By the acting director of the National Counterterrorism center , russell travers. Todays conversation has sparked institutes ongoing lecture series. Russell took office that nctc as acting director in august but its not his first, second or third time the building. Hes held many of other leadership position at nctc including Deputy Director consulate to the director acting director profits of Data Strategy innovation chief data officer among others. Hes held positions at the office of director of National Intelligence the National Security council the joint chiefs of staff so we are very thrilled that he has been able to carve time out of his busy schedule and spent some time with us today to talk about counterterrorism and an air of competing priorities. Russell will deliver opening remarks from the podium and then we will sit down for a little fireside chat and asks the first few questions and then open it up to you to ask questions and we welcome all of you who are watching via livestream or via cspan thank you for joining us today. Russell. Thanks very much matt. Its a great pleasure to be here amongst a number of old friends to talk about counterterrorism and resources. I happen to testify earlier this week for the leadership of the fbi and dhs and talk to a friend of mine yesterday from dhs. She said a colleague of hers characterized my performance is that the of a thoughtful nerd. Im hoping to aspire to something more than nerd him this afternoon. The issue of competing priorities six extraordinarily important. We are now almost at decade past 9 11 yet we continue to succeed and protect against largescale attacks on the homeland. We think this notion of competing priorities do nothing but get more challenging as it should. Ever since the former secretary mattis issued the Defense Strategy last year there has been an ongoing implicit discussion about risk. How does the threat of terrorism back up relative to threats by large powers north korea iran. Along with terrorism they laid out a dizzying array of different kinds of threats election security, counterintelligence, property theft National Organized Crime which kills far more americans than terrorism ever will produce that in hearing is completely understandable that terrorism may no longer be viewed as the number one threat in the country but i dont know what that means and they think it begs a host of questions. I offer three. What does the National Risk equation look like . The country confronts very complex interNational Security. Secondly how do we optimize save the resources in the best interest of the country went to prep and agencies may have different priorities and if we are going to review efforts how do we do so in a manner that doesnt inadvertently reverse some of the gains of the past 18 years. What we are going to do for the next 35 minutes or so is what a trip that of a roadmap on the issues i think we should consider as we address this question. Im going to develop 10 themes and doing some going to start with strategic and will work her way to the electron level and back up again. Number one, good news. We said at the outset terrorism is not and never has been an existential threat to the country unless it changes who we are. Does however pulled out the potential for killing a large number of people and as history has shown he can occupy the countrys attention for very long time and prevent other important things from getting done. Fortunately we have made a lot of truckers on the terrorism front. The last significant al qaeda directed attack in the west was Charlie Hebdo five years ago. Alas isis attack in the west was three years ago and before that pair is in brussels. Homeland violent extremist attacks are down and the u. S. Has had one this past year and roughly half a dozen in europe both numbers substantially lower than previous years. Capabilities ebb and flow. We have seen ice struggle to contain success for incidents in libya or the franchise is not doing very well. None of this happens by accident. There has been tremendous military and intelligence efforts in iraq and syria to eliminate the socalled caliphate. Many operatives have been captured and killed and that has had many secondorder effects. sophisticated messaging, theres swelling and morale issues. Its not just iraq and syria. We viewed leadership from around the globe. Dhs has pushed borders out and given the homeland much more to the terrace. It also seemed woeful reference to improve local security particularly after paris and brussels. We have seen a Great Partnership in the private sector to make cyberspace less hospitable and services around the globe are working together against terrorism unlike the efforts against any other National Security discipline. The u. S. Continues to pass on Lessons Learned to the adjusted foreign parties with a robust exercise program that addresses information sharing and cooperation. We are seeing Capacity Building of countries improvement in interservice cooperation enhancements in information sharing and mitigating the impact of terrorist attacks. Compare this can in response to the shaddat attacks against the west the mall and 2013 and the to set hotel earlier this year. We will never eliminate terrorism but a tremendous amount of good work has been done and that allows for conversation about comparative risk. Its a concern for the potential for complacency. We do need to be careful. When i started working counterterrorism after 9 11 we were overwhelmingly focused on al qaeda and simply drive to threat emanating from one piece of real estate along the border. 18 years later we see at the first diffuse threats that spans the globe. The primary islamist threat in many for countries has been homegrown violent extremism. Despite the elimination of the socalled caliphate we have an active isis insurgency in iraq and syria and command structure such that maintains cohesion over 20 odd isis networks. Some are very small. We have thousands of people. Nine of them have pledged allegiance to the isis leader for the past week. We have al qaeda that has received less attention over the past few years but it too retains command structure and a half dozen affiliates and we have seen port nation between capabilities. There also a full range of related threats and they are rainy and quds force and the growing concern for the shia militant groups in iraq. A the very strengths of islamist extremism were not competent enough we are seeing a roping global threat per to early extreme rightwing related terrorism. More on that later. Terrorists around the globe are proving capable act exploiting technology. They are good at it and use of encrypted communication for operational planning. Social media to spread propaganda and transfer knowledge between and amongst individuals and networks. Drones or swarm attacks and assassination attempts. Highquality fraudulent travel documents that undermine the system and threaten border security. Cryptocurrency to Fund Operations and the potential terrorists using chemical and biological weapons have moved from a low probability eventuality something is considered much more like way. In many cases terroristic exploitation of technology has outpaced the policy framework to deal with the threat. Looking outside the years we are particularly concerned with the growing adverse impact encryption will have our counterterrorism members and this is a key point. We cant freeze or thinking in 2019. We always need to be looking to the future. Finally qaeda an isis have shown themselves to be successful at radicalizing vulnerable populations around the globe. Sometimes they deploy emissaries to establish and organize a group. Sometimes an emissary supports an existing group. Sometimes an emissaries are to present. His star keizer personal connections. Sometimes social media or letters but sometimes a group deploys an emissary to isis core. They are innovative in ranks. The ranks me to three which is the need for focus on prevention by any objective standard there are far more radicalized people now than there were in 9 11 but something tanks of suggested we are looking at four times the number of individuals in our own databases of known and suspected terrorist terrorists has grown by a factor of almost 20. Unless you believe this fervor will burn itself out we will face a growing radicalization problem around the globe. No single factor captures the complexity of the radicalization process among disaffected youth worldwide. We believe it makes a personal Group Community social political and ideological factors contribute to the. Of recruitment to extremist organizations in the mobilization to violence. We are gradually as a world accumulating more Empirical Data for instance the United Nations development program. For africa guide rated 718 active reform for active extremist. Mostly from alshabaab or boko haram that identified the reason individuals are radicalized inner critic and to extremist organizations at the personal level. The most important factor cited was Human Rights Violations by the Government Security force. Poverty of the nature of religious education stable families and government correction. Its just not about poverty and being downtrodden. As we saw we saw in sri lanka individuals who are welleducated and relatively welloff are rather lies by hate features. Theres a great deal of Fertile Ground in countries where facing growing radicalization in prisons and even amongst Young Children who are being targeted by extremist propaganda. Their various initiatives associated with messaging deradicalization reintegration offramp thing as well as broader programs focused on Good Governance and Economic Development and human rights. Available resources remain a significant woeful problem. If the numbers are radicalized people around the world keeps growing by do not like their odds of identifying the right people to capture and kill and keep out of the country and there are second and Third Order Effects produced the situation gets worse in africa and Climate Change takes its toll we are seeing greater force migration. Movement of migrants to europe in turn is exacerbating tensions giving further right to a vicious cycle. The theme for the need to focus on identities, people of concern terrorist threats revolve around people and networks and by checking identities its pretty arcane and not as interesting as talking about the future of isis are the latest strike. Its incredibly important for their terrorist identities work underpins much of the u. S. Government screening and betting architecture as it evaluates 3. 2 Million People a day in. The super refill the country in 9 11. Two of the hijackers are alive to get visas within the country and eventually get on airplanes because we were insufficiently stitched together. An enormous amount of effort has been extended over the past 18 years. We have effectively pushed borders out creating a multilayered defense to identify individuals for terrorist connections at the earliest possible point. We have continually improved building Richard Dossey is making better use of technology performing near realtime classified screening to support unclassified watchlist and where possible making use of biometrics. This will never be a riskfree proposition that the system has overall performed extraordinarily well. Nctc working with the partners is responsible for compiling u. S. Government database of known and suspected terrorists. The date is used to support screening partners. There has been some confusion on this point if only talk about its precision is very important. Seven watchlist individuals may have connections. But we lack derogatory information requiring them to consider them suspected terrorists. As you might imagine, when is it too monday People Per Day are screened in drawing conclusions about anyone particular individual can be challenges. 3 million. Over the course of the 16 years of the system has stood the test of time. In some cases, refugees princess, esther levels of scrutiny are provided. We have no indication of foreign terrorist groups have attempted to exploit the refuge the Refugee Admissions Program and the screening and bedding have probably limited their ability to do so. Over the past two decades, the past decade, there is only been two individuals who arrived as refugees and went on to conduct attacks in the homeland. Both radicalize, after traveling to the United States. Our track record is pretty good. However, as effective as we are, we cant rest on this there are some warning signs. Click on the case of the paris and brussels the Tech Committee of the were known to security services. But that high quality as person nationally id cards. By graphically based lifts are wrong side of history. We saw this in Northern Syria captured fighters routinely had fake names and fbi and Defense Department focus on diametrically enrolling as monday people as they could. Voss of weve god ever increasing amounts of information. How do we process the volume of information to ensure highquality databases. Ill get into that in a few minutes. In my opinion, we should be treating this. Much like we did that after 911. What are you trying to accomplish, and how are we going to get there. We have a lot of peace arson we need to ensure they are properly stitched together. The five tenure visions should be, a mere real team, biographic and biometric screening against all available u. S. Government permission to determine if if an individual is the known or suspected terrorists. This would involve greater focus on collections, integrations, and sharing of biometrics as well as business process and Information Technology improvements. The benefits would extend well beyond counterterrorism. In support screening against brother categories of threats. That brings me to the five. The need for robust intelligence. None of this happened, unless we maintain a robust integrated intelligence capability. There is no question that the katter terrorism is the best integrated part of intelligence community. Weve been doing it as a community for a very long time. But is gives me hard, and is well resourced there will be significant challenges Going Forward. A globally dispersed and if used terrorism threats involved individuals and networks places great pressure on our intelligence services. We need to evaluate the terrorist threat at multiple levels and have sufficient insight to determine if and when they post a growing threat. The first typified by the spark of problem. This was simply not a high priority before us easter. The most hard line is only as denounced ices in 2016, and that spot in which smaller entity and dj was apparently responsible. An admitted benefit french element primarily known for attacks on buddhist statute. Not obviously associated with ices we didnt recognize start. One step up from that, would be local indigenous islamic insurgencies run the group missing to affiliate themselves with ices. That comes greater interest in attacking western interests. Consider the long circe in northern india. Recently they have affiliated with ices and are now focused on exxon u. S. Into energy interests. Extrapolate that to the 20 odd current and bedding ices affiliates around the world any substance of intelligence chat challenge. And when little higher, we need to have sufficient insight into the indigenous insurgencies to assess if and when it may be expanding beyond a country vocal threat to one that may present homeland. This is been a challenge in the past. In 2009, we thought of it a q. Week, is the regional threat. And Christmas Day of 2009, attempted to blow up like flight 253 over detroit. In 2010, we pakistani telemedicine regionally based south asia threat. And yet they train just weve god, who went on to attempt the bombing in new york citys times square. Say about the broad array of people and networks, and their ability to exploit technology and we have more than a few challenges. At the macro loophole as we adjusted priorities to brother threats or is no question and intelligence resources, collection and analytic will be shifted away from terrorism into brother priorities. Actions have consequences. When we stop focusing on. What is the associated risk. As we drive down military forces, we will have less human, and intelligent Surveillance Reconnaissance at people in theater. There will be less liaison with on the ground partners. Those are simply facts. With those facts, degree of risk and we determine how great that risk is and whether it can be compensated for, and so forth. And at the national loophole, we need to ensure that we have the right consolation of organizations and authorities. This is the very large into price. There is duplication. There will need to be rationalization rationalization were also Going Forward. And that brings me to theme seven. The need to get the electrodes right. If we are going to get the intelligence rights, we need to get the electrodes right. Data is everything. But we are looking for strategic trends, are conducting tactical loophole analysis associated with networks, data is the lifeblood of the community. The data challenges we face are extraordinarily can complex and particularly when we are dealing with information as it invariably a complete generally ambiguous, and often wrong. Ten years ago, this month the nigerian father walk into the embassy into bishop and said his son may be in yemen, that was available to reading the government pray to weve god militant no attention.