their brand becomes diffuse, or if they can suffer losses because theyll eventually suffer territorial losses, what does that do to their larger social media strategy . I conceptualize them as having both a centralized and also decentralized structure. On the one hand, they have a bureaucratic system, systems of governance, official accounts. Then you have the vast number of people who are fighters who are tweeting from the battlefield. They have put directives in place, its actually very clear. To try to rein some of these guys in. At the end of the day, when you have a large number of people on twitter, its difficult to fully control your message. Thats something the u. S. Military also grapples with as well. Just like isis, we have directives, although we have an easier job of reigning our guys in obviously. With respect to isis brand, it has a trajectory of its brand overall being affected by people of multiple layers, those central to the communications apparatus and those at the fringes. The answer yes, it absolutely has more difficulty controlling its brand. I referenced before the statement by the supporter of isis trying to say dont broadcast the enemys atrocities, dont broadcast how hard life is in cities under siege, only broadcast strength. That is actually if you look at my argument theirs is a winners message. Thats a very hard message to enforce when thats not actually whats going on. You dont just have isis fighters. You have People Living in these cities and you can see some resistance movements have sprung up. Theyre going to have a hard time keeping their message the same, just like we have trouble controlling them on social media. Theyre increasingly as theyre entrenched as a governing force and failing governing force, theyre experiencing Something Like insurgent activity. I dont want to overstate the dissension within the ranks but you clearly have it. Theyve had it for a while. Its increasing now. Mr. Shaikh, id be interested in your thoughts on that question. Thank you, sir. Of course, i agree very much, of course with what daveed was saying. I think we need to continue to amplify the mistakes they make the weakness in the ranks, the dissension in the ranks, especially when it comes to educating potential recruits individuals, teenagers who may want to travel. In the beginning when a lot of this began, there was a concept called five star jihad where they were putting out they had taken over some guys villa and they were swimming in a nice pool in the back and they were saying, hey, come on down. For a while i actually took a lot of screen grabs of food pictures they had posted. We had swedish gummy bears, guys posting kabobs . We got that. A mango milkshake saying how can i not take a picture of that. Or, you know the epitome of a identity crisis pakistani ethnicity u. K. Resident living in syria referring to pizza as home cooked food. Of i think to educate people just by using their own mistakes, their own failing, this is another way in which we can achieve our objective. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you senator sasse senator peters. Senator peters thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you to the panelists for your testimony today. I want to explore a little bit more in depth about some of the countermessaging that we need to do, particularly with the broader Muslim Community here in the United States. I think its important to remember when were talking about folks engaged in these activities with extremism, its just a tiny, tiny sliver of the Muslim Community here in the United States. I have a very large middle eastern population in michigan one of the largest middle eastern populations outside the middle east as you know in my community. Its certainly an opportunity for us to harness that community which is strongly opposed to isis and other extremist groups. In fact, there are regular protests against the activities of isis as a perversion of islam and not reflective of the broader Muslim Community, folks want to be engaged in that countermessaging which is ultimately the way you try to delegitimize the ideology associated with it. I know the white house has made this type of outreach with their empower local partners to prevent violent extremism efforts, also part the sill mitt on countering violence this year at the white house summit. A 2013 Rand Corporation report highlights challenges to countering violent extremism online including alienation and the u. S. Approach to counterterrorism among american muslims as well as the over securitized approach. Ive heard from some of my constituents concerned about pushing back against this violent extremism and these lies online because they think it might draw some undue attention to them personally as they engage, even though these are anti messaging that theyre doing. Some of them have also experienced racial profiling other activities at airports because of their muslim heritage and so have certainly some level of distrust when it comes to Law Enforcement activities. Yet, this is an Incredible Opportunity for us to use patriotic americans, Muslim Americans who live here in our country. If panelists can address a little bit, how can we engage this community, what would you suggest and what are the messages that would be important . Mr. Shaikh, we could start with you, but others who can weigh in, wed like your comments as well. Thank you very much. Im actually doing my phd in psychology and looking at community interveners and what works in intervention programs. There is this i call them professional obstructionists Community Organizations who are hyper defensive, they really mistrust the government and have portrayed any kind of even meaningful sincere interactions between Law Enforcement and the community as just as an excuse to intelligence gather. Given that level of mistrust how can we do it . I think theres a way to do it. First and foremost, the Muslim Community understands as you observed, the Muslim Community doesnt want anything to do with isis. Really if you look at the tens of millions of muslims living in europe, northern america, we have a maximum amount of 5,000 foreign fighters. That thats a small amount of people. First and foremost, the Muslim Community needs to understand that it affects us first and foremost i think. Isis kills more muslims than nonmuslims. When they do what they do, its the Muslim Community that feels the retaliation, discrimination, marginalization. I think its a i think its on behalf of the religion. We have a duty to speak up and give the correct understanding of the religion, lead by example. And there is a way to still work with Law Enforcement, but at the same time keep them arms length. That is to use programming that is developed in house, in the communities where the Law Enforcement agencies understand what the communities are using so they can back off and say yeah, we understand they have this identifying vulnerable persons guide, lets say, and we understand they have a mechanism in place where they can give rehabilitative programming without it necessarily being a topdown approach. Just lastly, i think of course, people have their views, free speech, of course. But we have to be very careful not to perpetuate the isis ideology which is islam is to blame. If we do and this say muslims are terrorists and islam is all about terrorism, that is exactly what isis says. In fact, ive seen that you have people who are very anti muslim, they even use the exact same verses of the koran that isis uses. If you didnt see the name, you would swear it was an isis account doing the promoting. I think there are multiple layers to this. It can be done, but it needs solid direction i think and Community Leadership. And direction from within the community, that its an organic process, but also in that process Law Enforcement here in the United States understand to let the Community Lead and back it up and to back off, if im paraphrasing what you said accurately. The closing point, local police are best suited for this. The local police are the ones who respond if somebody throws a rock through the mosque or if theres a crime that happens in the community. Theyre not seen as investigating terrorism like the fbi would be. The fbi would have big problems in dealing with them at that level. There is a way to develop relationships that needs to be done. Thank you. Anybody else want to add to that . Just to give a couple specific examples, we cant take down all bad speech even though thats desirable. But we can help reinforce better speech. Ravia choudhry goes around training Muslim American leaders and imams, many of whom who dont understand how to use it themselves, about how to use it, google rankings. Its hard to measure countering violent extremism. This is an example of something concrete and working. Another is a woman called nadia from oxford who is aggregating all satirical content about isis in arabic online. Satire is a very powerful weapon against this kind of group. Finally the u. S. Government cant engage in a theological debate for all sorts of various all sorts of obvious reasons. This group positions itself as a defender of islam. The victims are overwhelmingly muslim. Its a statement that requires no special knowledge of islam. Its a powerfully undercutting message for what this group is trying to say about themselves to the muslim world. Im out of time. Thank you, senator peters. Senator booker. I want to jump right in. In preparing for this hearing i was surprised, if not stunned, at how were approaching our messaging and our countermessaging, frankly. I find it clearly there are 2. 9 million muslims living in the United States and half of them are under 30. Were talking about a very young population. I agree with senator peters, the overwhelming 99 point whatever percent are good young people that reflect the rest of the population. But were dealing with a population of young people that are online and engaged in an extraordinary manner. In the middle east, you a greater percentage of people that are under 30 years old. And the new form of communication is social media. 90 of americans age 18 to 29 use social media. Nine in ten 18 to 29yearolds watch online video. Almost half of them, thats where they get their news. I know a little bit about social media, i have to say. When i started going around to the sites that we have in our various agencies, dhs, National Counterterrorism, state department, i was shocked at what were doing in counter messaging. I want to pass this ipad around to my colleagues. Two things to take note of. Two tabs at the top and you can toggle between. One is a youtube video. Hundreds of hours going up every minute on youtube. The videos theyre doing are incredibly slick, fancy and attractive. Here a bunch of extremist terrorists giving things out to kids. If you toggle back over to the United States and what were doing, here is the think and turn away website. If you know anything about social media, the one thing you should do is look at the engagement of people on our social media feeds. Its laughable. Three retweets, two retweets. If you think about this, last year at least fiscal year 2013 we spent 196 million on the voice of america. This is old school media. Its radio and the like. Mr. Gartensteinross, how much money are we spending on social media countermessaging. Question they do not budget out social media separately. They do not budget out social media separately. Its a small percentage. As you point out, a lot of things what we push out via social media is crude. Crude is a generous statement. You said a wonderful phrase. You said we need to compete at the speed of social media. Mr. Bergen, you said in your written testimony that the one thing that unifies these folks is their age and that theyre online. You would think if this is one of the threats when you ask when we asked counterterrorism people here in the United States whats their biggest concern is domestic lone wolf individuals. This is where the majority of them are getting radicalized which is on line in social media. If we have an inadequate response to that, its very frustrating. Mr. Shaikh, your work is incredible. I see you online trying to push back on this. There are easy tactics i know them, as you said, from politics, how to get more voice and virility to messaging. The data youre presenting as muslims killing muslims, and this is a group killing more muslims. Look at their fancy memes compared to what were not doing. So i just want to start with mr. Shaikh, it likes to me like youre trying to do countermessaging, but we have a government thats spending millions and millions of dollars on old school forms of media and, as you said, mr. Gartensteinross, very crude social media efforts. What do you imagine could be done if were going to do an effective social media online countermessaging effort . Thank you very much. In some kind of defense to the center for strategic counterterrorism communications, they have a very small group of people. Theyre trying to contest the space. Theyre trying to do something, and i get that. Yes, crude is a very polite statement. Look, at the end of the day, if you want to fight back against recruitment of 15yearold kids, you need to work with 15yearold kids. When i see my own kids showing examples of what affects them and what motivates them and what resonates with them, it tells me that this is exactly what you need to do. Talk to the kids. They can do a really good job. With respect to producing material, one of the comments that i said, really, i feel its unacceptable especially given you have hollywood in the u. S. You have people, you dont even need to go at that level. Maybe this is something that should be done to go at that level. To blow the production capabilities out of the water. But even college levels, High School Kids to be given projects for them to do just as part of a school project, as part of a Civic Engagement process, even muslim organizations. Maybe you have the ngos who can Fund Projects within the community to come up with these sorts of things. The government is really not well placed other than if you were to take it to the covert level of psychological operations and then you do have individuals who know, influence activities, who know to generate stuff which they can deploy but in a more covert manner. Again, multiple layers. There is a way to do it. Mr. Bergen, very little time left. When i was mayor of newark, we saw the dimensions of our city were incredibly negative. We set out on social media and used a Sentiment Analysis that engagement in social media began to brand of our city. Im just wondering. You talked a little bit in our testimony about crowding out negative messages. Ive seen people do this in many different forms and theres different strategies. How do you characterize what were doing to crowd out the message to sort of compete within the space to begin to push other messages . How would you describe our attempts and is there a better way to centralize and coordinate across numerous agencies a better push for the United States . Nctc has been doing some of this work and trying to work with some of the Tech Companies and theres a problem with the u. S. Government being involved. It has to be hands off. Its not all doom and gloom. There are people out there doing the kind of work thats necessary. Thank you very much. Thank you senator. Lets face it, we invented the internet, the social network sites. Weve got hollywood, the capabilities as he was saying to blow these guys out of the water from the standpoint of communication. We need to work on that and work on it quickly. Senator. I want to thank the chairman and appreciate senator bookers comments as well. It strikes me though in hearing your answers. It makes sense that this isnt going to just be a government function. I think engaging the private sector and ngos and others to help us do that, we can provide the support for that. I think that would be great to establish those partnerships to be able to make that happen. I was very interested in reading in your testimony about women that there seems to be an attraction for young women. They are recruiting with more than i think a historical basis to isis and talking about that and it seems to me as i look at some of these uses on social media, they almost romanticize what is happening in iraq and syria and who these women want to join or i guess connect themselves in the u. S. Or in some other western country with isis, and so it strikes me the more we can get the truth out also whether its embedding reporters or whats really the conditions are, i know its dangerous so thats challenging. However we can get the truth out on whats happening on the ground that this isnt some kind of romantic endeavor youre probably traveling to or asking to engage in. I wanted to get thoughts on how we address this with women. Thats right, senator. 20 of the sample, we looked at it from the United States women and about 10 are from the west unprecedented. Why theyre going there theyre told its a perfect society. The average age is 19. How do we contest that . I think youre exactly right. We saw this in the minnesota case when people started saying shabaab is not the promise land but it took two or three years but were at the point theres enough bad stories coming out thats a reasonable idea. The information we have that undermines their strength is mostly eyewitness testimony from defectors and thats not as compelling as photographs, video and audio. One of the things that i proposed is that in as much we can deploy intelligence assets is to get pictures, intercept communications and things that are much more gripping and compelling instead of one persons story. Radicals are convinced they have the right idea anyway. If i can jump in. On the flip side theres a side which is a twitter feed of whats going on. Theres pictures of bread lines and theyre saying its only on for three hours a day. The point is theres an alternative universe on social media portraying whats really happening that exists and we should understand and know about. Absolutely. We should promote it and encourage people to see whats really happening because i think theres sort of a romanticized view pushed out there thats attractive to people. I wanted to get your thoughts on the leader of isis. Using social media using information to put out a certain image of himself that is not line up with the truth and so how do we, whats your thought on the leader now . I understand we take out a leader and another leader can follow but he seems to have portrayed himself in a certain way. What thoughts do you have for us to undermine the leadership to show theyre not really who they purport to be . I think hes an interesting figure in this case. He has a basic biography which is calculated to support the legitimacy of naming him cut leafaliph. The image he projects is someone who speaks rarely. As such, he is somewhat replaceable replaceable. You can bring your expectations to who he is and he doesnt have the cult of personality like someone like bin laden did. He may be an important strategic thinker in the group. Replacing him may undercut their ability to operate but maybe not. How important is it that we thinking about what isis is doing on the ground and trying to establish this. The fact that they control territory gives them a greater ability to recruit because it shows the legitimacy. Its like we have to address this on all fronts. I think the short answer is yes to that. One element of this that i would just bring up because we talked about how their loss of territory would undermine their recruiting and it would. Isis is also in a pop elliptic is also an apocalyptic group which also traditionally what happens with groups like this is when the prophesies they are filling turn out to be not correct, theyll double down on violence. We could see very disastrous secondary effects with that. We seen it with al qaeda. We seen it with alshabaab. They dont have the same platform isis has built on. Thank you. Senator portman. Thanks mr. Chairman. Thanks for having the hearing. This has been fascinating. I appreciate the experts coming and talking to us about this. Let me give you a case study from ohio, the middle of the country. Were concerned with radicalization. One is Christopher Lee oneal. He wanted to come here and bomb the capitol. That happened earlier this year. Hes under arrest. Just last month columbus was charged. He became the First American accused of training in syria and then return to carry out his attack on the United States. One is a classic loan classic lone wolf. So hes on the internet, gets radicalized, a loaner. A loaner. The second is a member of the community in central ohio as i understand it, the Somali Community. I know members of the community were very concerned about the radicalization. They were engaged and involved in it. The leaders are working hard to have a productive dialogue about it. Its two very different challenges. Also, the lone wolf. I looked at your appendices and unbelievable the things they are doing. We have the capability to do more with more resources. I guess my question would a is if you view these two distinct challenges a sub part of that would be a specific question ive always had. Youve got three groups, dhs in ctc and fbi dhs, in ctcnctc and fbi all working together to try to support the Community Outreach programs understanding it as mr. Shaikh said the local police. Yes, theyre very different and long wolves have an actual proceeding to what theyre doing. The operate alone and dont have an organization and dont have training. Im glad you mentioned mr. Muhammad from cincinnati, ohio because hes the only one thats come back to the United States thats alleged to plan an attack. Crucially, he was trained. We need to keep that in mind. The two cases of americans coming back to the United States, one is alleged to be trained by al nusra. It wasnt alshabaab. It came from the Somali Community. I think in that particular case it wasnt in the documents. He went to an unspecified Training Camp while he was posting about the Islamic State. In terms of the problems, these are two different problems. We could see isis trying to bridge the two to coordinate loosely lone wolf activity with terrorist type activity. In the case of the attorney, this may be a dry run to see what happens when you see somebody back. We have seen that isis has had return fighters who have been active in europe. Weve seen at least one case of what was described by investigators as an isis operational cell in belgium. Theres not much reason to believe they wouldnt try this sort of thing. We need to keep an eye on this as it develops. The lone wolf piece of it is eds is easy for them. It is something they have proven they are good at relative to other groups. Its going to capture a lot of headlines for them without a big investment. The question is how much they want to invest in attacks here. Thats unclear right now. Could you talk about the coordination between dhs and the fbi and the nctc . Yeah, there is a dhs coordinator. David gerston comes from a Civil Liberties background and i was surprised to see dhs putting that kind of resource in the area. The office of civil rights and Civil Liberties is looking at how to avoid the securitization aspect of it. Its really poisonous to the cve branding. Obstructionist Community Groups were giving a false narrative of what the government is trying to do. If i could quickly make a point on the lone wolf, what kind of lone wolves are we talks about . I call them isis zombies. These are the selfactivating, might have Mental Health issues, low level of competencies and then you can have directed attackers who are syria returnees who have a level of competence who one person can pull off a quite effective attack. In pairs, of course. Only two guys did what they did. You could easily have a cell of six people, three twoman teams to do simultaneous attacks and cause great disruption. Theyre again a number of threats in that spectrum. Back to the community for a second. You were making the point that we need to do the best Practices Community by community. Local face was important. I said the Somali Community in ohio has been very involved and i think in a productive dialogue. The federal government where we have responsibility coordinating between the three agencies i mentioned and perhaps some other agencies that are more on the intelligent side. Is that working or should there be more accountability that comes from more definitive responsibility . It is working. I am positive on that side. There was no coordinator before. Now that there is a coordinator and that is happening is a positive step. Its running into the issues of critics saying, you know, these are just, this is just an excuse to intelligence gather. I think dhs and their particular mechanisms working on cve are trying to navigate the space as best as possible. Thanks, senator portman. Well start another round. I started my Opening Statement with description of the posting with the claim that theres 71 trained fighters and 23 of you accepting assignments. Nobody knows whether thats bluster or real. Is that an unprecedented posting . Have we seen similar things like that . Similar threats that havent panned out, anybody . I think we have multiple times. Its pretty precedent. The volume of material they put out is just truly extensive and it comes in a lot of different formats. Theyve made a variety of threats with greater, more or less specificity over time. One of the reasons was it was something they had actually specifically talked about that had turned into an attack and that was unusual because they create so much noise that that needle in the hay stack can be very difficult to detect. So you take that with a great deal of skepticism. Its the attempted winning message. Yeah, i think that you know certainly, they have dozens to low hundreds of supporters in this country and some of those people may be prepared to act and i dont think theres anything remotely as organized as what that described. Certainly, in your testimony and in both written and oral you were talking about the rise of the brand of isis but theyre also very vulnerable to the reversal of that. I hope thats true. I also understand strategically theyve made a lot of enemies and theyre being attacked on a number of different fronts. The state of the goal of this administration is defeat isis. Ive asked Administration Officials in the past what does defeat look like . Define it. I would like to have you gentleman take a crack at what does defeat look like to you and how achievable is that . I think theres actually a very clear thing that defeat means in this context which isnt true of other groups. They have staked their legitimacy to the continuing viability and if the cal fit is and if the caliphate is no longer viable they could lose the legitimacy quickly. If youre able to make it no longer a viable entity and no longer received as a viable entity, that point, they have lost. Their narrative would be wont be completely dead. The arguments, they have certain outs that for example they believe at some point there would be a grand battle and they would be crushed. Essentially, it means you make this already marginal movement much, much more marginal. Let me add one final thing. This ties into the way we are conceptualizing communities. Sometimes we talk about what the community could do to delegitimize the message . For the United States, if we had a 5 Approval Rating, we would think thats an awful thing. For isis, they can have a 5 Approval Rating and theyre dealing with it. Theyre not dealing with the whole of Jihadist Movement. There are many within the Jihadist Movement who argue against isis. The question is not how do we change an entire community but how do we stop this fringe group from spurring people to action. Thats why this legitimacy of the caliphate, in my view, has a disproportionate impact on their ability to remain viable. Does anyone else have different definition of defeat . I think we are best served by strategies that encourage isis to fail on its own terms. In cutting it off economically an internal collapse or a major schism inside the group would be better for us than a forcible ejection from their territory especially if that ejection was done through american motor. Through american military. The defeat, how it looks like is the denial of the territory. Its the end of the territory but not the end of the story. They already have branches and presence in nigeria and libya. An important point. Im glad you pointed that out, again, anybody else have a different definition of defeat . My next question is im no military expert and i dont think we have one on the panel no offense. You have expertise that has been very valuable here. How far away are we from that definition of defeat . As you said, i dont think anyone on the panel could say. Number one, looking to internal resistance movements is very important. I agree with j. M. That the end of the day if the defeat comes from within, thats going to be a much more resounding defeat. How possible is that . We already see resistance movements in some areas. The question is how, theres two things to this. Number one is how robust are they . In the past we saw very robust instance to them. The u. S. Played a role in helping to insure they werent destroyed. A lot of the movements are also people we dont like. We have on the one hand probably baptist resistance movements and i would say almost certainly you have al qaeda resistance movements which plays in the struggle of struggle. The struggle within jihadism. Number two, internal squabbles. There was a question about baghdadi. While i think that baghdadi is replaceable, once you have a succession, especially with an organization like that, that might cause greater imagination with isis. The final thing we look to is youve given theyre a bit overstretched militarily. You could possibly see a rapid reversal just like when the u. S. Engaged in the Campaign Early in the iraq war and Afghanistan War and also in libya. There were very rapid reversals of the enemy trying to hold territory. It is hard to hold territory particularly when your population isnt doing. Is not happy with what you are doing. Talking about engagement with communities and understanding local police all the better but how do we find more move and shakes . How do we find more people like you that have had a change of and your change of heart and your capacity and your capability to turn people away from this . I wish we could clone me. I think we all do as well. I try to do the right thing. I got here because i believe i did make the right decisions. A lot of people may not be ready to do that. When we say empowerment, it needs to be clear for the individuals who are back. The Intelligence Community knows who these people are. After theyve been vetted, and maybe they need continual monitoring, but to have them step up. Go to muslim conferences and let them be seen on main stream media where people hear the message. I dont want to be the only person. A lot of times i feel frustrated and see im the only guy doing it. Everyone is talking about counter messaging. Nobodys doing enough of it. There are others like me out there that just dont know how to come forward and so they will need some direction to do that. I think i speak for all of us when i say god bless you for what youre doing. Senator carper. Im tom carper and i approve that message. God bless you. This one for all you, please. I want to say do you pronounce your name mubin . Its mubin. Have you ever been called mubin. Yes. Then i got called bin, then bin laden. Then it stopped being funny. We have a ben, not like bin laden. Several of my colleagues said in order for the u. S. To have success against al qaeda and isis, you must adequately define the problem and our enemy. They suggest we should announce that u. S. Is in war which is is at war with islamic extremism. In your opinion, is it necessary or beneficial for the u. S. To define isis and al qaeda in this manner . The question really is what is the benefit of doing so . Im not sure that theres a benefit in the inexplicitly emphasizing were war with radical islam. Theres a question embedded with that, which is, what is radical islam . In libya, one of the problems is the dignity faction, very high hes their commander in chief defines radical islam, to find the enemy, as including islamists who work in the political process and Jihadist Organizations. It makes it if one were to support his organization would make it a civil war thats much bloodier and much more defying than it should be. Secondly, the administration has moved away from really using religious rhetoric. Thats a reasonable thing to do in terms of public messages. The area in which i sometimes disagree is that i think if we as analysts arent able to process the ideological dimension, we are at a disadvantage. I dont think it is advantageous for the u. S. To make its enemy radical islam. Terrorists in islamic costume. It uses the adjective islamic in the correct way. I believe that islamic terrorism is an oxymoron. If i could impose to muslim term if i could impose the muslim term for these people, and ive given in scriptural references they are the dogs of hell. We believe in the islamic tradition that these people subscribe to that. The anti christ himself emerging from the last remnants. Those are the two terms i encourage using. We need to understand the religious dimension of this as people studying the problem in terms of public dialogue and in terms of motivation of this we must name the enemy kind of motif. You know, the thing that i think about when i think about this is in 2013 i did a study of White Supremacists use of twitter and found the people following premises on twitter talked continually and primarily about main stream conservative republican politics. We dont insist that neonazis be referred to as conservative radicals or republican radicals and i think if its a double standard, its easy to insist when its minority. All right. Thanks. The u. S. Government should be very careful about using these terms. The question has something to do with islam. However difficult that is to say. They are two different aspects of the problem. As you know in religion in this country, i wont speak about other countries but in the protestant states, we have many flavors. Protestants, methodist, baptist, presbyterians, the list goes on. When we think of the muslim faith, its not just one or two but many. We oftentimes think of shia and sunni. Its not that simple. When you look at the isis, al qaeda, the folks with domination and destruction, i dont notice as much shia involvement. Is that my imagination or not . Can you speak to that for me . With respect to isis and al qaeda you dont have share dont have shia involvement. Both of them are sunni movements. Isis is vehemently antishia. Al qaeda is antishia, but has tried to restrain that of it. Restrain that a bit. When you think about shia movements, hezbollah is the primary one. You also have movements you are kind of part of our coalition in iraq. These nonstate shia militias. They pose their own set of problems. If you look at what they are doing, they are brutalizing the sunni population. That could create, make this a longer term problem. So yes, in terms of isis, al qaeda, absolutely. I certainly wouldnt factor out the importance of some of these shia militant nonstate groups and one person who has done good on this is phillip at the Washington Institute for near hes policy, releasing a major monograph on this earlier this year which is essential with reading for understanding that particular aspect of this conflict. All right. Thanks. Last question, if i could. Mr. Berger, could you share with us the story of omar and your experiences with him, please . He was an alabama native. He was born in a family to a syrian father and an Irish Catholic mother. He became radicalized and joined alshabaab. Where i came in the story is after he joined he got there and discovered things were not to his liking. Foreign fighters were not being treated well. They had a nasty habit of assassinating al qaeda. There was corruption. He took to the internet and put out a video saying look, i have these problems with them and expressed my opinions and now theyre trying to kill me and i need help. This plea was directed to al qaeda central. He imagined someone from al qaeda would ride in to save him which did not happen. He, in many ways, was a vanguard of this emergence of this movement on social media. And not the only one by any stretch. Prior to about 2012, 2013, the jihadist use of social media was much lower and because of omar but also because of other dissenters from the jihadi movement, people started getting online and they started coming online to argue with omar so alshabaab dispatched people to come out and say this guy is a lie and people popped up to push back on that and it escalated from there. Same thing happening from the al qaeda context in the forums. I had an extended correspondence. It was unusual. Some of my comments about the remote intimacy and the feeling of knowing somebody on social media are informed by that. You know, when you talk to somebody briefly, every day, or somebody you correspond with by a post. Very interesting, very informative. Thank you. I want to thank the panel so much for being here today and really on your written testimony was so strong and put my staff to thinking about these issues in many layers and im grateful for that. In the final minutes of this hearing i would just like the ask you all if you are a senator and i know thats a scary prospect, but if you all were senators or even in a high level executive positioning, were looking at the issue of counter communications, we use words like rudimentary before. The vision were trying to get to, if you could push for two years and the chairperson said this should make us think about legislation, what specifically would in terms of strategy and tactics would you want to see being implemented on a broader scale by 2016, 2017. Anybody can pick that up. Maybe we can go online. I think we often look at this problem in a way thats very inefficient and isnt getting to the solution. You in your previous testimony spoke to this. I referenced the u. S. Government as a legacy industry and i dont say that lightly. A lot of established companies have seen it beneficial to create a start up in the company. Thats been a very successful thing for a number of companies to do. I point into it the tax company as one who did a good job of creating an interesting tax app where people through their cell phone could get all tax documents and they did this very much like the start up would do. Creating the start up within a broader company. With respect to this specific issue, social media, i would want to see a start up within the u. S. Government. You would want to get the best people on board and theres a few layers in that. One is are we able to work with the right people . Yesterday i spent the morning with a lebanese is a smith lebanese businessman who owed owner a media accompany who had these adds on his computer his accompany put together. He knows the region well and looking to shop around. The production value was extraordinarily high. Are we getting the right value . Do we have the right people in place multiple things make it hard to have the right people in place. One of the things i would look at is looking at the broader rules that prevent us as a government from having the best people in place to tackle the problems. I want to interrupt because i want to get through the whole panel. Anything you would like the provide in the days after the hearing in the image you said, i would love to pounce on because i think youre speaking not only a truth but youre speaking an urgent truth. Just to move in. Very quickly. Subject experts to guide and train whether theres Law Enforcement, military, whatever it is. Ultimately, an autonomy of efforts on the ground. To move at the speed of social media. Often you can delegitimize the organic voices when you put a u. S. Government stamp on that. Its important to have strategies that create an atmosphere in which the voices can emerge without being delegitimized by the u. S. Government. Were getting creamed on social media. By russia, iran and syria. We do not do propaganda well because we have principles we adhere to. What we can match them on is volume. We talk about cftc. Theyre working with a hand full of twitter accounts. What would have an impact and get around some of the log jams of government in terms of content would be to have hundreds or thousands of accounts putting out even very innocuous messaging to get us into the space. We can refine the messaging as we go. Theres a risk in government that prevents us from doing things that are experimental and daring in that space. If were out in the space first then we can figure out where to take the ship after then. If you look at isis english language propaganda, theyre saying its not your friend. We should be giving every Technical Assistance a turkey and reinforcing and congratulating them. The other thing we should do is to be building a database of every foreign fighter from the west. We know one in nine foreign fighters returning to the west will engage in terrorism. We need to know exactly who these people are to the best of our ability. Gentlemen, thank you very much for a great panel and for your work on these issues. Im grateful. Ive learned a lot. Thanks. Other experts you can put us in touch with. In terms of how do we do this . Is it inside, outside, whatever . Its urgent. One thing i do like to do is provide the witnesses a final bite of the apple here. If theres something you want to get off your chest. Looking forward, we have a chance not to have a hearing like this five years from now. If we change, the idea that were going to turn off the lights of our presence there on december 21st, 2016, and the afghans would want us to stay. We were attacked from there obviously on 911. Its our interest to say we plan to stay. We have an agreement for 2024. Strategic partnership agreement. The work has already been laid out. Im looking forward, this is a proactive measure to prevent having the same kind of hearing several years from now. I hope weve learned failed states are not good for security. Indeed. I think isis is the radical social change ahead of us and we need to be prepared to see what happens when people can communicate in these daily routine ways with people of similar interests around the world and you can travel to join somebody. I think were going to see social networks and societies that are going to be sorting themselves out into groups that are cloistered around specific interest and unfortunately were seeing what i would hope would be the worst example of that as the first. Theres potential with how we deal with each other as human beings. I fear that is a future reality. Mr. Shaikh. Thank you. Very quickly, i guess on the muslim side of things, just given the things thats happened, we really need to Pay Attention to the marginalization narrative. I think muslims are your best partners in this. I think they understand that we cant do it without each other. Its a common enemy. Theyre not going to think twice. If im there with my family ill be killed just along with everyone else. Were in this together. Lets move together. You can help us make those connections. Were ready for an era of radical social change. The question for us is are we up for this new era . Weve grown content with a system in which a lot of things dont work. We try to address problems and it gets lost and theres a process and everyones waiting for someone else to do something and what were getting in terms of outputs is so sub optimal if the u. S. Government were a Corporation People would lose their jobs. The questions are can we move fast enough . If so, what can we do to slash the obstacles and are we transit are we transparent enough both internally in terms of getting by in the government and also externality getting by publicly and in the broader World Community . Weve talked a number of times how to u. S. Has a bad brand. Thats absolutely true. No question about that. I also think looking at the big picture, we shouldnt be content with this. The u. S. Is a great country. We shouldnt be content with the u. S. Having a bad brand. Thats also one of those big issues we should try to change and make sure we can have the right people in place who can bring the right idea. S. Right now, having the right people in place is something hard for the government to do. That should change. Again, having coming from manufacturing background seeing a lot of problems with the process starts with the reality. Understanding exactly what it is and set yourself achievable goals. I think its laid out a reality i wish werent true. I wish we didnt have to face it. We cant keep our head buried in the sand. I want to thank the witnesses for your systems and answers. Thank you for doing what youre doing. Thank you all for doing what youre doing. This hearing record will remain open for 15 days until may 22nd at 5 00 p. M. This hearing is adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the senate is back in monday. On tuesday senators will take a vote on whether to advance trade promotion legislation. The house returns on tuesday with a full agenda for the week expecting they will work on a measure to ban abortions beyond 20 weeks. This week the house may also consider reauthorization of provisions in the patriot act dealing with the nsas bulk collection of americas phone records. Ainst the fight of hiv aides. Senator Lindsey Graham chairs this twohour subcommittee hearing