[Senate Hearing 110-178] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office][110 Senate Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:34411.wais] S. Hrg. 110-178 VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM--2007 ======================================================================= HEARINGS before the COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ---------- MARCH 14, 2007 THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST RADICALISM TO THE HOMELAND MAY 3, 2007 THE INTERNET: A PORTAL TO VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM MAY 10, 2007 VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO DEFEAT IT JUNE 27, 2007 VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: THE EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE OCTOBER 30, 2007 THE ROLE OF LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT IN COUNTERING VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM ---------- Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM--2007 S. Hrg. 110-178 VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM--2007 ======================================================================= HEARINGS before the COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ MARCH 14, 2007 THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST RADICALISM TO THE HOMELAND MAY 3, 2007 THE INTERNET: A PORTAL TO VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM MAY 10, 2007 VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO DEFEAT IT JUNE 27, 2007 VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: THE EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE OCTOBER 30, 2007 THE ROLE OF LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT IN COUNTERING VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM __________ Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ---------- U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 34-411 PDF WASHINGTON : 2009 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402-0001 COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana TOM COBURN, Oklahoma BARACK OBAMA, Illinois PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN WARNER, Virginia JON TESTER, Montana JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director Todd M. Stein, Counsel Eric P. Andersen, Professional Staff Member Tracey Silberling, FBI Detailee Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel John K. Grant, Minority Counsel Melvin D. Albritton, Minority Counsel Leah Q. Nash, Minority GAO Detailee Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee Laura W. Kilbride, Hearing Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Lieberman............................ 1, 51, 83, 113, 135 Senator Collins.............................. 4, 53, 84, 115, 137 Senator Akaka................................................ 14 Senator McCaskill........................................ 16, 173 Senator Voinovich................................... 19, 54, 147 Senator Tester............................................... 21 Senator Coleman.............................................. 23 Senator Warner............................................... 25 Senator Carper............................................... 29 Senator Pryor................................................ 31 WITNESSES Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Hon. Michael Chertoff, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security....................................................... 6 Charles E. Allen, Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, Chief Intelligence Officer, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.............................................. 34 Daniel W. Sutherland, Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, U.S. Department of Homeland Security................ 37 Thursday, May 3, 2007 Michael S. Doran, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy, U.S. Department of Defense........ 55 Lieutenant Colonel Joseph H. Felter, Ph.D., Director, Combating Terrorism Center, U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Army............. 59 Frank J. Cilluffo, Associate Vice President for Homeland Security; Director, Homeland Security Policy Institute, The George Washington University................................... 63 Thursday, May 10, 2007 Jeremy F. Curtin, Coordinator, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State................. 86 Chip Poncy, Director of Strategic Policy, Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury 88 John J. Miller, Assistant Director, Office of Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice.... 91 Jeffrey J. Grieco, Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs, U.S. Agency for International Development.................................................... 95 Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, First Vice President, Investigating Magistrate, France............................................. 116 Lidewijde Ongering, Deputy National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ministry of Justice, Netherlands............. 119 Marc Sageman, M.D., Ph.D., Principal, Sageman Consulting, LLC.... 123 Hon. Lynn M. Martin and Farooq M. Kathwari, Co-Chairs, Task Force for Muslim American Civic and Political Engagement, Chicago Council on Global Affairs...................................... 126 Tuesday, October 30, 2007 Lawrence H. Sanchez, Assistant Commissioner, New York City Police Department..................................................... 139 Mitchell D. Silber, Senior Intelligence Analyst, Intelligence Division, New York City Police Department...................... 140 Michael P. Downing, Deputy Chief, Counterterrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, Los Angeles Police Department............. 154 Major Michael R. Ronczkowski, Homeland Security Bureau, Miami- Dade Police Department......................................... 157 Major Thomas Dailey, Homeland Security Division, Kansas City Police Department, Kansas City, Missouri....................... 162 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Allen, Charles E.: Testimony.................................................... 34 Prepared statement........................................... 181 Bruguiere, Judge Jean-Louis: Testimony.................................................... 116 Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 326 Chertoff, Hon. Michael: Testimony.................................................... 6 Prepared statement........................................... 177 Cilluffo, Frank J.: Testimony.................................................... 63 Prepared statement........................................... 248 Curtin, Jeremy F.: Testimony.................................................... 86 Prepared statement........................................... 291 Dailey, Major Thomas: Testimony.................................................... 162 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 645 Doran, Michael S.: Testimony.................................................... 55 Prepared statement........................................... 231 Downing, Michael P.: Testimony.................................................... 154 Prepared statement........................................... 627 Felter, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph H., Ph.D.: Testimony.................................................... 59 Prepared statement........................................... 239 Grieco, Jeffrey J.: Testimony.................................................... 95 Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 313 Kathwari, Farooq M.: Testimony.................................................... 126 Joint prepared statement with Lynn Martin.................... 476 Martin, Hon. Lynn M.: Testimony.................................................... 126 Joint prepared statement with Farooq Kathwari................ 476 Miller, John J.: Testimony.................................................... 91 Prepared statement........................................... 304 Ongering, Lidewijde: Testimony.................................................... 119 Prepared statement........................................... 460 Poncy, Chip: Testimony.................................................... 88 Prepared statement........................................... 295 Ronczkowski, Major Michael R.: Testimony.................................................... 157 Prepared statement........................................... 635 Sageman, Marc, M.D., Ph.D.: Testimony.................................................... 123 Prepared statement........................................... 470 Sanchez, Lawrence H.: Testimony.................................................... 139 Silber, Mitchell D.: Testimony.................................................... 140 Sutherland, Daniel W.: Testimony.................................................... 37 Prepared statement........................................... 191 APPENDIX Additional Copy Submitted for the Record ``Congressional Oversight of Intelligence,'' Congressional Research Service Memorandum, dated September 14, 2006, submitted by Senator Akaka..................................... 205 Charts on Student Data submitted by Secretary Chertoff........... 210 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) testimonies submitted by Secretary Chertoff.................... 212 ``NETworked Radicalization: A Counter-Strategy,'' Report submitted by Mr. Cilluffo...................................... 257 ``Prevailing Against Terrorism,'' White Paper on Domestic Security Against Terrorism, submitted by Judge Bruguiere....... 342 ``Strengthening America: The Civic and Political Integration of Muslim Americans,'' Report of the Task Force on Muslim American Civic and Political Engagement, Farooq Kathwari and Lynn M. Martin, Co-Chairs, and Christopher B. Whitney, Project Director 478 ``Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,'' Report from the City of New York Police Department, prepared by Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt......................................... 537 Questions and Responses Submitted for the Record Post-Hearing Responses to Requests from Secretary Chertoff for Senators John Warner and George V. Voinovich................... 663 Mr. Curtin....................................................... 666 Mr. Poncy........................................................ 691 Mr. Miller....................................................... 699 Mr. Grieco....................................................... 707 Dr. Sageman...................................................... 715 Ms. Martin and Mr. Kathwari...................................... 719 Committee Report Released on May 8, 2008 ``Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat,'' Majority and Minority Staff Report......... 724 THE THREAT OF ISLAMIST RADICALISM TO THE HOMELAND ---------- WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2007 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, Carper, Pryor, McCaskill, Tester, Collins, Voinovich, Coleman, and Warner. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. The hearing will come to order. Good morning, everybody. I want to say just a word of internal housekeeping about a new seating arrangement that our Committee will follow. I hope the new seating arrangement has not discouraged people from attending today. [Laughter.] Here is how this happened. A small group of us Senators, a bipartisan group, were sitting together last week talking about the unfortunate extent to which partisanship interferes with our getting the people's business done, with a lot of the things that we all really want to do. This is a subject that I am sure does not only occur among Senators, but as we hear increasingly from our constituents, it does occur among them. They are fed up with the prevalence of partisanship that stands in the way of us getting things done for them. And one of the Senators in the discussion, who was a Republican Senator, said, ``The whole place is organized in a way that encourages partisanship. We have separate lunches. We even sit separately, one side and the other, at our Committee meetings and hearings.'' So with the freshness that comes with being a freshman member, Senator McCaskill said, ``I have been thinking about that ever since I arrived. Why do we sit with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other side at the Committee hearings?'' And then someone else said, ``Maybe we ought to try it a different way.'' So I mentioned this to Senator Collins, and in the entrepreneurial, innovative spirit in which we have tried to characterize our leadership of this Committee, we immediately decided to implement Senator McCaskill's idea. And we do so with some seriousness, though not wanting to overstate the significance of this, for two reasons. One is that this Committee has operated in a wonderfully nonpartisan way over the time that Senator Collins was Chairman, and I have committed myself to continue that as well. And I think it is part of the reason why we have been able to get some things done for the country. So in beginning to sit Democrat, Republican, Democrat instead of either side, we are carrying forward the spirit that has guided this Committee, and I hope we are sending a message to you out there who are watching us that we are together, that when we confront and deal with a problem such as we are going to talk about, which is the threat of domestic, ``homegrown'' Islamist terrorism, we obviously do not think of ourselves primarily as Democrats, Republicans, or even Independents. We think of ourselves as Americans, as Senators, who have a responsibility to try to protect our people. So the first message we hope to send is to you, that this Committee works together across party lines. And the second is to us because it gives us an opportunity to chat with one another as the hearings go forward. I said at the beginning, a while ago, that I do not take this to be an enormous step. You might say, if I may paraphrase an earlier comment, this new seating arrangement of the Homeland Security Committee is a small step for the Committee. We hope it will lead to larger steps of nonpartisan accomplishment for the Senate. Senator McCaskill. Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Yes, Senator McCaskill. Senator McCaskill. I would just like, if you would allow me, to briefly comment. This has been really an interesting experience from my perspective. When your e-mail went out on Friday announcing this change, I was gleeful and excited, and I think that my constituents at home in Missouri approve heartily of the idea that we would maybe change some things to try to embrace bipartisanship. But it was fascinating to me the reaction internally in the Senate that it was as if lightning had struck the building and that the glass and the panes were shaking. I have learned in the short time I have been here that when they say in the U.S. Senate ``It has always been done that way,'' they really mean it. [Laughter.] And so I think for the staffs particularly, and I want to say to the staffs, I do understand how much work staffs do in the U.S. Senate and what great work they do, and to whatever extent that this has caused stress among the staff, I apologize to the staffs of all of the Senators for that. And I want them to know that it really was just a suggestion and I did not stomp my feet or demand change. And I am hopeful that we will all adjust to this new seating arrangement and that it does not cause any undue work or consternation on behalf of the staffs that work so hard on all of our behalf. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator McCaskill. Don't let the rapid response discourage you from any other innovative ideas. [Laughter.] Now let's go to the subject of the hearing, and in a sense, in a very real sense, to begin this new seating arrangement sending exactly the message that we all feel about the topic of this hearing. This is the first in a series of hearings our Committee will conduct as part of a broad investigation into the threat Islamist extremism inside the United States poses to the American people. In doing so, I am continuing and building on an investigation that began when Senator Collins was Chairman last year, particularly looking at radicalization of inmates in American prisons. Today we are going to focus on what we are doing to detect, deter, and defeat this threat. I thank Secretary Chertoff, and Mr. Allen and Mr. Sutherland of the Department of Homeland Security, who will be on the second panel, for being here today to share with us the Department of Homeland Security's views and plans on this important subject. The Department's own Homeland Security Advisory Council in a recent report reached some sobering conclusions about the challenges ahead. It called radical Islam the ``most significant terrorist threat to the homeland today,'' said that it is spreading, and predicted that the number and magnitude of attacks on the United States will increase. We Americans obviously have already been attacked several times by these terrorists: At the Marine barracks in Beirut as far back as 1983; the World Trade Center in 1993; Khobar Towers; the bombings at the embassies of ours in Kenya and Tanzania; the attacks on the USS Cole as it lay in port in Yemen; the bombing of Khobar Towers again; and, of course, the attacks that woke us up and began the war against Islamist terrorism on September 11, 2001. Those attacks that I have mentioned either occurred outside the United States or, as on September 11, were carried out inside the United States by people, terrorists, who had come here from abroad with that evil intention. We are going to focus in these hearings on the threat of homegrown terrorism in the United States, but we are focusing on it because it is part of a larger global threat. I believe that this series of hearings is justified and important because of what we have already seen happen not just here in the United States, but much more graphically and devastatingly in Europe. The London subway terrorist bombings and the Madrid bombings were carried out by either citizens or long-time residents of the United Kingdom and Spain, respectively. Similar plots by citizens or residents of the Netherlands, Denmark, and France have been foiled. In fact, the Director of MI5 in Great Britain intensified my interest, and I would guess the interest of many others here in this country, in investigating this kind of threat to our homeland when she said last year that her agency had identified more than 200 cells, with a total of more than 1,600 individuals within the United Kingdom who were plotting or facilitating acts of terrorism there. Is the same thing happening here in the United States? Could it happen? And, most importantly, what should we be doing about it? Those are the questions that this hearing and the longer investigation it begins will ask and hopefully answer in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and the other relevant agencies of our government. There are, of course, differences between Europe and the United States, which some people believe are quite relevant to the threat that we are discussing. American society has welcomed Muslim Americans, just as it has embraced generations of new immigrant Americans before. There certainly appears to be a greater level of integration and assimilation of Muslims into American society than into many other countries, including some in Europe. But last fall, Steven Simon of Georgetown University testified before this Committee at a hearing on the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001, that, ``Muslims are increasingly choosing not to assimilate into American society, finding solace in their religious identity instead.'' Assuming for a moment that there is some validity to the notion that there is a growing divide occurring here, one possible cause is the use of the Internet to promote the terrorist's dark age and hateful vision. It gives their multimedia campaigns of alienation and violence a global reach, including right into American homes and offices. As part of this investigative series, our Committee will look at the impact of extremist propaganda on the Internet, on the Islamist terrorist presence in the United States, and how our government and people combat it. We will also look at what Mr. Allen calls ``other nodes'' where radicalization may be occurring, including the prisons, perhaps universities, perhaps mosques. The domestic threat to our safety will require a strong, comprehensive, and creative strategy of homeland security. Remember that the 9/11 Commission said that one reason September 11, 2001, happened was a failure of imagination, and by that they meant our failure to imagine that people could do what the terrorists did to us on September 11. So I think we all want to make sure that our imaginations do not fail us again as we counter the possibility of this new threat of Islamist extremist and terrorist groups within our own country. The Homeland Security Advisory Council, which I mentioned earlier, charged by Secretary Chertoff with assessing the threats to the United States in the next 5 years, has recently given us some guidance on this. The task force is chaired by Lee Hamilton and Frank Cilluffo, the former homeland security assistant to President Bush, and in January it found that, ``Understanding the future of terrorism requires our understanding threats and developments in a wide range of areas.'' And ``just as al-Qaeda has demonstrated their flexibility and capabilities to adapt their tactics and procedures, we must maintain the same level of flexibility and unpredictability.'' It then recommended that ``Countering homegrown radicalization must be one of the Department's top priorities.'' I agree, and that is why we will be holding these hearings. This is going to be an important, complex, and at times difficult or awkward investigation and conversation. I understand that and Senator Collins does, too, but we must have this conversation and then act sensibly on it if we are to preserve our security and our freedom. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me first say that I am happy to sit either on your left or on your right, whichever you prefer. And I am proud of the bipartisan work of this Committee which culminated just yesterday in the passage of major homeland security legislation. Mr. Chairman, when you were talking about the 9/11 Commission's admonition that we not experience a failure of imagination, it brought to mind what the mandate and approach of this Committee has been. Over the past 2 years in particular, this Committee has made an effort to look ahead to identify emerging threats and to avoid the trap of pursuing only reactive measures to the dangers that face our Nation. We responded with landmark legislation to strengthen our intelligence analysis, to improve security at our seaports and our chemical facilities, and to reform our national preparedness and response systems. The homegrown terrorists who bombed the London subways, as well as those who plotted against the airliners flying out of the United Kingdom last summer, focused our attention on domestic radicalization. In England, we observed extremist, alienated Muslim citizens targeting their fellow citizens as well as our country for attacks. This Committee anticipated the threat of domestic radicalization in our country and responded with an investigation into this emerging threat, examining first radicalization in our prisons. For the past 5 years, the Federal Government has attempted to prevent terrorists from entering our country from abroad. Our homeland security efforts have made it increasingly difficult for foreign terrorists to infiltrate and operate in the United States. Increased border security and screening of overseas airline passengers, while critical to help keep out foreign terrorists, do not, however, protect us from homegrown terrorists. The rise of domestic terrorist cells inspired by but not necessarily directly linked to al-Qaeda is an emerging threat to our Nation's security. After the first hearing that this Committee held last year, Senator Voinovich and I wrote to the White House expressing our deep concern about the threat posed by the extremist misrepresentation of the Muslim faith. Our letter said, ``We believe countering this threat domestically as well as internationally is a critical element of our plan for victory in the war on terrorism. ``We are convinced that to prevent domestic radicalization, which has been identified as the precursor to terrorism, the Federal Government must prioritize outreach to American Muslims to foster positive relations and build strong community ties.'' Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that under your leadership the Committee is continuing its examination of this issue and continuing the quest for positive outreach as well as direct measures against this new threat. The Department of Homeland Security has undertaken efforts to assess the threat posed by those who want to radicalize Americans in order to promote attacks on this Nation and our allies. I also want to commend the Department for its awareness of the need to reach out to mainstream Muslims and to reassure them that they are valued fellow citizens, but most of all to ask for their help in countering this threat. When Secretary Chertoff testified before us last fall, he wisely stressed, ``We must not only work across Federal, State, and local government to prevent domestic terrorism, but we must also build a new level of confidence and trust among the American Muslim community who are our critical partners in protecting our country.'' I am, therefore, very pleased that DHS, the FBI, the Department of State, and Department of the Treasury are supplementing their homeland security defense activities with an analysis of the concerns of Muslim Americans and with outreach and engagement programs. We must make the hearts and minds of our Muslim neighbors a constant focus of our attention, and the Department of Homeland Security has done some valuable work along these lines. Its threat assessment effort has included analyses of matters that cause concerns among some Muslim Americans, such as aviation watchlists, immigration processing, and perceptions of the selective application of laws and procedures. Now, I do want to emphasize that identifying sources of concern does not mean that we should abandon essential security activities, but it does obligate us to ensure that the rationales are well explained and that implementation is fair and reasonable. Mr. Chairman, as you well know, faithful Muslims are our allies in promoting tolerance and protecting all of our citizens against attacks. Our enemy is the violent absolutism of any stripe, whether its recruiting efforts are directed at Muslim Americans, at non-Muslim prisoners who could be converted and then radicalized, or at other citizens. I look forward to learning more today about the Department's efforts, and I also very much appreciate the Chairman extending this investigation to look at the use of the Internet as a recruitment and radicalization tool. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins, for that excellent statement. Secretary Chertoff, thanks again for being here. We really do look forward to working with you on this question and look forward to your testimony now. TESTIMONY OF HON. MICHAEL CHERTOFF,\1\ SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Secretary Chertoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member Collins. I think it is terrific that this hearing has been scheduled and this investigation is underway, because I think as you said, Mr. Chairman, this requires us to examine a subject that can be awkward at times. But I think it is important, and I think the American people need to be confident that we look at difficult problems square in the face and not merely easy problems. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Secretary Chertoff appears in the Appendix on page 177. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In asking why this issue of radicalization and homegrown terrorism is of such concern, it seems to me there are two elements that come to mind. The first is, as Senator Collins said, we spend a lot of effort trying to keep dangerous people out of the country and making sure we know who is coming into the country. But, of course, that set of measures does not work if we are dealing with American citizens or lawful permanent residents who have become instruments of terror. So we recognize that there is an additional vulnerability we have to address. Second, I think if you look at the experience that they have had in Europe in which people who appear to be well settled in the community, second and third generation citizens of the United Kingdom or other Western European countries, in some instances are people who are married and had children who then became either actual suicide bombers or at least plotted to become suicide bombers, I think it shakes our sense of what the threat is. There is a little bit of a tendency to assume that the people who become suicide bombers are teenagers or people who are unstable or disenfranchised. And yet when we see people who at least on the surface seem to be full stakeholders of society and, frankly, when we see people who have families prepared to strap on bombs or carry bombs onto airplanes, it does rock our sense of what human psychology is. And, of course, it raises the question whether we ourselves should be self-conscious about threats within our own communities and our own neighborhoods. So I think this is a very anxiety-provoking question and one which will benefit from some sober analysis and some serious conversation. Let me begin by asking the question--and I have a full statement which I request be made part of the record. Chairman Lieberman. Without objection. Secretary Chertoff. But what do we mean by ``radicalization''? And I want to begin by saying that I think what we are trying to address here is a form of ideology of violent extremism, and I want to choose those words carefully, because to me the word ``ideology'' suggests a whole comprehensive system of beliefs, whether it is misplaced or not, but one that has a certain integrity. And, of course, the ``violent extremism'' suggests it is not merely an ideology, but one that people are prepared to put into practice through the extreme use of violent measures. Now, it ought to be clear, based on this definition, that we cannot equate an ideology of violent extremism with an entire religion such as the Muslim religion. In fact, we know that the vast majority of Muslims in this country, like the vast majority of Jews and Christians, are not violent, are not adherents to an extreme ideology, and are full participants in the United States. So we have to make sure we do not ever make that improper connection or equation of this ideology and any religion. On the other hand, we have to also recognize the historical reality and the current reality that there is a subset of individuals who we have to characterize as ``violent Islamist extremists,'' meaning that they are adherents to an ideology that is distinctive and has a narrative of the world; it is one that at least uses the language of Islamic symbols. It may be a perversion of the language, but it uses that rhetoric. And it has as a goal acts of violence that are aimed at creating a society that will ultimately be radically different from the one we have now, one which is not characterized by democracy, freedom, and tolerance, but one that is characterized by intolerance and totalitarianism. And whether we believe that this goal of a totalitarian world or totalitarian part of the world is a realistic goal, it is one that is deeply believed in by the people who are adherents to this ideology. So the question becomes: How do people who are born in the United States or have been raised here from a young age, how do they become recruited into this ideology and indoctrinated to the point that they are actually prepared to kill themselves in order to carry out acts of violence against Americans? I think there are a lot of forces that come into play, and there is a lot we do not know. But there are some things we do know. We do know, for example, that you cannot simply say it is a matter of those who are poor, uneducated, or isolated from society. Actually, if you look at some of the September 11 hijackers, they were among the most privileged members of their own generation and people who had access to Western ideas and Western education. How do people become willing to be swayed toward violence? Well, some of that is psychological and probably requires an individualized analysis, and part of what I think we are trying to do in our intelligence gathering and questioning is to get a sense of what moves people down this path of recruitment. But I do think there are some generalizations we can make. First, people have to be persuaded if they are going to become part of this ideology that there is some need to effect radical political or social change, and that may come from their own sense of inadequacy or indignity. Second, they have to be presented with a comprehensive world narrative, something that explains both their own sense of being troubled and what the ideology wants to achieve, and presents it as a coherent story line. And we know in the case of Osama bin Laden and his adherents, they have a vision of the world and a narrative that they propagate. And, third, people have to at some point be willing to believe in that narrative to such a degree that they are prepared to give their lives for it. Now, what are the prospects for this kind of radicalization and recruitment inside the United States? Well, it does seem at this point we have less of this homegrown radicalization here than we have seen in Western Europe. I think it reflects in part our free market economy, our pluralistic culture, our democratic ideals, and the fact that part of the spirit of this country is that we have no group that considers itself the host and no group that considers itself the guest. Every American-- including the four Americans I escorted into citizenship a couple of days ago at Walter Reed--becomes a 100 percent stakeholder as soon as they are born into this country or as soon as they are naturalized into this country. So those are some real advantages that we have. Among other things because of the nature of our society, I think the Muslim-American community here is better educated and more affluent than perhaps their counterparts in other countries. Nevertheless, we would make a mistake to assume that we can rest on our laurels. The use of the Internet and radicalization in places like prison does appeal to people who, for whatever reason, feel either isolated individually or in groups, and that compelling narrative is one which will attract people to acts of violence. So we need to figure out how to address this, and at DHS we have three elements to a strategy: First, continue to develop a better understanding of radicalization; second, enhance the capacity of the Department and its partners at all levels to counteract radicalization; and, third, engaging with key communities to promote our civic engagement and protect civil liberties. And let me talk very briefly about each of these. First, on the issue of understanding, we have identified and devoted 30 of our intelligence analysts specifically to discuss the issue and study the issue of patterns of radicalization and to work with others in the intelligence community, State, and local partners to detect potential homegrown threats. The analysts are divided among five regions across our country, so we look at the particular challenges in each region. We are investing resources in science, technology, and research through a DHS Center of Excellence for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism, and we have devoted money to research on other elements of what leads to radicalization. So we are trying to get some good social science and hard science analysis. Second, we are trying to enhance our own capacity to counter this. We have a Radicalization and Engagement Working Group that we set up in the fall of 2005 that is looking across all of our agencies and with our partners at the Bureau and the Department of State to see how we can identify threats and also opportunities to counter those threats. Among other things, last September, the working group hosted an interagency roundtable on the problem of radicalization in prisons, including representatives from the Justice Department, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Bureau of Prisons. We continue to push forward on this, working with State and local partners. Third, and perhaps most important, we are promoting civic engagement. Within a matter of days after September 11, 2001, the President was very forthright in making sure that he told the American public this was not about a war between Islam and the United States and that Muslim Americans had to be treated like all other Americans, as full partners. We have continued that substantial outreach, including my own personal outreach, to Muslim communities across the country, and we have regular community roundtables in cities all across the Nation. Most important, we have assembled an Incident Management Team and identified community leaders that we can reach out to at a time of stress, like last August when we had the London plot, so we can, first of all, check the pulse of the community, inform them about what we are doing, and then obviously give them whatever information they need to communicate with their constituents. So I think those are very important measures we want to build on. I want to conclude by making a general observation. This is unlike some of the challenges we face when we are dealing with the possibility of people smuggling terrorists in from overseas or bad things in cargo, because here we are dealing with a network threat. The spectrum of terrorism extends from the very highly organized and almost state alter ego type of terrorism you get in Hezbollah, all the way down to the self-initiating type of terrorists you get when people recruit themselves over the Internet and then come together in small groups to carry out terrorist acts. Therefore, this is not going to be solved simply by creating a big Federal program and a bureaucracy to deal with it. This is a true instance where to fight a network, we need to have a network, and that means working not only with government agencies but with communities and non-government agencies to deal with this issue. Second, and last, I would say this is preeminently and ultimately a battlefield of ideas in which we have to be able to identify what are the ideas and the elements that are bringing people into these networks of terror and how do we counteract that. And there we have some strong social strengths, but we are going to have to do some creative thinking. So I welcome this investigation. We look forward to cooperating with the Committee and moving forward on it. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Mr. Secretary. It was a very thoughtful statement. I would like to do 7-minute rounds of questions. Let me pick up on your last point because it is a critical point, both in terms of the specific subject we are facing and the larger war on terrorism. This is, like all wars, a war for security, but it really is a war about ideas, and we will win the war ultimately by confronting the extremist, inhumane, regressive, repressive ideas that the Islamist extremists peddle with our own reactions, our own much better ideas, and much better value system. And in this sense, I thank you also for what you and Senator Collins said about the Muslim-American community, because in a very real way, the best idea we have going for us is America at its best, is the openness and opportunity of our society. And you said it, the President said it, all of us feel it. We are not involved in a war against Islam and are certainly not making Muslim Americans somehow the enemy. The enemy is extremism, Islamist extremism, and terrorism. And, in fact, one of the most significant reactions to it, I think most potentially constructive, successful reactions, is to build on the American ideal, the American reality, and if I may put it this way, to draw the American family closer together, including the Muslim members of the family, as opposed to somehow making them feel as if they are ``the other.'' This is not the way America is, and it would be a stupid and un- American thing to do. So I thank you for your comments. Generally speaking, I take your testimony to say--and I will question Mr. Allen on this, too--that at this point we know enough to conclude that the problem of radicalization and homegrown terrorism is less than it is in Western Europe, for instance, but we would be naive to assume that there are not forces out there that are, in fact, trying to radicalize people, and bring people into the Islamist terrorist movement in this country. I know that under Mr. Allen, who is your Chief Intelligence Officer, you are building a crew of 30 analysts that will be devoted to this problem. You mentioned dividing them into five regions. At some point in this investigation, I know we would like to have a closed, classified hearing. But to the extent that you can in open session, tell us what the Department has learned thus far about the status of domestic terrorism and the efforts at radicalization of American citizens and permanent legal residents. Secretary Chertoff. Well, let me begin by saying that although I agree that it is less than Western Europe, that is not to say that it is non-existent. We do have an issue of homegrown radicalization. Some of it is pretty evident publicly. We have Adam Gadahn, who is over in South Asia somewhere, an American-born convert to some form of Islam, or what he characterizes as Islam, who is a propagandist for bin Laden. We do see instances--and I will leave some of it for a classified hearing--where we do see radicalization. Some of it is self-generated and some of it may be linked to connections to South Asia, where Americans, either born Muslim or some who convert, become recruited to an ideology and at least begin a discussion of carrying out acts of violence against the United States. One of the areas we did focus on early was prisons because we know that is a population that is a little bit more perhaps isolated than the rest of the country. It tends to be a group that has a higher percentage of people who are willing to be violent from the get-go. And it is a traditional breeding ground for all kinds of extreme ideologies, from the left to the right, Christian, Muslim, or whatever. So those are some of the principal areas we are focused on. Chairman Lieberman. So this is less than Europe, but it is real here, and we cannot close our eyes to that. Let me ask you a little bit more about where you place the threat of domestic Islamist radicalism in the list of threats to our homeland today. Secretary Chertoff. I would say that it is not--in terms of the consequence and in terms of the likelihood of success, I would still say the greater threat comes from either a group coming from outside the country or a group that is in the country but is being guided by and working with a group outside the country, what I would still call international or transnational activity. I think there is no question that there are groups inside the country, self-generated, that could carry out acts of violence. I think the sophistication would likely be a lot less than we saw on September 11, 2001. And I think their chances of success would be somewhat less. But that will change, and particularly if--I go back to the prisons again. If we get people who have proven that they are capable of carrying out acts of violence, buying into this ideology, their capabilities will begin to improve. Chairman Lieberman. Do we have any evidence at this point of participants in the global Islamist extremist terrorist network coming into the United States with the specific intention of radicalizing American citizens or residents? Secretary Chertoff. I guess I would separate two things. We obviously know from September 11, 2001, that we had people coming into the country, and I do think we have reason to believe that there are efforts to--I want to be careful how I say this--work with reliable people embedded in the country, if possible, to carry out plots. In terms of recruiting, though, and the ideology, I would say that the principal way to enter the United States is through the Internet. I do not think it is necessary to send radical recruiters into the United States. I think there is a risk of doing that, but I have no question about the fact that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri and others like them quite consciously use the media, including the Internet, as a recruiting tool. Chairman Lieberman. And also a communication device. Secretary Chertoff. Absolutely. Chairman Lieberman. Once somebody signs up. We are talking here about radicalization, domestic homegrown terrorism, and naturally thinking about acts of violence. I assume that part of what the Department is also focused on with other agencies of our government are people who would not be considered capable of or intending to carry out violent acts but who may be supportive enough to, for instance, provide safe houses or financial support or access of some other kinds. Is that correct? Secretary Chertoff. Absolutely. And, in fact, a lot of the efforts undertaken over the last few years in domestic enforcement are focused precisely on people who are facilitators, although they may not be operators. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I want to follow up on the conversation that you just had with Senator Lieberman. Our last hearing showed that radicalization can be accomplished in the prison system, both through what I would call self-radicalization, where a prisoner gets radical literature or access to the Internet and self-radicalizes, and then seeks to convert and radicalize others. We also saw examples of radical recruiters where radical imams were going into the prisons and trying to convert and radicalize. As the Department has learned more about the radicalization process, which are you seeing more of? Are you seeing the presence of radical recruiters or does the evidence suggest self-radicalization perhaps using the Internet or radical literature as the more predominant method? Secretary Chertoff. I do not know if I can quantify it. I would say the presence of a radical imam is probably more dangerous because it is a more dynamic recruiting environment. And it may precipitate then an interest in the literature or further self-radicalization. I do not know how easy it is for someone by themselves sitting in a prison to start to get interested in this, although experience in other areas shows me almost anything gets into prison because people have a lot of ingenuity in smuggling things in. But I would say that probably the most effective, quick way to radicalize is putting an imam in. Senator Collins. We have talked a lot in this Committee about radicalization within a prison, and obviously, a prison population is fertile ground--alienated, anti-government, more prone to violence. Are you looking at other possible sites for radicalization, whether it is college campuses or madrassas or even perhaps some radical mosques? Secretary Chertoff. Let me preface it by saying this is one of those discussions that falls in the category of awkward. Senator Collins. Right. Secretary Chertoff. Because, on the one hand, we do know that universities and madrassas can be sites for radicalization. On the other hand, we have a very strong tradition in this country of not getting into the business of moderating people's religious activities. And I will be honest. That is a real issue of delicacy for us, and that is why I think in some ways--I am concerned about those things, but I do not know that the way to address it is by having the authorities start to get intimately involved. I think the solution is to get the community itself involved, and if I could take a moment just to tell a really quick story about how this works. When I was in Germany about a month or so ago, the Ambassador kindly, at my request, set up a meeting with Muslim community leaders in Germany. I wanted to see how they were dealing with the issue of radicalization. And they said to me that they had experienced a case where a person had come in from outside to their community and was recruiting people to a radical Islamic ideology. And they said, first of all, this person was a complete ignoramus, had no idea of even the most basic elements of Islam, but was persuading young people that this was a narrative they ought to sign onto. And so they themselves went out and counter-programmed and countered that. So in some ways, the answer to your question is yes, but I want to be careful to say I am not advocating a heavy Federal footprint on this. Senator Collins. Nor am I, and that is why I think that the outreach to the Muslim community is so critical and that we need to step up even further our outreach in that area. The third issue that I want to touch on is what is perhaps a false sense of security in this country that domestic radicalization and homegrown terrorists are simply not a threat here, that we are different from Western Europe, that fortunately our Muslim community is more integrated, more mainstream, more prosperous than what we see in Great Britain and France. But the fact is that should be a very small comfort to us, not only because it can and is happening here, but also because radicalized extremists from Great Britain, from France, who are citizens of those countries can travel here pretty easily. Do you have concerns about our Visa Waiver Program--we tried to tighten that up in the bill that the Senate just passed--making it relatively easy for an extremist to travel from Great Britain, a British citizen, after all, without undergoing the kind of scrutiny that would occur if that same individual were not a citizen of a country with which we have the Visa Waiver Program? Secretary Chertoff. We are very concerned, and that is why we supported the effort that this Committee made to allow us to dramatically tighten up, even for visa waiver countries, the criteria for entry and giving us some more information, because we are worried that, notwithstanding the best efforts of our friends and allies overseas--and they have been tremendous friends and allies--by their own admission there is an increasing pool of what we call ``clean skins,'' people who have no obvious record, who are citizens of the country, who could come in and become a problem here. So that is why homegrown radicalization over there creates a greater vulnerability in the Visa Waiver Program. Senator Collins. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. I do want to explain to my colleagues that, consistent with the new seating arrangement, what we will do in terms of calling on Members is that we will call on Members who arrive before 9:30, that is, when the gavel goes down, in order of seniority regardless of party, and then we will call on Members who arrive after 9:30 in the order in which they arrive regardless of party. That logic now leads us to Senator Akaka. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I join with my colleagues in welcoming you to this Committee on the threat of Islamist radicalism to our homeland. Of special interest to me, Mr. Secretary, is the issue of improving our intelligence collection and information sharing environment in the Department of Homeland Security. I have been very concerned since the creation of this Department that, first, its creation not jeopardize the effectiveness of existing intelligence agencies and, second, that the creation of a new Department focused on domestic threats would not endanger the legitimate rights of privacy and civil rights of American citizens. This is a major challenge. I introduced S. 82, the Intelligence Community Audit Act of 2007, which reaffirms the authority of the Comptroller General to perform audits and evaluations of the intelligence community to improve congressional oversight. I would ask unanimous consent at this time, Mr. Chairman, that a memorandum prepared for me by the Congressional Research Service entitled ``Congressional Oversight of Intelligence'' be included as part of the hearing record.\1\ This memorandum makes clear the role and authority of the Standing Committees of the House and Senate to oversee the intelligence community, of which the Department of Homeland Security is now a member. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ CRS memorandum submitted by Senator Akaka appears in the Appendix on page 205. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Secretary, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) wants to increase collaboration among the 16 intelligence agencies that it oversees. He is doing that by trying to integrate information technology, procurement, and human resources. From your perspective, how well is the collaboration and integration of functions progressing with the DNI? Secretary Chertoff. I think it is progressing quite well across the Federal environment. Even in the couple years I have been on the job, I have seen significant increases in the degree and quality of cooperation. I think everybody in the community buys into the idea of sharing. We do find sometimes people either do not recognize the significance of the information they have as intelligence, so they kind of unwittingly fail to share it, and we try to correct that. In our own Department, I issued a directive recently, mirroring one that the Justice Department had issued, that makes it very clear that within our own house there is a heavy presumption in favor of sharing, and we are not going to allow people to decline to share based on such customary phrases as ``That is operational information.'' So I think we have made an awful lot of progress. I think the next area where we have to continue to make progress is in sharing at the State and local level. We are trying to do that with the Fusion Centers which will give us a point of contact with States and localities so that we can move information back and forth. We are also expediting, and I think dramatically increasing, the security clearances for State and local officials. We are establishing a fellowship program for State and local officials to come and work on intelligence here. The idea is to really thicken that set of relationships. Senator Akaka. It is difficult to build a sense of community when several agencies have existed for decades and have their own culture and expertise. With Homeland Security, you have both legacy agencies and a new Office of Intelligence and Analysis trying to create its own culture to serve the Secretary's needs. From your perspective, what are the major challenges remaining for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis? Secretary Chertoff. I think recruitment is always a challenge. We are competing now not only with the other agencies but with the private sector to recruit translators and people who are analysts, so that is always a challenge; continuing the process of building our information technology that allows sharing in a more expedited and more efficient fashion. I think those are two areas where it takes a little bit of time and effort, but they are critical if we are going to continue to mature our information and intelligence collection and analysis department. Senator Akaka. Senator Voinovich and I have also been working to resolve issues on expediting security clearances, and we look forward to working with you on that. Let me ask another question here. Are you satisfied with the Department's ability to recruit and retain intelligence personnel? Secretary Chertoff. Well, again, as I say, the problem is we are competing with other agencies and with the private sector, so I would like to see, first of all, more young people being interested in being public servants. When I have been out with Muslim community leaders, I have talked specifically about how I think it would be beneficial from a number of standpoints for them to encourage people in their community coming out of college or out of graduate school to look to public service as a career path. So I want to make sure we continue to have a pool of recruits that is sufficient to let us satisfy our needs, and I think we are in a very competitive environment. Senator Akaka. Senator Voinovich and I have been working on human capital. I am very concerned about future recruitment as well. What additional tools do you need to be successful in meeting your recruitment goals? Secretary Chertoff. Well, as I say, I think first we need to expedite and streamline the process of clearing people. Right now the FBI and contractors have an enormous burden in terms of background checks. It may be that--and I think the OMB has talked about this--we need to look more fundamentally at what we are doing in background checks to see which of the things we are doing are really legacies of the Cold War that we do not really need to continue to use, and what new things we ought to do. I had a circumstance where I was talking to a person we were recruiting for a senior position who, by dint of the fact that he had served overseas in the Foreign Service in a lot of different posts, was told that a background check was going to take months because he had been overseas a lot, so there was a lot of investigation. Even when they were overseas with a top- secret clearance for the U.S. Government. So I confess there are times that kind of does boggle the mind a little bit, and I think we probably need to break a little china in the background-checking organizations to inject a note of common sense. Senator Akaka. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, for your responses. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Akaka. Senator McCaskill, you are next. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, Secretary. Having visited with a number of American Muslims over the last 2 years, my heart hurts for them. And as I look at the radicalization around the globe and the threat it poses to our country, I want to echo the sentiments of other Members that have talked about using the American-Muslim community as maybe our strongest tool against the radicalization that is being attempted in various venues. I am curious. What kind of structure do you have in your Department to embrace this community? And have you made an effort to employ in the highest levels of the Department of Homeland Security American Muslims so that their perspective and their view of this problem--and, frankly, I think they have the key to more solutions than we may have--and they are deeply offended at this movement and what it represents to their faith. Do we have American Muslims at the highest level of the Department of Homeland Security? Secretary Chertoff. I am a little bit at a handicap because I usually do not ask people what their faith is. But I know in one instance we had a senior person in the intelligence function who was--I believe he was Muslim. I think he has now moved to another intelligence agency. We obviously have the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office, which is very committed to outreach. I know that Mr. Allen--and I am sure he will speak to this--is very interested in recruiting. And as I say, I have gone out when I have been in the community and made a point of trying to encourage people to come forward. I want to be a little careful because, again, I do not want to--there is a little bit of a tendency sometimes--you used to see it in the area of human resources where minorities were kind of given that as their portfolio and almost like limited to that. I want to make it clear when we bring Muslims into the Department, it is not simply to be ``experts on Islam.'' It is to do the whole range of things. Senator McCaskill. Sure. Secretary Chertoff. And I have said I want it to be Border Patrol agents, Coast Guard cutter skippers. I just think that in general we benefit from having--it is not just talking the talk. It is walking the walk in terms of that integration. Senator McCaskill. I agree. I think it would be, frankly, counterproductive to put them just in the civil rights and outreach department. The other thing I have noticed since visiting with this community is I hear so much misinformation across the media. It is amazing to me when I will listen to one of these talking heads on cable television refer to being Muslim as if that is something that is wrong, inappropriate, scary, or something that we should be fearful of. Do you all have a program within your Department where you track those kinds of comments in the public media? And have you ever found an occasion after one of those statements--I am thinking particularly when there was press about Senator Obama and where he had been schooled and the incredible misinformation that was put out there, trying to make it look like that he was in some terrorist recruitment camp or something. It was wildly inappropriate. I was hoping at that moment that you or someone at your level in government would step forward and say: Wait a minute. What you are doing here hurts America. It hurts the way we are viewed in the rest of the world by the Muslim community. It hurts with American Muslims and how they feel and how they are treated. Secretary Chertoff. Well, I did not say it publicly because it did not come up publicly. What I said, when I spoke to a large group in Detroit, was I thought there was a bit of a brouhaha about a Member of Congress who got sworn in and chose the Koran. And I said, I thought that was actually a good thing that the--I will probably get in trouble for saying this, but I am going to say it because I believe it. We respect all religious faiths, and you ought to take your oath of office using the holy book that you believe in. And I did it on a Jewish Bible when I got sworn into this job or being a judge, and Muslims ought to do it on the Koran and Christians ought to do it on the Bible. And I think that is a positive thing. In terms of the misinformation on the media, that is a subject of a whole separate hearing. We do not track misstatements on the media. I would get into a whole ton of trouble from the First Amendment advocates if I were to start to do that. I guess I have to subscribe to Justice Brandeis' view that the best--or Justice Holmes' view, the best cure is more discussion and more debate. But I think everybody of good faith ought to step on efforts to demonize particular religions. Senator McCaskill. Well, I understand that you would never speak out in terms of trying to limit the speech on the media. But correcting their speech from your position of authority I think would be tremendously powerful. And I think in the long run the signals that the top levels of our government send around the world about the way we view the Muslim faith may be the most powerful weapon we have against terrorism. Secretary Chertoff. I agree with that. The President himself has been very--not only public, but passionate about making it very clear that he respects the Muslim faith. And I think all of us at every level of government, when the opportunity presents itself, in an appropriate way should make that point very clear. I agree with you. Senator McCaskill. Since it is under your hat, so to speak, students that come here to get educated--in visiting with an American friend of mine who is originally from Iran, he has been in this country as an engineer for a number of years. He talked about within his generation that the best work that America did in terms of diplomacy was allowing these students to come from other countries and then them going home, because when they live here and they learn here and they get to participate in the American dream, I might argue, and maybe at our best, because I think I certainly look back at my time in college as some of the best times I had, maybe not for all the right reasons, but I really am worried about what we are doing in the name of homeland security as it relates to this very important deportation of democracy, because the young people who come here to learn in terms of college education go back home at the highest levels of their government, at the highest levels of the world of medicine or engineering, and they bring back what they saw of this wonderful experiment called democracy in America. I worry about what we are doing in terms of the visas and the educational opportunities, and if you would speak to that, ways that you could maybe take responsibility to making sure that we continue to export democracy through these educational exchange programs. Secretary Chertoff. Well, I agree with you, that is a very powerful benefit to the United States, and Secretary Rice and I, about a year ago, announced an initiative to try to emphasize again how we want to welcome people, and the vast majority of people are good people who want to come to the United States. We did make some adjustments to the student visa process to allow somewhat longer visas and people to come a little bit early or ahead of schedule. At the same time, we still do, as Senator Collins said, have the fundamental responsibility to check the people who come. And there are people who want students visas that, believe me, you do not want to have come into this country. It is only a small minority, but regrettably, a small minority can do a lot of damage. So it does mean we have up front in the visa process a certain amount of vetting and checking, which I think is appropriate. But we have tried to smooth the process and make it more efficient, and also to give a longer period so that there is not a need to go through the process, just bureaucratically a lot of different times. Part of this is we want also to send a positive message out. I know Karen Hughes and others are really working very hard to make sure we are not allowing negative stereotypes that people get from the media to infect the willingness of people to come over here. Senator McCaskill. I would appreciate it if you could get my office or the Committee the numbers of students that are coming to get educated in America from countries that are primarily Muslim and how those numbers have tracked over the last several years.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Charts on student data submitted for the record by Secretary Chertoff appears in the Appendix on page 210. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Secretary Chertoff. We will do that. Senator McCaskill. Thank you very much, Secretary Chertoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator McCaskill. Next is Senator Voinovich to be followed by Senator Tester. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Collins. I commend you both for your leadership in conducting hearings to consider if there is a security threat of homegrown radicalization of American Muslims. And as this Committee has already learned at previous hearings, radicalization can be a precursor of terrorism and is, therefore, a significant homeland security concern. I think that one of the things that people have to understand is that we are at war against a transnational terrorist movement fueled by radical extremists. These individuals seek to exploit the religion of Islam through violent means to achieve ideological ends. I like to say that we are in the fourth world war against Islamist extremists, religious fanatics who have hijacked the Koran into making people believe that the way to heaven is jihad against the United States and other people that share our values. In my work on this Committee and on the Foreign Relations Committee, one of my chief concerns has been how to combat the spread of radical jihadist ideology. This struggle transcends borders. We need to be proactive about combating extremism at home in the United States and as well as abroad. I think Members of the Committee might be interested that for the last several years we have been trying to get the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) through the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to do a survey of the OSCE members regarding anti-Semitism, Muslim xenophobia, existing laws, how are they being enforced, and, perhaps most important, developing an infrastructure of understanding so we bring people together and prevent incidents like we experienced in England last summer. While I am pleased that the Department is taking this issue seriously, I am convinced that if we are going to be successful, we need to better engage Muslim communities across America and facilitate interfaith dialogue to prevent isolation. This is a book that I shared with the members of the Foreign Relations Committee, Geneive Abdo's book ``Mecca and Main Street.'' Ms. Abdo conducted a year survey of the Muslim community in the United States. The fact of the matter is that Muslim Americans feel a lot more isolated today than they did before September 11, 2001. We have got to be very careful about developing this infrastructure of understanding between Jews, Muslims, and Christians so that we make sure existing walls do not get larger. I know the President has recognized this problem. He has tasked Karen Hughes with improving our public diplomacy. Ms. Hughes has worked to establish more dialogue with America's Muslim communities and to empower American Muslims to act as American ambassadors in other countries. The Ambassador to Brussels, for example, brought Muslims from the United States to Belgium to talk with Muslims there to try and do his part in trying to bring people together and to discuss how Muslims are treated in our country. The real issue here gets back to the same old story in this government: Who is the orchestra leader? Do you know what he or she is doing? Does he or she know what you are doing? Is anybody looking at the big picture. Secretary Chertoff. We actually are quite well coordinated. I think on most of these issues, they fall within either my domain or Justice or State, and we all talk regularly among ourselves about these issues. Sometimes there are more formal interagency coordinations through the National Security Council or the Homeland Security Council, but a lot of times on some of these issues, it is a question of my just going over and having lunch with Secretary Rice or Attorney General Gonzales, and we coordinate that way, or we do it at lower levels. Senator Voinovich. If I asked you for an organizational chart that showed who is working on this issue, what their responsibilities are, and how they are being coordinated, is that available today? Secretary Chertoff. I do not think there is an organizational chart just on the issue of who coordinated radicalization. We do have a group within our own agency, a working group, and there is an interagency working group in which we participate with the other departments. I can get you those.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) testimonies submitted for the record by Secretary Chertoff appears in the Appendix on page 212. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would not want to say that is the full measure of everything that we do, but those are probably the two most systematic, institutionalized mechanisms for driving forward on this. Senator Voinovich. Well, I would like to have that, and I am sure the Members of the Committee would as well. Secretary Chertoff. Sure. Senator Voinovich. We must be sure that someone has looked at the big picture, how agencies are working together, and who is responsible for what. The other thing that you mentioned in your testimony is the recruitment of a talented workforce and security clearances. Both are items on GAO's high-risk list, and our oversight is designed to address these long-term management challenges. I would hope that you would share the frustration that you have with the folks over at the Office of Management and Budget because we are pushing them very hard to resolve the backlog. Reciprocity of clearances is a major challenge. Secretary Chertoff. Well, at least at the higher levels of OMB, I think there is agreement with what you are saying, and I agree with you, too. My experience has been is you start to grow into it at the level of the people who actually have the responsibility. They are always hesitant and perhaps overcautious, the feeling being that it is always safer to continue doing what you are doing. I always take a little bit of pleasure in trying to revolutionize in those areas. For example, we laid down a mandate recently that if you are TS/SCI, top secret-sensitive compartmented cleared, in another intelligence agency at the Federal level, that is good enough for us. We should not require you to go through another background check. That is crazy, absent something new that arises and maybe you need to be updated. So we are, I think, turning the battleship around on this, but it is frustrating and it is hurting us. Senator Voinovich. We will try and help. Secretary Chertoff. Yes, and I am kicking some you-know- whats. [Laughter.] Chairman Lieberman. Keep kicking. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Good questions. Next is Senator Tester, to be followed by Senator Coleman, if he returns, or Senator Warner. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER Senator Tester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Secretary Chertoff, thank you for being here today. I think we are very fortunate that the message of Islamist radicalization has not nearly found the audience in this country that it has in the Middle East or even Europe, and I would like to know more about why you think that is and whether you can identify any factors that might change that dynamic. But as we look at the problem of radicalization, it is clear to me that specific events can have major impact on individuals' decisions to engage or be sympathetic to radicalism. Events like September 11, 2001, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq were moments that clearly drove some in other countries to identify with al-Qaeda and similar organizations--September 11 because it promoted in the Middle East the notion that al-Qaeda had achieved some kind of success. Fortunately, our troops in Afghanistan made sure that success was extremely brief and did a good job keeping al-Qaeda on the run. I mention Iraq as well because the war seems to have raised suspicions about America and its motives in the eyes of many on the Arab street. It has not had the positive impact that many had hoped for, and that is why we had foreign fighters pouring into Iraq after the invasion to try to commit jihad against American forces. But I do think we do ourselves a disservice if we believe that Iraq is some sort of flypaper, that our involvement there makes extremists less likely to do harm in the United States. Mr. Secretary, as we think about what might happen in Iran, do you expect there could be further impact on Islamist extremism if there is some kind of military confrontation with Iran? As you know, the Vice President and others in the Administration have said that all options remain on the table. What are your views in regard to military confrontation versus diplomatic solutions in Iran as it applies to radicalization? Secretary Chertoff. Let me take your two separate questions. First, there was a lot of social science analysis of why the problem seems to be greater in Western Europe than in the United States, and I think there is less assimilation in Western Europe. I think there is less fluidity in the economy in some of those countries. As I said, I believe that compared to their counterparts in Western Europe, American Muslims are better educated and more prosperous, and I do not think we have, with maybe a few exceptions, large pockets of people where you have foreigners essentially being the only residents in a particular community, as they do have in some places in Western Europe. So I think we are much more assimilated. Now this is a little bit more speculative on my part. I think there is a fundamental difference with the way we deal with people who come in to become American citizens or people who are second and third generation American citizens. I think the dominant spirit of this country is every American is as much a participant and stakeholder as every other American. You are not here as a colonial legacy or because of the fact that you used to be part of the American empire. You are here because you have chosen to come here. And I think that sense of social mobility has been a really positive benefit. I think some of the European countries have had to struggle with that. So I think those are advantages, but they are not things to be taken for granted or to be treated as an indication we are absolved of the need to look at these other issues. I guess on the other question I am going to say this: I do not believe that one can appease oneself out of problems with violent extremists or ideologies of hate or terrorists. I think that once the ideology exists, it will fasten onto any excuse and that you cannot bargain with it or barter away with it or try to mollify it by avoiding necessary action that you need to do to protect yourself. Bin Laden declared war on the United States well before September 11, 2001, well before Iraq, well before Afghanistan. He was offended by the fact that we had American troops in Saudi Arabia. He was offended by the fact that women soldiers walked around with their faces revealed. Well, that is too bad for him. We are not going to compromise our values or our national security simply because we are afraid that exercising our values or promoting our national security is going to offend somebody. That is not to say we ought to take measures like this lightly or that we ought to do it in a way that is dismissive of other cultures or the dignity of other people. But the bottom line is I do not think that there is any amount of propitiating radical extremists that is going to make them less intent on killing us. And I think at some level resolution, determination, and strength are very powerful, positive messages for the United States, because I do think it is an antidote to those who believe that radical extremists have discovered the key to victory. Senator Tester. Just a quick follow-up. I do not want to put words in your mouth, but using force against radical extremists tends to work better than diplomacy? Secretary Chertoff. I cannot tell you in the abstract. I can tell you that I think that you need to make the decision based on what you think is going to be most effective. But I would say renouncing force in the hope that is going to buy you peace is a huge mistake, a historically demonstrated mistake, vividly brought to mind with that charming picture of Neville Chamberlain announcing peace in our time. I think at the end of the day, you have to make a decision about what the right approach is based on circumstances and based on what is in the best interest of the United States, not trying to figure out what is going to make the enemy less angry at you. Senator Tester. OK. A couple things. You listed three things: Understanding why radicalization occurs, enhancing your ability to respond, and promoting civic engagement. And I think in the beginning you talked about protecting civil liberties, but you did not expand on that in your speech. Could you tell me what you meant by that and how that can be effected? Secretary Chertoff. What I meant is that it is very important--and I guess I view this as part of civic engagement--that we make clear that we are not racially profiling people, we are not imputing to people that they are dangerous or threatening because of the fact that they happen to be Muslim or because of the fact that their ethnic heritage happens to be a particular type of ethnic heritage. We have to continue to treat every American with the same respect that our Constitution requires regardless of their heritage, regardless of what their religion is. And I think when that is not honored, that actually has a counterproductive effect. Senator Tester. Well, my time has run out. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. Senator Coleman, to be followed by Senator Warner. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN Senator Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I do appreciate your comments in response to Senator Tester's question. I have written the word ``Chamberlain'' that you spoke about. I think it is important to make clear we are talking about radical extremists. We are not talking about Muslims. We are not talking about Islam. We are talking about radical extremists. And by definition, those are folks who do not want to negotiate with us. They want to kill us. And so how do you deal with that? I would suspect that the battle, the need for resolution, for determination and strength against radical extremists is so that in the end, talking internationally, you have India, the largest democracy in the world, I think perhaps the largest Muslim population in the world, but the Muslim population there does not see radical extremists, say that they have defeated us and this is the path, because if that becomes the path, then we all face even greater challenges than we face today. Talking about the international--reflecting on this from reading Secretary Allen's testimony, he may want to delve into it--but it appears that one of the differences between what we face in Britain where radical extremists were able to move folks, part of the population and part of British society to step forward, was support from al-Qaeda, support from other groups. That may be operational support, maybe--but a range of support. Which leads me then to the question in this country, be it Iran, be it groups that fund al-Qaeda, can you talk about the cooperation with the State Department and with other agencies on the international side to help us measure whether that support is coming in and whether we are doing things that are effective in blocking it? Secretary Chertoff. Obviously a major focus of what we do in the intelligence community as well as the Homeland Security Council, which always involves the intelligence agencies and the Department of State and the Department of Defense, is to assess where the international dimensions of the threat are. We have various strategies we have put together on how to address that threat in what was at one--and the acronym is global war-- or the kind of shorthand is global war on terror, and a dimension of that strategy which was formulated is focused in particular on how we can deal with international connections as they facilitate or further terrorist action in this country. So we do coordinate through the interagency process with all of the agencies in a common strategy. Senator Coleman. Are you satisfied, Mr. Secretary, that the silos are broken down? One of the great problems of September 11, 2001, was to get the FBI and the CIA--there was not the coordination. And I say this because I think it is a fair statement. On other levels in Iraq itself, folks at times see, when we are dealing in some areas of the Middle East, the State Department approach and the Defense Department approach. I have actually had folks on the ground say that at times they are in conflict. On the intelligence side, do we have the level of integration, the absence of conflict, so that you are comfortable that we have truly broken down the silos that exist or that have existed? Secretary Chertoff. I think we have done an awful lot. I can measure it based on what I saw when I was here on September 11, 2001, and what I saw when I came on the job, my current job, in February 2005, and what I see now. Certainly at the policy level, at the senior level, I think those silos have all gone. I think when you delve deep in the organization, you sometimes find either people do not understand what they have has intelligence significance so they do not think to share it, not out of ill will but because they just do not realize its value, and you do find some people who just still cannot get around the idea that you do not own the information, you have to share the information. So, as we recruit people, as we educate people, I think this problem is diminishing. We do need to take care that we do not reintroduce the silos. Something that is ironic about Europe is the Europeans, because of their data protection rules, actually affirmatively place very powerful barriers to information sharing in their own governments. So they erect silos. That is an approach which I think, if it were ever to be introduced into this country, would actually slide us all the way back to where we were. So we have to be vigilant against backsliding. Senator Coleman. Just talking about data very briefly, do we have common databases between the State Department and DHS to track international and domestic trends? Secretary Chertoff. We have interoperable databases. It is not one single database, but we do integrate and move across our various databases for the same type of information. Senator Coleman. The British were very effective--and thank God they were very effective--in thwarting a plot to destroy aircraft that was headed to the United States, including the situation of a family, suicide terrorist bombers, being willing to take their child to do that. As you look at how Britain accomplished that, are there tools that they have that we do not have that we should put in place to make sure that we would have been able to do the same thing? Is there something you need from us for us to rest easy knowing that if the same thing had occurred in this country, we would have had the same capacity to stop it before the terror and destruction did take place? Secretary Chertoff. They are different than we are. They have some tools that we do not have. We have some tools they do not have. They are very nimble in their ability to do electronic surveillance. They are capable of getting the authority to do it in a very rapid and efficient way, which allows them to get coverage very quickly. I think we have a good system. Again, one wants to guard against something that would make that system less efficient. On the other hand, we have the capability of using our electronic surveillance in court. They do not. And I can tell you from personal experience actually that is a tool we have that probably they would benefit from having. So, I think we have a good set of tools. I would be more worried about losing the tools we have than anything else. Senator Coleman. Thank you. And if we are in a situation where it appears that we are going to lose those tools---- Secretary Chertoff. I will speak up. Senator Coleman. Make sure you speak up. Secretary Chertoff. Believe me, I will. Senator Coleman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Coleman. Senator Warner is next, to be followed by Senator Carper. Senator Warner, good morning. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER Senator Warner. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and our distinguished Ranking Member for scheduling this meeting. I think it is extremely important. I always enjoy listening to you, Secretary Chertoff. I like to think of the days when you were a circuit judge, but I think you have done very well adapting to this new position. And I have read through very carefully your opening statement, and I want to commend you on one or two phrases in there worth repeating: ``It is critical that we recognize that American Muslims have been and will continue to be a highly valued part of the fabric of our Nation.'' There is a vast understanding about the radical extremists. Yes, they are a small segment within a very large framework of the Muslim religion and one that has been respected worldwide for many generations and that we must always continue to focus on that, because I think to the extent that our own citizens of the Muslim faith in this community are willing to come forward and help us in this rather arduous but important learning process, so much the better. I wanted to follow-up on Senator Coleman's questions. I listened to bits and pieces, but I would like to ask you: Do you feel there is a centralization of all the pertinent information in the Administration to which you have access? You said informally you visit with your counterparts, heads of agencies and departments and sometimes at a Cabinet meeting. But is there a single source to which you or your subordinates can go, given sometimes time is short, to access the information that you feel you need? Secretary Chertoff. Yes, it is all fused at the Federal level at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Senator Warner. I would hope that would be the case. Secretary Chertoff. And that is the kind of one-stop shop, and when we dealt with the August threats or when we deal with threats now, the place we go to for the kind of bottom line as well as the comprehensive analysis is the NCTC. They do, however, when there is disagreement or dissent among various agencies, they will make a note and present the fact that there may be a competing or a somewhat different point of view. Senator Warner. Now, you make reference to a video that you prepared, and I presume elsewhere I can infer that you may have some written material. I would suggest to our leadership that, if not, would you provide copies to the Committee. I personally would like to look at that video and examine the written material. Chairman Lieberman. A very good suggestion. Please do. Secretary Chertoff. We will do that.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ List of materials in DHS response submitted for the record from Secretary Chertoff appears in the Appendix on page 663. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Senator Warner. In that context, is there someone within our framework of government, like the NCTC, that reviews that material such that what you promulgate is consistent with what other departments and agencies are promulgating? I am not suggesting a censored system or to lose the dynamic individuality which you express at all times. But it seems to me we want to make certain that one publication out of one agency is consistent with others. Secretary Chertoff. I think we do--I cannot tell you the precise mechanism because I was not involved in preparing the material. But we do work on an interagency basis, particularly with the State Department, the Office of Public Diplomacy. If I was going to identify one place where the expertise in terms of public outreach to the Muslim community is most likely centered, it would be in the Office of Public Diplomacy. Now, some of what we did--different videotapes have different purposes. Some were internal consumption in terms of training our own inspectors about certain kinds of cultural things so they did not mistake behavior that is perfectly normal cultural behavior for something that was sinister. So we have to adapt it to our own purposes, but I think we do generally coordinate our communications and messaging on an interagency basis. Senator Warner. You say you think you do. Can we have it verified for the record? Secretary Chertoff. I will verify it. I will provide for the record what the mechanism is.\2\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\ DHS responses submitted for the record from Secretary Chertoff appears in the Appendix on page 663. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Senator Warner. I really think it is extremely important, right down to how your various operators on the front lines in the airports and elsewhere have to deal with this material. There should be a consistency. Secretary Chertoff. Right, and certainly within the agency I can tell you that we--I mean, the purpose of the training program was to give all the inspectors who encounter Muslim travelers a sufficient understanding about the way you treat certain forms of dress so that they were respectful. And we wanted, in fact, to make sure they were consistent. Senator Warner. Well, consistency is important, but also it appears to me that each of our Federal departments and agencies should have a structure, but not build it to the point where it is duplicated in each of them and we have an inefficiency in government and government expenditure of taxpayer funds. So to the extent we can have a consolidation, to not lose your individuality but have that consolidation and dissemination and review process, so much the better. And you think the NCTC is-- -- Secretary Chertoff. The NCTC does the intelligence. We have an interagency working group which does coordinate on the issue of what we are doing with radicalization across the government. I was only hesitant because the particular video you are talking about, since it was an internal video, I do not know exactly what the vetting process for that was. But it may be that Mr. Sutherland knows or Mr. Allen knows. If not, we will get it to you. Senator Warner. So often that internal material finds its way externally. People just hand it out. Secretary Chertoff. That is true. Senator Warner. So we have to be careful that it is correct and it is right. Do you find the same level of cooperation with the other nations? You say on page 3, ``In this regard, the Department is working with our foreign partners to share information and, where feasible, to identify trends and patterns in radicalization.'' Can you expand a little bit on that? Secretary Chertoff. Yes, and this is, not surprisingly, a concern not only for our own country, but a concern for Western Europe, and actually Asia as well. Countries with substantial populations of Muslims are looking at the issue of radicalization, and we do get the benefit of some of their experiences in how to combat radicalization, recognizing that there are some cultural differences. Some countries do things that I think we probably would have difficulty doing. They will have institutionalized, government-run programs to deprogram people who are religious fanatics. I think that would be problematic for us from a cultural and maybe a legal standpoint. But we do a lot of cross-border discussion. When I have gone over to Europe the last few times, we have had discussions about this, and they are doing research and we are exchanging research on this particular issue. Senator Warner. Last, if I may say, as we on the Armed Services Committee constantly review these very important perspectives on the radical extremists, we are reminded that when we went into this operation in Iraq, we had less than adequate planning on having our actual soldiers, right down to the privates and so forth, understand the culture. And, therefore, I urge that you dwell on history. If you go back and study history, some of the problems that we are experiencing today were experienced by other nations. I mean, Great Britain went into Mesopotamia and divided up these areas into Iraq and Syria and so forth. They thought they could do it over a very short period of time, but it ended up a very prodigious, difficult task, and at the end they were not sure they had done it properly. And now we are seeing some of the wrongs that are being inflicted. So do encourage your folks--I spend a lot of time now trying to read a lot of books on this subject. I must confess I had not really understood the complexity of this really extraordinary, magnificent religion, but how it can fracture and what the cultural differences are. Secretary Chertoff. I do, too. I certainly hope that the academic arena--this is a very fertile field of study, and it is going to be for the 21st Century, probably the dominant international challenge. And I think it is one well worth spending time looking---- Senator Warner. Well, that is a proper note on which to discontinue my questions. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Warner. Senator Warner. Would the Chairman advise us with regard to the vote that was scheduled? Chairman Lieberman. Yes, we are waiting to hear. Apparently around 11:15, so my hope would be that Senator Carper and Senator Pryor--well, Senator Carper could ask his questions. And then if the vote is called, we will break and come back and hear Mr. Allen and Mr. Sutherland. Mr. Allen is one of our Nation's natural assets, so I would urge everyone to return for his testimony. Senator Warner. I would share those views about Mr. Allen. Chairman Lieberman. I know you do. Senator Warner. In my 29 years here, we have had our paths cross many times. We are fortunate that he has remained in public service. Chairman Lieberman. Amen. I want to say very briefly that the exchange, Senator Warner, you had with Secretary Chertoff in which he mentioned the National Counterterrorism Center I found very gratifying because it is one of those cases where the 9/11 Commission recommended creation of the NCTC, we brought it out of this Committee through the Congress, and it actually exists. One of the most thrilling moments I have had when Senator Collins and I went out to visit it, somehow located in your State of Virginia, Senator. I do not know whether you---- Senator Warner. I know where to find it. Chairman Lieberman [continuing]. Arranged that. But I would urge all the Members to go visit it. It is quite remarkable. I remember getting home that night and saying to my wife, ``Sweetheart, I saw something today that should make you and everybody else in our country feel just a significant degree safer.'' So I thank you for that. Senator Carper. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER Senator Carper. You mentioned that was one of the most thrilling moments. Not a cheap thrill. [Laughter.] Chairman Lieberman. No. NCTC is quite expensive. That is right. Senator Carper. Judge, how are you? Secretary Chertoff. Very good. Thanks, Senator. Senator Carper. Nice to see you. I was with some of your old compadres earlier this month. Judge Jane Roth has moved from active status to senior status on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and we were having a swearing-in for her successor, and she remains very active, as you might imagine. But a couple of your old colleagues, I was talking about their degree of joy and serving on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and they all told me to a person, they said the job they really would like would be Secretary of Homeland Security. [Laughter.] Secretary Chertoff. That is not what they said at the time, but I appreciate the sentiment. Senator Carper. I told them that I did not know if there would be an opening there anytime soon, so we will see. King Abdullah was here the other day and spoke to a joint session of the Congress, and I had the pleasure of spending some time with him over in his country a little over a year ago and then here last year when he was visiting at the White House. He brought really one central message in the joint address to the Congress, and I do not know if you had a chance to listen, with everything else that you are doing. But his message was that to the extent that we want to tamp down the threat of terrorism here and around the world, we need to focus on the Middle East, not just Iraq, not just Iran, and those countries, but we need to focus on Israel, we need to focus on the longstanding enmity between Israel and the Palestinians, and just put a whole lot of time and energy around getting a solution there that we have talked about forever, but to get it not next year, not next decade, but this year. Your thoughts, please? Secretary Chertoff. I think that this is a moment in the Middle East of great challenge but also great opportunity. I think that some of the regimes now recognize that they are facing a threat to their own existential survival, whether it be from Sunni extremists or Shi'ite extremists or Iran. And that is causing them perhaps to be willing to take a second look at maybe changing some of their positions. On the other hand, I also think that when you are in a period of danger and flux, it tends to make you all the more conscious of making sure you are not buying a pig in a poke and that, if you are going to reach agreements and you are going to change position, you are confident you are not going to compromise your own existence. I know the Secretary of State, in whose domain this lies and who has much more expertise than I do, is very aggressively working on this. I think this is, as I said earlier, the No. 1 area, I think, of international engagement for the foreseeable future. Senator Carper. President Abbas, the President of the Palestinians, was here in Washington. I want to say it was June 2005. Whenever it was, it was like 5 months after his election as President. Some of us had the chance to talk with him over lunch, and I asked him a question. I said to him, ``In terms of a timetable that you would recommend to this country, to our Administration, for putting a full-time, high-level envoy in the Middle East to work 24/7 on trying to help foster an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, when would be a good time to begin to do that?'' This was again, I believe, June 2005. He had been in office 5 months. He said, ``Five months ago.'' And I applaud the efforts of Secretary Rice, but she has a lot on her plate. I have suggested to others in the Administration and I would suggest to you is you have your conversations with the President and others that we make this the kind of priority that King Abdullah has reminded us again that it should enjoy. I had a visitor in my office, a fellow who works for you, the other day. Kip Hawley came by and spent some time with us to talk about the work that they are doing at TSA. I arranged to have on the telephone a constituent of mine from Delaware whose last name is Kelly, a fairly prominent businessman, a highly regarded family, and a lot of times when he goes to the airport to try to get on a plane, he gets detained. And it has happened to him repeatedly, and his family gets detained. And his name is Kelly. And I think there are folks who--his name keeps popping up because there must be some Kellys that are involved with, I do not know, the Irish Republican Army or some kind of terrorists there. And it is sort of difficult for him to get out of that loop. And as one who has rushed through airports--and I am sure we all have--trying to get through security, get to our plane, and make our connections, to have that kind of thing happen again and again repeatedly is more than an annoyance. It is an incredible aggravation. And I thought, if that happens to him, I wonder how often it must happen to people who happen to be from the Muslim community, who may live here, are citizens here, work here, and contribute in their communities. I would just say, to what extent has this kind of thing come to your attention and does it receive your concern? Secretary Chertoff. It comes to my attention very frequently, and often from, surprisingly, well-placed people who have had relatives who get put into secondary screening. We are in the process now of scrubbing the TSA list and removing a bunch of names which will, to some degree, alleviate the problem. But it is actually a mechanical problem. The difficulty is that we can remove people from the list, based on information like name and date of birth if they are not the person that we are concerned about. But because we have not yet completed the process of migrating the actual implementation from the airlines into TSA, the airlines are uneven in whether they correct their lists or not. We leave it in the hands of the airline employee at this point as the one who does that check. So we are, unfortunately, a hostage to the failures of some of the airlines. You also have to distinguish between cases where someone goes into secondary based on a name issue or versus based on a behavioral characteristic, which they may not be aware of, but it may have to do with something about their travel that tripped a wire that put somebody into secondary. And it may also be that people are carrying things in, and they wind up getting caught in the checkpoint. They may go into secondary from that standpoint. So we are working to make it more efficient, but we still are basically operating a name-based system, and in a name- based system, people with identical names, you are going to have to make some kind of an adjustment to allow you to take people out of that field. Senator Carper. Let me just ask that you continue to focus hard on this one, if you would, please. Since September 11, 2001, many Americans have developed, as we have heard, biases of negative feelings toward Muslims, unfortunately. In my visits to countries such as Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia last year, we learned that many of the citizens there no longer want to come to America because of the kind of prejudices that they have experienced here. I think this means that fewer Muslims have the opportunity to come here and learn the truth about the benefits of living in a democratic society. I think it also hurts the counterterrorism partnerships we are attempting to develop with those countries because when the citizens return home and tell about their negative experiences at our airports and other places, it helps reinforce the negative beliefs about America. You talked a little bit about this. I would just ask you to go back and maybe recap. But what are some of the things being done at the Federal level, particularly under your purview, to develop the infrastructure of understanding and human relations that is necessary around this country to ensure that Americans do not develop, further develop Muslim, I will call it, xenophobia? Secretary Chertoff. I think briefly two things. In terms of what happens overseas, we have been working with Secretary Rice over the past year plus on an initiative to be more welcoming and more efficient in the way we deal with people all over the world, of course, also in Muslim countries, to encourage them to come in. As far as domestic attitudes, the President has been very forceful, and Attorney General Gonzales, Director Mueller, I, and others have taken multiple opportunities to stress how important it is not to confuse the ideology of violent extremism with all Islam. And it is only a very small number of people who are using the rhetoric of Islam as a way of packaging an ideology of hate. This is an issue which should require the engagement of the media. And it has not being Pollyanna-ish; it is just being accurate. So I think all of us can carry that message forward. Senator Carper. Thanks very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Carper. Senator Pryor, I think we have about 7\1/2\ minutes left on the votes. You have a good, solid 7 minutes. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR Senator Pryor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. I will try to keep it under that, if I can. Thank you, Secretary Chertoff, for being here. Some of the Senators today have touched on this issue of how many Muslims in this country feel isolated, they feel disconnected to this country and our society and our culture. How should the United States foster relationships with the Islamic community in the United States? And how can we encourage the more moderate elements of American Islam to come forward and have a meaningful role in our society? Secretary Chertoff. I think it is an undertaking that requires Federal, State, and local participation, including a lot of local participation, because the truth is most people of whatever community, their principal experience with government is at the local level. So part of it is setting the tone from the top, as the President has done and others have done, in getting out and visibly engaging with and supporting the Muslim community, promoting recruitment of Muslims into all elements of what we do and publicizing that. And then a lot of it is educating State and local governments. They need to reach out as well to their communities because the face of the government to most people is your city or town government. Senator Pryor. I think that is true, and you talked about the ideology of hate and how that is really inconsistent with the religion that they practice. And so I think, though, that is a real challenge for you, and one question I would have for your Department is: Do you have any sort of--I do not know what you would call it--Islamic advisory council where you have a selection of people from around the country that can give you input, give you feedback as you are looking at your efforts in the United States? Do you have anything like that? Secretary Chertoff. I would tell you we do it in two ways. One is we do have an Incident Management Team, which is an identified group of influential leaders in the Muslim community that we can reach out to at the time of an incident and engage with in terms of, first of all, giving them information they can communicate and, second, hearing back from them what they are hearing in their community. Second, I and others in the senior leadership take the opportunity, with Mr. Sutherland's facilitation, to meet with significant groups of Muslims. I have done it here in the National Capital Region on a number of occasions. I did it in Detroit recently. I have done it in Germany. And that is a way of getting feedback from a wider pool of people, and it is something that I want to continue to do so I get a lot of different perspectives. Senator Pryor. The reason I say that is because we do not have a large Muslim community in the State of Arkansas, but we do have some presence there, and I have had a few reach out to me and say that they feel like second-class citizens. Many of these are U.S. citizens. They feel like second-class citizens, and they feel like because they are practicing Muslims that they have given up a lot of their privacy rights and they have given up--they just feel, as I said, like second-class citizens. So I just want you to be mindful of that. I am sure you hear some of that as well, but I think some sort of continuing dialogue between your Department and the community at large would help. Let me move on, if I can, to another point, and that is, we all remember the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. One thing I have reminded fellow Members of the Committee on a couple of occasions previously is that when Timothy McVeigh made the decision to bomb Oklahoma City, apparently he had it narrowed down between Oklahoma City and Little Rock. And so terrorism and the threat of terrorism is very real to us in our State. How does the Department of Homeland Security differentiate between terrorism motivated by radicalized Islam versus other types of extremist ideologies? Secretary Chertoff. We do not really distinguish in the sense that we look at and we are concerned about protecting against terrorism, whether it is motivated by an extremist ideology on the right, the left, religious or secular. In terms of the current threat environment, I think it is pretty clear that violent Islamist extremism poses more of an actual threat than some of the white supremacist groups and things of that sort, partly because we have been very successful in prosecuting and dismantling some of the purely domestic organizations. Senator Pryor. Are you trying to address those threats as well? Secretary Chertoff. Yes, we do, and that comes in the threat reporting, and it is part of what we and the Department of Justice focus on. Senator Pryor. I have one last question, and I know we have a vote, and both Senators here need to run to the floor very shortly. When we look at our border officials, our law enforcement investigators, Justice Department, your folks, to identify members of a terrorist group, for example, al-Qaeda-- when you walk into this country, you do not have an ID card that says, ``I belong to al-Qaeda.'' How good are we at making those determinations at the border or inside the country? How good are we at identifying members of al-Qaeda? Secretary Chertoff. We are good, although not perfect. But how good we are depends in significant part on whether we can continue to get the information we need to assess whether someone is linked to terrorism. Some of the passenger name record data that we get that shows linkages with suspicious phone numbers or travel arrangements or credit cards has been critical in identifying people that we have to turn away at the border. We turned away a guy a few years ago based on that kind of information who later blew himself up in a suicide truck bomb in Iraq. We sometimes have to struggle, particularly with the Europeans, who are a little bit reluctant to give us that information. But we think it is critical in pulling that needle out of the haystack. Senator Pryor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Pryor. Secretary Chertoff, thanks for your testimony. I think it has been very thoughtful, educational, which is what these hearings are about, at least at the outset, and balanced. I think you particularly struck a very important balance on that sensitive and awkward question that we are dealing with, and it is sensitive and awkward because that is the kind of country we are. We do think of ourselves as a family, so that the enemy in this war is Islamist extremism. It is most definitely not Muslim Americans. Muslim Americans are allies in that war because we are part of the American family. But your testimony also tells us that there are Islamist extremists in the United States, and there are attempts to expand their numbers and radicalize others, both within the country and via the Internet from outside. And we would not be using the imagination, as the 9/11 Commission challenged us to do, to avoid another September 11, 2001, if we did not focus on this problem. So I appreciate the extent to which you and your Department have begun to do it. We want to work together with you. I do not know that this series of hearings, which will go on for some period of time, will ever lead to legislation. It may simply be a process of our oversight of the Executive Branch of our government and working with you and others there to make sure that we are deterring, detecting, and defeating this internal enemy. But I thank you very much for your testimony. It has been very helpful. Again, I urge people to remain. I will come back as quickly as I can to hear Mr. Allen and Mr. Sutherland. For now, the hearing will stand in recess. [Recess.] Chairman Lieberman. The hearing will reconvene. I thank everyone for your patience while the Members of the Committee went to vote. I thank Senator Voinovich for remaining here. Charles Allen has had a long and distinguished career in service of our government, working for more than three decades for the Central Intelligence Agency, and really, if this was sports, Mr. Allen, I would say you are a major acquisition for Team Homeland Security, and I thank you very much for taking this on. Someday, if they make a movie of your life, I have been thinking you look a lot like the late Jason Robards. Too bad he is not around to portray you, but we will probably find Leonardo DiCaprio or somebody like that. [Laughter.] OK. So, anyway, Mr. Allen is now the Chief Intelligence Officer at the Department of Homeland Security. He is joined on this panel by Daniel Sutherland, who heads the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department, who draws from a career as a civil rights attorney at the Departments of Justice and Education, which has, I know, been a real help to him in the Department in carrying out the important work that he is doing. So we look forward to the testimony from both of you. Mr. Allen, please begin. TESTIMONY OF CHARLES E. ALLEN,\1\ ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS, CHIEF INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Mr. Allen. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, and thank you, Senator Voinovich, for the opportunity to share perspectives on the threat of Islamist radicalization to the homeland from our intelligence point of view. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Allen appears in the Appendix on page 181. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This really is a pleasure to appear with Mr. Sutherland, who is the Department of Homeland Security's Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Talk about a major acquisition, I think the Secretary has absolutely one in Mr. Sutherland. The issue of radicalization has been a clear priority for the intelligence and law enforcement communities, but engaging with local communities I think is key if we are to deter Islamist radicalization in the homeland. I have just a few oral remarks, and, of course, I have submitted a longer written statement, if you will let that be entered into the record. Chairman Lieberman. It will be in the record, without objection. Mr. Allen. Yes, sir. Terrorist attacks in Western Europe over the past several years, especially the aviation threat that was disrupted by the United Kingdom in August, as well as disruption of extremist cells in North America, highlight the threat that the radicalization process poses. Increasingly, we are facing the threat of homegrown terrorists. The U.S.-U.K. aviation plot, occurring a year after the subway attacks in the United Kingdom, was a wake-up call to the British in terms of the breadth and depth of Islamist radicalization there. We believe that the radicalization threat we face in the homeland is different from that currently confronting Western Europe, but we remain concerned that radicalization will eventually spawn operational attacks in the homeland if we do not gain deeper insights into the phenomenon and actively work to deter it. Today the extremist individuals in the United States have proven to be involved primarily in aspirational plotting, hatched largely by isolated actors who lack the will or the capability to carry out large-scale attacks. In contrast, plots involving homegrown extremists in the U.K. and Western Europe have been linked to al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks. We have yet to find such deep linkages in the United States, but we remain vigilant and we recognize we are not immune to the threat. To address Islamist radicalization, my office is taking a geographical and collaborative approach to assessing radicalization in the homeland. Working with our State and local partners, we initially have focused on assessing radicalization in California and in the New York City metropolitan area, to include New Jersey. We are now focusing on the Midwest, the National Capital Region, and Texas. We will conduct additional regional or State assessments, and our goal is to build a baseline that addresses the how and the why of radicalization at the local level. Again, with our State and local partners, we will use this baseline to develop a national assessment of radicalization. Each regional assessment frames a local picture by drawing on local unique information and expertise. We share our analysis with Federal, State, and local law enforcement and intelligence and homeland security professionals during face- to-face meetings to gain their insights and refine our assessments. To date, we have held analytic exchanges on radicalization with State and municipal representatives in multiple communities, the results of which have helped to strengthen and broaden our perspectives and insights. Our work on radicalization is preliminary and is by no means complete. Thus far, we have noted that the process of radicalization varies across ideological and religious spectrums, geographic regions, and socioeconomic conditions. We have determined that radicalization has numerous diverse pathways. We have yet to identify a single path or a set of shared signatures. Individuals and groups are radicalizing or de-radicalizing based on a variety of factors. We have found, however, that radicalization consistently is tied to a charismatic individual such as an imam or an Islamic organizer. I should emphasize that my office is basing our intelligence analytic approach to radicalization on collaboration with State and local analysts. In addition to continued meetings with analysts and other professionals, we have also developed a virtual community of interest on our Homeland Security network to encourage and support dialogue and collaboration among my analysts and their colleagues at the State and local levels. Chairman Lieberman. Excuse me for interrupting, but just for the record, just say a bit about the Homeland Security network. Mr. Allen. This is a community of interest, a COI, that we run over the Homeland Security network, intelligence which can move out and move information back and forth at official-use- only levels. And it works. Chairman Lieberman. Great. Thank you. Mr. Allen. Los Angeles and New York have real specialists in this area, really young, brilliant people that we can reach out to. Chairman Lieberman. Good. Thanks. Mr. Allen. We have also held an analysts conference on radicalization, and we plan to hold additional conferences on a regular basis. Certainly in those conferences we would like to invite your staff to come to those. We are seeking to develop the capability to identify and track emerging radicalization trends before they manifest into violence. As we collect additional data on radicalization, we are going to look for indicators of the process here in the United States. Our initial assessments have focused on establishing a baseline, but we are now seeking to identify radicalization indicators that can be measured over time. These indicators could be disseminated to State and local partners in an effort to identify and measure elements of radicalization. Ideally, we hope to develop a warning capability of radicalization that can support departmental efforts such as Mr. Sutherland's outreach and engagement activities, as well as State and local efforts. In conclusion, we recognize that radicalization is a key threat to the homeland and analytic challenge for homeland security. Determined to ensure that we develop insight into radicalization and that we remain sensitive to its actors, both in the United States and abroad, we have dedicated ourselves to fortifying and sustaining our analytic capabilities that are critical, I believe, in preventing and mitigating terrorists and extremist elements from Islamist extremism. Members of the Committee, thank you again for the opportunity to speak. I look forward to your questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much. Excellent opening statement. Mr. Sutherland. TESTIMONY OF DANIEL W. SUTHERLAND,\1\ OFFICER FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Mr. Sutherland. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and Senator Voinovich, for the opportunity to testify today. It is certainly a privilege to testify alongside Assistant Secretary Allen, and we hope that our testimony today will demonstrate how closely our offices work together on these projects. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Sutherland appears in the Appendix on page 191. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a written statement, again, that I will just summarize here, but hopefully it will be made a part of the record. Chairman Lieberman. It will be. Mr. Sutherland. Let me just tell you briefly about our office and what we are responsible for. In accordance with 6 U.S.C. 345, our mission is to help the dedicated men and women of the Department of Homeland Security to enhance the security of our country while also maintaining respect for the Constitution, Federal civil rights laws, and departmental policies. In essence, we provide advice at the intersection of homeland security and civil rights and civil liberties. So we are involved in a wide range of issues, for example, developing redress mechanisms to watchlists, integrating people with disabilities into the Emergency Management System, adopting equal employment opportunity policies, and ensuring that information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. Those are all issues that come within our area. One of the things that we have done since the beginning of our office, that we began when the Department started, was to try to help our colleagues in the Department establish and cement positive relationships with a variety of ethnic and religious communities that represent them. So we have worked with Catholic and Protestant organizations who are concerned about immigration law and policy, with Sikh Americans who are concerned about different screening policies, with leaders of the Amish community who have been concerned about identification issues, with Jewish community groups on a wide variety of issues, and with other communities as well. But I want to specifically address, of course, today the Department's work with American-Arab and American-Muslim communities, but I think it is important to understand that the work is part of a broader fabric of work that we are trying to develop. With regard to these particular communities we are talking about, we decided as a Department to embark upon a project to develop, cultivate, and maintain strategic partnerships with key leaders of the American-Arab, American-Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian communities. We believe that a critical element of our strategy for securing the country has to be to build a level of communication and trust and confidence that is unprecedented in our Nation's history. I think that echoes a lot of the comments that were made earlier today. We believe that we will be a much safer country if we better connect the government to these communities, if we learn to improve our work through listening to their concerns and their ideas, if we convince more young people from these communities to join us in public service, if we receive their help in educating us about the challenges that we face, and if we receive their help in educating the community about the challenges that we face in our security mission. So we have been very active in trying to engage with these communities. Within just the past several months, leaders of these communities have met not only with Secretary Chertoff but with other Cabinet officials--the Attorney General, Secretary of Treasury, the Director of the FBI, and others--and we are making sure that this engagement is part of the structure of our work that we are doing across the country. We are actively participating in meetings in cities like Detroit, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities. We are also working to build the capacity of our workforce to better understand the challenges that face us. Through a project that we call Civil Liberties University, we are developing a wide range of training that will help our colleagues, and we have just released a training DVD for our personnel who interact with Arab Americans and Muslim Americans as well as travelers from the Arab world and the Muslim world. Senator Warner asked about it earlier, and he asked whether the project was one that was coordinated. And all of the work that we do in this area I want to stress is very well coordinated with our colleagues from the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and others. We work in an interagency fashion, have an excellent level of cooperation. That particular project featured--one of the experts features was from the National Security Council, a Muslim woman on the National Security Council. So it is something that we hope was beneficial to our colleagues who have asked for that kind of training, as well as for the community who believes that if our personnel better understand their cultures and traditions and values, they will be treated with more dignity and professionalism. Secretary Chertoff also mentioned another initiative we have undertaken in terms of engagement, which is what we call an Incident Management Team, which would be convened if and when there is another terrorist attack on the country. We actually did convene the group in the wake of the London arrests in August and had a very good and helpful dialogue between a number of government agencies, not just Department of Homeland Security, but also a number of over two dozen Arab- American and Muslim-American leaders around the country. Let me just mention in my last few moments four steps that we think need to be taken at this time in terms of these issues. The first is we believe we need to deepen this level of engagement. We need leaders from all branches of government to take steps to engage with these communities, meet them, learn about them, listen to them, and open lines of communication. We need government leaders to make public statements that drive the debates. The statements that I think have been made here in the previous few hours are very much needed and extremely significance. We need to have leaders that state publicly that words like ``imam'' and ``mosque'' are not bad words. Those are good words. Those are people who are part of our community, as Senator Lieberman has said. So the first thing is that we really need to deepen the engagement. Second, we must institutionalize the engagement effort for success over the long term. We need to redouble our efforts to ensure that all the relevant agencies in the Executive Branch and, by the same token, in the Legislative Branch are equipped to play a really significant, long-term, and successful role in these issues. The third is we need to continue to address policy issues of concern. When we prepare for our community roundtable meetings, we always remind ourselves that a lot of talk and no action will not produce the results that we want. We have got to be credible. The government must listen to issues of concern and address issues of concern and report back to the community when progress is made. And, finally, the next step I wanted to mention is we must challenge the communities to get involved. We know that these communities are anxious to roll up their sleeves and get involved. It is important at this time for us to say loudly and clearly, ``You are welcome to sit at the table with us. We need your help and want it.'' And I will just give a few ideas of some areas where we need to encourage their involvement with us. We need community leaders to convince more of their young people to consider public service as a career. Secretary Chertoff talked about that earlier. We desperately need their language skills, but we also need their cultural insights. We need them in jobs that would be front-line counterterrorism, but we also need them in IT jobs and budget jobs and all the sorts of jobs that you find in the Federal Government. So we just need to have people from these communities to see government service as a place where they can build a successful career. We also need people from--another area of challenge I think is for these communities to help us increase the integration of new immigrants, particularly those from the Arab and Muslim world. We also need to challenge community leaders to help explain within the community our security mission. There are times when we must deport someone who has come to the country illegally, and we need to have community leaders who will help explain that to people in the community and try to help in terms of tensions. The last thing I want to mention is we need to challenge community leaders to influence Muslim perspectives in other parts of the world. But in all of these areas, community leaders are already stepping up to the plate, so as a government we simply need to recognize the efforts that have already been made and then step up our support and encouragement for even more significant efforts in all of these areas. So I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome your questions. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Mr. Sutherland. Very helpful. Mr. Allen, I take it from your testimony, which builds on Secretary Chertoff's--and I am paraphrasing what you said--that there is a problem of homegrown terrorism here in the United States now. We are increasingly facing a threat from it. It is different from Western Europe, but as you said, you remain concerned that it may spawn greater attacks on us from within our country in the time ahead. I was interested that you said, and I appreciate it, the information that you have is at this point preliminary and incomplete, though the work goes on. I wanted to ask you, based on the state of knowledge that you have now identified--and as I said earlier, I like your word ``nodes.'' What are the nodes that you are looking at with most concern about areas where radicalization of Muslims may occur? Mr. Allen. Well, as we said, there is no one single pathway, but we did identify nodes; in some cases it was an extremist mosque. There are scattered, very small but scattered mosques, where there are charismatic leaders. Sometimes it is a university group, very rare but you can find that. Prisons, as the Secretary said, certainly is a matter of great concern, both here at our level with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and, of course, State and local levels. Certainly Los Angeles and the New York police departments are looking at those issues. It can be a storefront. It can be a small group of people who are discontented or alienated getting together. It is my view that we have great opportunity as a country to really begin to deal with this issue, and I think deal with it in ways that Mr. Sutherland outlined, I think so eloquently. I think that is what is required because I think what we really need to do, Mr. Chairman, is to counter what I call the single narrative of al-Qaeda, a violent, ideological, extremist point of view that preaches only violence. And we have golden opportunities to preclude it. I think we will learn a lot more in the coming days, in the coming weeks. The Bureau is working on this issue. We find a tremendous amount of talent down at the local level--in every State that we visited, the prison officials, social workers, police departments have detectives looking at this question. There is a lot of enlightenment out there at the local and State levels, and we want to take advantage of it. Chairman Lieberman. That is an interesting and helpful answer. For instance, I hear that if you are looking for the key places where this may be occurring, one of the more important things to do is to find a charismatic individual, and that individual may be in a mosque or in a jail or in a storefront. Obviously, that excludes the Internet, which is a different and more private area. I noticed that you said that you were focusing, Mr. Allen, initially on California and New York City for a more intensive review, including New Jersey. Mr. Allen. And New Jersey, yes. Chairman Lieberman. Is that because you have reason to believe there is more reason to be concerned about radicalization going on there? Mr. Allen. I think there are pockets of radicalization, and we have seen that. We had the Lackawanna episode. We have had problems in California, at Lodi. We had the Torrance, California, issues. I just think that we have such enormously good knowledge. When you go into New York City and you talk to the intelligence division of Commissioner Kelly's organization, you talk to Deputy Commissioner Cohen, there is just so much wisdom there and so much personal knowledge, not only of New York City but the Northeast. And you go out to Los Angeles and you go to the Joint Regional Intelligence Center out in Los Angeles and you talk to Chief Bratton, Sheriff Baca, you talk to the FBI, Steve Tidwell, who is the FBI out there, you see that there is a lot of wisdom there. And you talk to prison officials. So those are probably reasons, but we are looking at Texas, we are looking at other States, as you know, and even Detroit, of course. We are going to look at the Southeast as well. So we have got to criss-cross the country with our analysts, and as the Secretary said, we have dedicated quite a number of analysts to this, and they are learning as they go, too. Chairman Lieberman. Very important. Mr. Sutherland, let me ask you, from your outreach to the Muslim community, to speak a little bit about the comments that I made and read from others about one of the reasons America's different than Western Europe is that fortunately it has been our tradition to integrate and assimilate succeeding generations of new immigrant Americans, and so that is affecting the Muslim-American community. I hear it myself in my own interactions with the Muslim-American community. I do not want to denigrate our friends in Europe too much, but I have had more than one conversation with somebody whose family went to Europe first, said to me they never felt like--whatever the country it was they were in--they were French or British or German or otherwise. But then when they came to this country, after a period of time they felt like Americans. It is something we should be proud of. The other side of it is this warning that Mr. Simon of Georgetown University gave last year that there is perhaps an increasing divide occurring between the Muslim-American community and the broader American family of which it is part. What is your sense of that as you conduct your outreach to the Muslim-American community now? Mr. Sutherland. Well, Senator, I think your comments are directly on point. We spent some time in Europe, and we spent a lot of time with allied governments talking through these issues. We do believe there really can be no doubt that the life that Muslims find in America is a good life. And you find that in public opinion polling and other surveys. They know this is a country where they can raise families the way they want to raise them. They can worship freely. They can pursue education and business careers if they want to. They have opportunities here in America that they do not have in other countries. I think it is typical, as Secretary Chertoff said, of the immigrant integration that we have had in our country. One factor I think to mention, too, is housing patterns. Here in this country people spread out, and you do not find neighborhoods of people who are, let's say, Muslim who speak just Urdu. That just does not happen in our country. It does happen in other countries. So housing patterns is a major factor. Those are strengths. We have a very strong, rich, well- connected Muslim community in this country that we can build from. We need to maintain that, and I think that really gets to where your comments are about the future and the alienation. Chairman Lieberman. Do you see a growing divide, or is that not a justified statement? I am quoting from the professor. Mr. Sutherland. I have some misgivings about that statement, I think in part because I know what we are doing. I know what Secretary Chertoff is doing. I know what my colleagues at the FBI are doing. There is a lot of work going on in government trying to establish those connections. I do feel at times like events run past us. There is so much bad on TV. Every night you turn it on, you see something bad. There are pressures that seek to pull us apart. So I think that gets back to my argument on next steps. We really have to work hard to deepen the engagement, and I feel like we have an opportunity now. I do not know how long the time period is, the next couple of years, to make that happen. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you. Mr. Sutherland, you mentioned that immediately after the London plot last summer, DHS created an Incident Management Team to reach out to Muslim community leaders to exchange information. How often did that team meet? Mr. Sutherland. If I can just clarify, the team was created much in advance of that particular incident. We had to have the structure in place in advance, and the nice thing is, if there is another incident, a reason to call the group together, we are in place. We know what we are doing. We have each other's contact information. We know where to go. We have a charter for the group. We have only met formally that one time because luckily, in the past year or 18 months since we have organized in that way, there has been only that one particular incident. Senator Collins. I knew that was the answer, obviously, and the reason that I raise that issue is our investigation into the failed response to Hurricane Katrina clearly demonstrated the benefit of joint exercises, joint training, ongoing communication among all those involved in the response. Would it be beneficial, do you think, even if there is not an immediate incident that you are responding to, to convene this group periodically to make sure that the communication avenues are well established? The last time you want to be exchanging business cards is in the midst of a crisis. And I wondered what the Department's approach was to making sure--I am concerned that this group has only met once. It was obviously set up in advance, but it has only convened once. Do you have any intention of regularly bringing this group together to make sure that everyone knows each other, understands each other's roles, and that you are not trying to operate on the fly after an incident? Mr. Sutherland. I have two answers. One is these are people that all work together quite regularly. So we are in regular communication, both in government and outside government. But your point is a very good one, and we actually have a staff member who is smiling back there because she is working on creating an exercise where we will work with the team in an exercise context, exactly as you are referring to, because we see exactly what you are laying out. We need to know exactly how we would respond if there is a particular incident. Senator Collins. She is smiling. I can see that. [Laughter.] But that really was one of the lessons that we learned from our in-depth investigation into Hurricane Katrina, that all the paper plans in the world do not substitute for a hands-on exercise. So I do hope that you will pursue that. I also want to ask you about these community roundtables that the Department with its partners is convening that have been held in Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, and, it is my understanding, four or five other cities, because I think they, too, offer tremendous promise as far as outreach to the Muslim community, because that outreach is going to be absolutely the most important thing we can do to counter homegrown terrorism in my view. What have been the results of those roundtables? Mr. Sutherland. Well, they are just such a fascinating set of discussions. It is hard to even summarize where they go. We just had one, for example, in the city of Houston just a few days ago, Chicago the week before that. So these meet every other month or at least once a quarter. We are involved in six different cities, but we know that our colleagues in DHS are involved in three or four other cities, and the FBI is involved quite regularly. Just in terms of results, one of the results is we always try to start one of the meetings by giving a report on some initiative, some government initiative that is a significant initiative that they probably have not heard about and they want more details about. For example, the Department just started this project called Department of Homeland Security's Travel Redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP), which is a redress mechanism, somebody who is a traveler who is having difficulty traveling. Senator Carper mentioned someone earlier. This is a mechanism for them to file the issue in front of the government and for us to resolve it. It is a big development in terms of redress, and we are going to the communities and explaining that, and then this is information that is very valuable to them as they go back to their groups and their communities to explain how to use this. So we give them information about a significant project and get their feedback on it. Then in the meetings, they will raise specific issues with us. Sometimes there are large policy issues about immigration processing, security clearance questions. Sometimes it is about a specific individual having a security clearance problem. So we try to work through specific problems as well. There is accountability built into the system because we always have a segment to discuss old business. What was raised last time? Do you have an answer this time? So it is a dynamic, ongoing process that gets better and better as times goes by. Senator Collins. Thank you. Mr. Allen, I want to join with my colleagues in thanking you for all your years of service to the intelligence community. I think we are extraordinarily fortunate to have you in the position that you now occupy. I want to raise an issue that I raised with Secretary Chertoff that came out of the hearing that our Committee held last year to look at radicalization within our prisons, and that is, we found evidence both of what I call self- radicalization, where a prisoner using radical literature sent into the prison and access to radical Web sites on the Internet, essentially self-radicalized and came up with a bizarre form of Islam--that is what happened in the Torrance case, essentially. But we also found evidence of what I would call radical recruiters, extremist clerics coming into the prison without the prison officials' understanding that they were extremists, and attempting to convert and then radicalize prisoners. As you look at those two avenues, what is your assessment of which poses the greatest threat to us? It seems to me self- radicalization is far harder for us to get a handle on, but I have no feel for how prevalent one versus the other is. Do you have a sense of that at this point? Mr. Allen. Senator, I think it probably is a combination of the two. I am and have been surprised, because I worked in foreign intelligence most of my career, to come to the Department and then work and shape and inform the intelligence of the Department, in talking to local officials in New York and other places that there is radical literature that finds its way into our prison systems, particularly at the State and local levels. Efforts are being made, of course, by the Bureau of Correction officials in the States to preclude this because this is truly a virulent type of literature. The Internet--and I should have mentioned it earlier--is a major driver. That is such a powerful way of self- radicalization. We see people in other countries, in Europe particularly, there have been cases where people have primarily become radicalized through the Internet. When you know that there are several hundred Internet--there are extremist Web sites, several hundred of them that, of course, the intelligence community has to follow to see what is on that, there are just hundreds and hundreds of those that are very virulent, that come from around the world. The radical recruiters has been another surprise to me, coming primarily from foreign intelligence and hard targets, the fact that religious workers prior to September 11, 2001, were given quite a bit of latitude in who they were. As you know, the Department of Homeland Security and the Secretary are engaged in regulatory actions, and already tremendous work has been done by the Department of State and Consular Affairs to thoroughly look at anyone applying on a R-1 visa, religious worker visa. So that has been tightened because we do not need radical imams coming and creating problems in certain communities, and they have. They have come in on R-1 visas. So I think it is a combination of the literature, the Internet, and the radical recruiters, who frequently are in the form of so-called religious workers, although what they are preaching is hatred of the West and hatred of what this country stands for. Senator Collins. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Collins. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. In the bill we just passed, S. 4, the Improving America's Security Act of 2007, one of the things that I amended the bill with was a nonbinding sense of the Senate to enhance our efforts against radicalization. My amendment recommended to utilizing subject matter experts to better understand the cycle of radicalization; fostering a culture of understanding and mutual respect; and recruiting professionals with diverse worldviews, cultural backgrounds, and foreign language expertise. I think you are trying to do that but that you have some problems. For example, you must ensure that the lexicon used in public statements is precise and appropriate, and does not aid extremists by offending the Muslim community. Mr. Sutherland, I would like you to comment on how we handle the use of language. I think that is something that we should be concerned about. We should pursue broader avenues of dialogue with the Muslim community. Mr. Sutherland, you said that you are working on educating State, local, and community leaders on the threat of radicalization, sharing best practices for community outreach and developing interfaith partnerships, and addressing prisoner radicalization and post-sentence reintegration. That covers the waterfront. One of the things that is of concern to me is despite the fact that you have met with various groups, there is still a need to provide information to a lot of cities around the country about what they can and should be doing. In other words, you need to share best practices. It appears to me that you have been working fundamentally with your law enforcement agencies to interface with leaders from the Muslim community. In Cleveland, for example, we have a group called Ishmael and Isaac, and they are bringing young Jewish and Muslim people together to start talking to each other, which is great. But there does not seem to be a vehicle to bring together the leaders of the Muslim, Jewish, Christian community, and I just wonder: Have you identified in some of these areas vehicles that you could use to convene people? I was talking to one of your staff members, Mr. Sutherland. We discussed the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, which has been in place for a long time. Quite frankly, I am not sure we have a Muslim on the Civil Rights Commission in Ohio. We have another organization in Cleveland I created when I was mayor. It is the Cleveland Roundtable. It is designed to deal with racism and religious tolerance and so forth. I am sure they would like some information about how do you go about bringing people together. You have community relations boards in probably almost all of the major cities. I suspect that you may have them in other parts of the country. You should identify who they are and make them aware of your efforts. This type of effort will help encourage these communities to start talking to each other. As I mentioned earlier, there seems to be more of an isolation today of the Muslim community than there was before September 11, 2001. Somehow we have got to break that feeling and start turning it the other direction. I would like your comments on how do you do that. Mr. Sutherland. Senator, I think that there is a lot of the kind of work you are talking about that is already going on all over the country, and it is a snowball that is starting to go down a mountain. I will give you an example. Every one of the cities we work in, there are really interesting engagements like those you mentioned. For example, in the city of Los Angeles, the new Deputy Mayor for Homeland Security is a Muslim American. There are developments like that in nearly every city. In Dearborn, Michigan, where I spend quite a bit of time--I am really getting frequent flyer miles from Northwest Airlines--there are so many things that we are invited to. Senator Voinovich. Ms. Abdo spends a lot of time discussing Dearborn in her book. Mr. Sutherland. Right. It is a fascinating and important community. I think Cleveland and others are as well. But the difficulty, I think, with it is that while there is so much of this engagement, particularly between Jewish and Muslim and Christian groups, it is not broadcast, it is not known. And I know the Muslim community organizations are always asked, Why don't you denounce terror? They have denounced terror so many times, they do not know what to do or how many different angles can they denounce it from. But for some reason, that is not reported in the media, it is not getting through to people. So I think a lot of what you are talking about is happening. We need to try to strengthen it. But we also as a country need to figure out ways to promote what is, in fact, happening. Muslims in this country are well engaged and well connected. Senator Voinovich. Is there coordination between you and Karen Hughes? Mr. Sutherland. Yes, sir. We have an interagency working group that Karen Hughes' office asked us to chair that focuses on domestic engagement. It is a very collaborative effort between FBI, Justice, Treasury, her office, NSC, NCTC, and a wide variety of agencies who all have parts to play in this. As Secretary Chertoff was saying, it is a network problem, and there is a network solution. Certainly that is true at the Federal level. Senator Voinovich. Can you give me an example of cases where you have listened to a group and have made changes? Because I am sure the people you are meeting with will say, ``This is a dog-and-pony show. These people are bringing us in. They are going to go through the motions and probably not going to listen to us.'' Can you give us some examples of cases where you have listened and changes have been made? Mr. Sutherland. Yes, sir. I will give you an example. A couple of years ago, the American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee brought us about a half a dozen complaints of children, juveniles, who were prevented from flying, apparently because their names were similar to ones on the watchlist. It was obvious this child, this 7-, 8-, 10-year-old child, is not the problem, but they brought a package of these complaints to us. We took them to our colleagues at the Transportation Security Administration, and we worked on them together. TSA realized that they could help solve some of that problem by issuing new guidance to the airlines, which they then did. We reported that back to the American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee that these complaints had been resolved, and policies have been put in place, and the American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee then issued a press release congratulating TSA for improving its work in this particular area. There are other examples like that, but that is one that I can suggest. We have a lot of interchange on policy issues. Senator Voinovich. I am glad you did that, but I keep getting complaints from people that feel they are being profiled just because of their name. I think that can really be an irritant to them. The other thing is that I do not know whether or not your Customs and Border Patrol agents are increasingly more aggressive. Mr. Sutherland. Yes, and those are the exact issues that are raised with us all the time, and we are confident that they will be with us for a long period of time. But one thing that we try to say to people is: If you have complaints like that, bring them to us. We really will work on them and try to resolve them. And we have a fairly good success rate of getting these things resolved. And I would make that specific offer to your office, Senator. When you get those complaints, please have people call our office, forward them to us, and we will get to work on them. We have an excellent relationship, for example, with Customs and Border Protection. They see over a million people a day. And they know that every once in a while there are issues, and they want to solve those problems. And so they really appreciate that kind of feedback and the opportunity to resolve them. So that is one thing, I think, that we can say to these communities. Yes, you probably feel and you experience some more difficulties than you did prior to September 11, 2001, but one of the answers is the government really is engaged to try to solve those problems as well. Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. I want to discuss one or two quick questions, and if Senator Voinovich has another one or two, then we will let you go. Mr. Sutherland, it strikes me that we have not asked one of the fundamental fact questions, which is: What is your best estimate of the size of the Muslim-American community population? Mr. Sutherland. Senator, I am not a demographer. We hear the number 7 million. We also hear 3 million. Typically in speeches I say there are between 3 and 7 million Muslims in America. But the Census does not ask a religion-based---- Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Sutherland. It is a little hard to answer. Chairman Lieberman. So it is hard to judge. Mr. Sutherland. Yes, sir. Chairman Lieberman. I do not think anyone would argue with the statement that the total, whatever it is--3 or 7 million-- that it is a very small number, a very small percentage of that certainly, but a very small absolute number who would be categorized as Islamist extremists. I want to ask you a tough question. It is a subjective question, but it is relevant to what we are talking about. To the best of your knowledge, based on the interaction you have had with the Muslim-American community, what is the attitude of the overwhelming majority--who are obviously law-abiding, good Americans, contributing to the country, peaceful, etc.--toward the Islamist extremists? In other words, is it anger? Do they feel threatened? Is it that these are members of our community who have gone in the wrong direction, but we understand why? Are there some who feel some understanding? I do not mean they support but, say they understand why they are angry and it is a kind of benign reaction to it? Mr. Sutherland. Senator, I have had these conversations a number of times with Muslims around the country, and Arab- Americans as well, they get lumped in there. Of course, you know the vast majority of Arab-Americans in this country are Christian not Muslim. Chairman Lieberman. That is a very important fact that most people do not appreciate. Mr. Sutherland. I think that people from these communities, when you talk about al-Qaeda and you see a statement from Adam Gadahn on TV, they feel--I just jotted down a few phrases: ``Threatened.'' More Muslims are victims of this kind of terrorism than anyone else, more Muslims, far more Muslims. Chairman Lieberman. That is exactly what I had in mind. Mr. Sutherland. They feel perplexed. I have asked, ``Why do you think they do the things that they do?'' And they do not know any better than any of the rest of us. And the last thing I wrote down is they do not feel that is ``part of us. They are not part of our community that has gone''--``they were never part of us. That has nothing to do with us.'' And I think it is difficult. Sometimes you ask a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, ``Why don't you denounce terrorism?'' And his reaction is, ``Why would I denounce terrorism? That is not part of me. That has nothing to do with me. Yes, I am Muslim, but that has nothing to do with me.'' And so I think that is a sentiment that I get from the Muslim community as well: ``This is not us. It has nothing to do with us. And we are Americans. We want to be on safe airplanes, and we want to help with the security mission of this country.'' Chairman Lieberman. Thanks for that answer. I appreciate it. Mr. Allen, in the work that you are doing, you are putting together a whole new operation, part of which is to focus on this radicalization and homegrown terrorism. We know that the FBI is doing a lot of work in this area as well. There are other governmental agencies, too. Is there, in your opinion, adequate coordination or are we seeing overlap? Mr. Allen. There is remarkable collaboration. We hold regular analytic exchanges with the Bureau analysts. Under Willie Hulon in the National Security Branch, they are looking at the radicalization phenomenon. We are looking at it in a very bottoms-up approach, which I think is just a little bit different, trying to understand the phenomenology and trying to look at indicators so we can warn--I do not think we can predict where we are headed, but I think we can develop warning indicators, as I said in my statement, and also metrics. Eventually we have got to look at the metrics from an intelligence perspective. So our relationship with the Bureau is very strong, very rich. Deputy Director Pistole and I recently testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on how we integrate intelligence, and it was a rich session with Senator Rockefeller. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much. Senator Voinovich, do you have any other questions? Senator Voinovich. No, I do not. I just want to say thank you very much Mr. Chairman for having this hearing, and I have to say that I am very comforted by what I have heard from Mr. Sutherland particularly, because he sits where the rubber hits the road. Mr. Allen, we are grateful to have you at the Department given your experience, and you have laid things out in a very understandable way about what you are doing. I want to congratulate both of you on the work that you are doing. You have got to do a lot more of it for sure, but it is nice to know somebody is over there thinking about some of these things that have been on my mind. I was wondering is anybody doing anything, and the fact of the matter is there is a whole lot being done. I want you to know that this Committee will do everything it can to be supportive of your efforts, including, and I want to underscore this, ensuring you have the personnel, of having the personnel to get the job done that we have asked you to do. Mr. Chairman, I am very concerned about the Department of Homeland Security having the resources it needs to get the job done. All too often we ask you to do things, but we do not provide the resources that are necessary, and sometimes the people over at OMB do not ask for the resources. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich is a rare person around here. He not only sees the problem and legislates, but he actually wonders about how that legislation is being carried out and whether we have given the departments enough resources to do what we want them to do before we come back to conduct oversight hearings and accuse them of not doing what we have asked them to do. Today's hearing has been very helpful. We have a problem here. We have a threat, and it is probably going to grow. But we are also marshalling our forces, both in terms of investigative and law enforcement work, and critically important outreach to the Muslim-American community, which ultimately not only are going to be the foremost targets of global Islamist extremism, but also are going to be the best opposition that we have to the radicalization within America from the American family. So we are going to keep in touch on this. We will probably ask both of you to come back again if you have anything that you want to tell us before we call you back or you need any help, because George Voinovich and I are from the Federal Government and we are here to help. [Laughter.] Even people who work for the Federal Government. Mr. Allen, did you want to say something else? Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very grateful for your comments. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you both. Our record will stay open for 15 days for additional comments. We may frame some questions to you in writing. For now, the hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] THE INTERNET: A PORTAL TO VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM ---------- THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Collins, and Voinovich. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. The Committee will come to order. Good morning. This morning we are going to focus on a most important and, I would say alarming, subject, ``The Internet: A Portal to Islamist Extremists.'' I want to thank our witnesses for being here. One is still on the way, caught in Washington traffic. I looked over the testimony that you have submitted to the Committee and I must say that I find it both riveting and chilling, and something that we have a responsibility to not only pay attention to, to acknowledge that it is there, but as a National Government do something about. This is the third hearing that our Committee has held during the last half year on the topic of Islamist radicalization and recruitment within the United States of America. The first hearing, held September 19, 2006, under Senator Collins' leadership, addressed Islamist radicalization recruitment in America's prison system. Then a few months ago, in March, Secretary Chertoff and other witnesses from the Department of Homeland Security told us about the threat they see that we face from Islamist extremists right here at home and what they are doing to protect us from that threat. At that hearing, Secretary Chertoff testified that Islamist extremists posed the greatest threat to our homeland security today and that those extremists are using the Internet as their primary recruiting tool, not to mention using it for organization and communication, as well. This morning we are going to hear from three witnesses who will testify more specifically about how these extremist groups are using the Internet against us. The Committee plans to continue to focus on this critical threat next week with another hearing, where we will ask what other agencies of the Federal Government, including particularly the FBI and the Department of State, are doing to assess and confront the threat of Internet-based terrorist activity. It is another irony of the digital age that the Internet, which was invented by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), at the Department of Defense as a way to ensure undisrupted communications in the event of an enemy attack, is now being used to recruit and train terrorists who are plotting enemy attacks against America and other targets throughout the world. As we are hearing today, the Islamists, who have made a global political ideology now out of a religion, use the Internet as a way to reach across national boundaries to recruit new soldiers, sympathizers, and financial supporters. They are involved in a focused campaign using the Internet to broadcast news from their own point of view, needless to say to propagandize, to conduct online classes in terroristic tactics and ideology. They also use the Internet to transcend gaps in space and time, to research potential targets, and to share information with each other about planned operations. We will hear today from Frank Cilluffo, Director of George Washington's Homeland Security Policy Institute. Along with Dr. Gregory Saathoff of the University of Virginia's Critical Incident Analysis Group, Mr. Cilluffo co-chaired a task force on Internet radicalization that has just completed a study of the problem and is releasing a report as part of this hearing today. And we thank him and his colleagues for doing that. The task force's report tells us that the people who create these Web-based extremist propaganda and recruitment operations have a slogan. It is ``keyboard equals Kalashnikov,'' a contemporary twist on the old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword, but really about how the magnificent capabilities that the Internet provides us can also be turned into a weapon against us. Perhaps the most macabre example of their exploitation of the Internet is one that we are going to hear today from Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Felter, Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In an effort to raise its visibility and recruit new members, as Colonel Felter will tell us, an Iraqi insurgent group held a Web site design contest open to anyone in the world with an Internet connection. And what was the prize given to the winner of that contest? The opportunity to launch a rocket attack against American forces in Iraq with just the click of the mouse from the winner's computer. These are obviously not the efforts of amateurs. Terrorist groups run their own professional media production companies that produce video and audio for Internet broadcast. They create Web sites, chat rooms, online forums, libraries, and video games that promote the Islamist agenda. They are a clear and present danger. Our country must take the challenge posed by these Internet terrorists very seriously and launch our own aggressive coordinated and effective response. We simply cannot cede cyberspace to the Islamist terrorists because, if we do, they will successfully carry out attacks against us in our normal environment. We have to do everything we can as quickly as we can to disrupt their Web sites when appropriate and necessary, and compete with them for the attention of those who frequent their sites. We need to monitor the sites constantly for information and use them to exploit divisions among different sects and factions. And we need to recruit ``trolls' who can sow seeds of doubts in the different extremist Web sites and chat rooms. Obviously in the end, we need to develop the ability to shut down these sites when they represent an actual danger to us. It's tragic that the Internet has become a twisted tool for those who want to kill innocent people and aim to sow fear and division in the free world, but that is the reality that this hearing will reveal and it is why we must commit ourselves to meeting the challenge that it represents head on. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing today. Radical movements bent on violence are nothing new. The Internet, however, has dramatically expanded the ability of radical groups to recruit, train, motivate, and coordinate terrorists over vast distances without any direct contact. No matter how secure we make our borders, no matter how effectively we track traditional communication methods, the Internet provides terrorists with a powerful tool to reach new recruits and to spread their message of violence and hatred. Just last week, for example, three British Muslims went on trial in London on charges that included using Web sites and e- mails to urge terrorist attacks both inside and outside the United Kingdom. The prosecutor noted, ``Each of them was adept at the use of computers and the Internet and primarily by that means they each demonstrated . . . an avid adherence to the need for violent holy war.'' At the same time, a Federal court in this country, in Toledo, Ohio, heard charges against five men that included distributing information on bomb making that they have downloaded from the Internet. They await trial. Since the development of browser software in the early 1990s that allows the easy access to text, image, sound, and video files, the Internet has become a potent tool for delivering radical materials to target audiences in distant or hostile locations. These materials can be stored on any server connected to the Internet, ready for instant access by the curious or the committed. The recruiting and reference materials on the Web for violent extremists are truly disturbing. Our enemies can consult Web sites to learn techniques for shooting down helicopters. They can watch videos of hostage beheadings, read letters left by suicide bombers, or listen to messages from militant leaders. Consider this: Most of the 42 groups on the U.S. State Department's 2005 list of foreign terrorist organizations have Web sites to promote their violent message. Those Web sites can also serve terrorist groups as forums to plan and coordinate operations as well as to finance their murderous attacks. And even if there were no Web sites, the Internet would still allow radicalizing messages as well as operational instructions to be passed along by e-mail. We do not yet know if the use of the Internet rivals or even exceeds the importance of community-based and personal recruitment. It does, however, represent a troubling extension of their reach: Easy, inexpensive, immediate, and powerful. As one journalist has observed, ``The conjunction of 21st Century Internet speed and 12th Century fanaticism has turned our world into a tinderbox.'' Our witnesses today can help this Committee understand some urgent questions. What is the role of the Internet in radicalizing, recruiting, and financing terrorists? What techniques and appeals are used? Are Internet sites targeting potential recruits right here in our own country? How can we shape effective countermeasures? Mr. Chairman, I hope that what we learn today will help us resist the perversion of the World Wide Web into a weapon of worldwide war. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. Senator Voinovich, thanks for being here this morning. Since there is only the three of us, would you like to make an opening statement? Senator Voinovich. If I may. Senator Collins. Please. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH Senator Voinovich. Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding this series of important hearings examining the threat of Islamist radicalization in our homeland. You have shown courage and leadership in choosing to tackle a complex and divisive issue which I think is really very important to our future security. The United States is at war against a transnational terrorist movement fueled by radical extremists. The struggle transcends borders and the Internet has exponentially increased the reach and operational capabilities of terrorist networks. When we speak about the issue of radical Islam, we must continually draw the distinction between the religion of Islam and the manner in which the religion can be exploited and distorted by violent extremists to inspire and justify their actions. We must never associate the reprehensible behavior of violent extremists with the Muslim faith. Particularly, today I would like to recognize Frank Cilluffo for his extensive work on the issue of radicalization. Mr. Cilluffo has been among the first to present constructive recommendations of actions the Federal Government can take to address and prevent extremism domestically. His work on the Homeland Security Advisory Council Future of Terrorism Task Force was very influential in my recent Sense of the Senate Resolution on combating domestic radicalization. The Federal Government has an important role to play in fostering positive relations and building strong community ties. I am convinced that to prevent radicalization we must work to better engage Muslim communities across America and facilitate interfaith dialogue to prevent isolation. I am pleased to note that in my home state of Ohio there is a strong multicultural relations outreach in effect and I, Mr. Chairman, am personally involved in it to see if we cannot use some of our communities in our State as a role model for other places in the country. There is a theological debate that must take place within Islam regarding modernity. We have an opportunity to influence this debate by upholding American values of democracy and tolerance and by ensuring that American Muslims are engaged rather than alienated. Although the U.S. Government cannot prevent use of the Internet by extremists, we have an opportunity to thwart their operations through the use of intelligence. We must also encourage the development and availability of a peaceful counter-narrative to challenge the extremist's message. I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today. And again, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding this important hearing. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich, for that opening statement. Again, I thank the witnesses for being here. Mr. Doran, thanks for making it through the traffic. I am going to call on you now. Michael Doran is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support for Public Diplomacy at the Department of Defense. I am counting on you at the outset to talk a little bit about your office and then about the specific problem. STATEMENT OF MICHAEL S. DORAN,\1\ DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SUPPORT TO PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Mr. Doran. Thank you very much. I apologize for being caught in traffic. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Doran appears in the Appendix on page 231. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I welcome the opportunity to testify today regarding the use of the Internet by terrorist organizations. The President has said that ``the war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century and the calling of our generation.'' This struggle differs from past ideological conflicts in that the Internet allows relatively small organizations with limited resources, such as al-Qaeda, to broadcast messages across the globe instantaneously. Al-Qaeda and its associates, in particular, use the Internet to attempt to influence the global political environment, to spread their political ideology, to disseminate the extremist interpretation of religion that supports it, and to coordinate their operations. The focus of my office's efforts is on foreign language insurgent Web sites believed to be operated by non-U.S. persons. We work closely with the Department of State, the National Counterterrorism Center, and other agencies to remain abreast of how our adversary uses this medium. Our deep commitment to a free society and the very nature of the Web make it virtually impossible to prevent terrorists from using the Internet altogether. From a handful of sites in 2000, today there are many thousands of such Web sites in existence with more appearing each week. Through the deft use of members only user groups and password-protected bulletin boards terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda manage to maintain the integrity of their brand, instructing sympathetic audiences as to the whereabouts of their authoritative communications. At any given moment, in any given language, only a limited number of sites post original material produced directly by terrorist organizations or by religious authorities to whom the organizations have pledged loyalty. The majority of terrorist Web sites in operation are either mirrored versions of these existing sites or simply bulletin boards that disseminate material that originated on the Web sites under the direct control of the terrorist organizations. Terrorism experts have long analyzed terrorist attacks as a form of communication. A primary goal of a terrorist attack is to attract attention so as to disseminate information. The Internet ensures the terrorists have the means to communicate their message to the world immediately and directly without being filtered through the prism of mainstream media. The anonymity of the Web and the ready availability of a virtual space for posting material in large quantities make it easy for terrorist-related sites to pop up temporarily, publish new material, and then move to another address when necessary. Once the material has been published, it is immediately duplicated on a large number of sites located on servers across the globe. The speed with which this dissemination process occurs poses a serious challenge to those in the U.S. Government working to locate hostile sites and to assess their content. In fact, the Web has created conditions that make it possible for us to imagine a wholly new type of terrorist network, one that is almost entirely virtual, composed of individuals who are not personally known to each other, but who are animated by the same ideology and willing to coordinate actions in pursuit of it. In addition to easing communication, for some groups terrorists use of the Internet may increase the difficulties that law enforcement authorities face in tracking and apprehending potential terrorists aided by the Internet and other communication technology. Terrorists can operate in a variety of different jurisdictions, each with their own specific laws and regulations governing the monitoring of the Internet and the prosecution of online crime. The Internet is more than just a tool of terrorist organizations, however. It is also the primary repository of the essential resources for sustaining the culture of terrorism. It houses hundreds of thousands of pages of books that define the extremist interpretation of religion that feeds the global terrorist movement. For instance, the followers of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, who at one time served as the spiritual guide to Ala Musab al- Zarqawi, have compiled on a Web site dedicated to their mentor a considerable library of downloadable books that treat subjects covering all aspects of religious life. A large part of this material is devoted to debunking the moderate critiques of the extremist interpretation of religion. Sites such as this allow the Internet to function as a kind of virtual extremist madrassa. Terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda use the Internet for a variety of organizational purposes, including propaganda, recruitment, fundraising, training and instruction, and operational planning. Thanks to the Internet, terrorists now have direct control over their message and the means of disseminating it with the ability to disperse their propaganda directory to sympathetic audiences without the filter of third- party media. Terrorists also post violent images such as decapitation videos to invoke fear and to deliver threats. But intimidation, for all that it grabs attention, is not the main theme of terrorist propaganda which, more often than not, generally focuses on the perceived wrongs that Muslims have suffered at the hands of non-Muslims, led by the United States. It also stresses the religious justifications for taking violent action against them as a matter of defense. Terrorist propaganda seeks to delegitimize the adversaries of the extremists, to spread disinformation about enemy actions and intentions, and to bolster the morale of the followers, all ultimately to persuade potentially sympathetic audiences that jihad is a fundamental component of religion and the only effective means for redressing grievances. The Internet is also a useful tool for recruitment. In addition to other social influences, potential recruits are flooded with propaganda, training manuals, and religious justification for joining the jihad via the Internet. It is difficult to say how much direct recruitment takes place on the Web. While it is likely that direct invitations to take part in terrorist organizations are usually delivered face-to-face, there is no doubt that the Web plays an important role in indoctrinating recruits before they are drawn in directly. Probably for this reason, extremist Web sites will not attempt to recruit overtly for violent action, but will instead legitimate the actions of terrorists and encourage readers to support the jihad however they can. Terrorist Web sites, chat rooms, and other forums make use of the Internet for fundraising. These Web sites often use the argument that every Muslim has a duty to support jihad, but that participation on the ground is not required of everyone. The appeal for financial support alone is a method of permitting an individual to feel that they have done their duty as a Muslim, but do not need to change their life in order to join the actual flight. Terrorist use of the Internet also includes operational training. Would-be terrorists can find training information in the use of small arms, mortars, rockets, and artillery, guidance on where to fire at U.S. military vehicles in order to inflict the greatest damage, sniper training, and detailed instructions about the construction of improvised explosive devices, suicide vests, etc. Training is also available for guidance on how, when, and where to cross the borders of Iraq to join the jihad and how to avoid detection as a jihadist. As I have endeavored to illustrate, terrorists use the Internet for a wide variety of purposes and their use of the technology continues to evolve. I have provided the Committee with compact discs containing audiovisual material from some of these terrorist Web sites for these Committee Members who are interested in seeing a demonstration of some of the typical content found on these Web sites. The briefing on this CD was produced by the Department's Center for International Issues Research (CIIR), an innovative center focused, in part, on observing terrorist activity on the Internet in order to provide policymakers and agencies with a greater understanding and awareness of the strategic communication campaign being waged by extremist groups across cyberspace. CIIR was established precisely out of the recognition that al-Qaeda and its affiliates use the Internet with alacrity on a global scale and that such a threat required a team of monitors located in one place capable of following the day-to-day expression of extremist ideology across national and linguistic barriers. When recognizing the nimble use that al-Qaeda makes of the Internet, it is tempting to call for us to counter it directly on the Internet. Ultimately, the key to countering the terrorists use of the Internet is not solely a reciprocal set of actions by the U.S. Government on the Web, though that should not be ruled out. As the President has reminded us, we will counter the terrorist ideology most effectively by using the strongest weapon in our arsenal, the power of freedom. The Internet is a tool of a free society and, as such, it can sometimes be used as a tool to undermine freedom. Nevertheless, the answer to the terrorist message of tyranny, intolerance, and violent extremism is to effectively communicate the alternative vision: Freedom, tolerance, and mutually beneficial cooperation. Precisely in order to address the challenges presented by the war of ideas and to communicate our message of freedom and opportunity in the information age, in December 2006, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy created my office, Support to Public Diplomacy. My office's mission is threefold. First, we are working to create organizational change within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy to ensure that strategic communication and information are integral to policymaking, implementation, and assessment. My office is not a public affairs office. We are working to institutionalize the concept that information and communication are not just what government officials say but also the actions that we take. Support to Public Diplomacy's second core mission is developing and coordinating key themes and messages within the Department of Defense to promote policies. In policy development and implementation, we work with the Department of Defense Public Affairs and Joint Staff and other policy offices. Our third core mission is to work with other U.S. Government partners, particularly the Department of State--the lead for U.S. Government in public diplomacy--to design and facilitate whenever possible strategic communication policies and plans to effectively advance U.S. national security. With regard to countering ideological support to terrorism and terrorist use of the Internet, my office seeks to enhance understanding of how terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda conduct influence campaigns, and our goal is to develop policy and strategies to counter them. The President's National Security Strategy for Combating Terrorism provides a strategic vision for the defeat of violent extremism as a threat to our way of life in a free and open society, and the creation of a global environment inhospitable to violent extremists and all who support them. The Department will continue to work with our U.S. Government partners to engage the terrorist enemy in the cyber battlefield as a critical domain in our efforts to win the war of ideas and ultimately achieve this strategic vision. Thank you for the opportunity speak to you today. I am happy to answer any questions you may have with one small caveat. I took over in my new position on Monday, so I have been on the job for 3 days. Chairman Lieberman. Understood. You were very knowledgeable and spoke well. Mr. Doran. My mind is not cluttered by any of the facts. But I do have a background in the online jihad. I was a professor before I came into government service and I was working on these Web sites. Chairman Lieberman. Excellent. I appreciate it. I know you have just come in. Your statement was a strong one and it really does document for us the reality and the extensiveness of the use of the Internet by terrorist groups. So it is not just to propagandize or get out their message, but they are using it to recruit, to organize, to plan attacks and that is, as I said at the beginning, both a riveting and chilling reality which we have got to deal with. We will come back with some questions for you but I thank you for your testimony and welcome to the job. Mr. Doran. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Lieutenant Colonel Felter is the Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy. Colonel, thank you for being here. We look forward to your testimony. STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOSEPH H. FELTER, PH.D.,\1\ DIRECTOR, COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER, U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY, U.S. ARMY Colonel Felter. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, distinguished Members of the Committee, it is really an honor for me to provide testimony on the topic of jihadi use of the Internet. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Colonel Felter appears in the Appendix on page 239. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is also an honor to sit next to Frank Cilluffo and Michael Doran, whose scholarship has been a great resource for us at the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). Coalition forces have had great success in interdicting al- Qaeda worldwide. We have captured, we have killed, we have denied safe haven, we have done a great job keeping the pressure on al-Qaeda. But despite these military successes in neutralizing key commanders and denying safe havens, al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda's associated movements in other terrorist groups continue to actively target and execute terrorist attacks against U.S. personnel and interests and allies around the world. It is important to bring operational commanders like al- Zarqawi and al-Masri to justice. But they are a symptom, not a cause of the global epidemic that we must contain. The real center of gravity of this violent movement are the ideas of radical jihadist thought. It is these ideas that insulate al- Qaeda against U.S. pressure and enable the movement to spread, even as its leaders are captured and killed. But it is not possible to capture, kill, or incarcerate ideas. These ideas, spread on the Internet, have helped al- Qaeda become a social movement beyond an organization. This movement would not be impossible without the power of the Internet and the capability it offers al-Qaeda's thought leaders to define the way disillusioned youth think about the world. The Internet allows thousands of disenfranchised and displaced individuals to build a virtual community of followers bound together only by a body of shared ideas and digital relationships. We cannot prevent all of these relationships from forming to stop the generation of these ideas but we can do a better job of understanding how these ideas are created, where they come from, and how the Internet facilitates the processes so we can monitor and thwart those who join the movement. In this testimony I am going to describe the sources of these ideas and how violent extremists use the Internet to spread their radical ideology. I would also like to show a video to graphically demonstrate some of these ways the jihadists are using the Internet to spread this ideology. And I will conclude with some recommendations for how we can more effectively combat extremist efforts on the Internet. If we are confronting an ideology spread online, we must know what this ideology looks like and its sources. We did this pretty well in the Cold War. Entire academic disciplines were stood up to understand the nature of Soviet Communism, Chinese Communism. We knew Marx, Mao, Lenin. We were very familiar with the ideologues driving the communist movement. I think we are doing this less well today with this new hostile ideology that we are confronting in this global struggle. For example, the most important thought leader which Mr. Doran mentioned earlier in al-Qaeda, they are not really the operational leaders like Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. They are unknown to most Americans, people like Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. He is a Palestinian-born individual now under house arrest in Jordan. In the Combating Terrorism Center, we have mapped al- Qaeda's ideological influence. We have looked at thousands of these texts again, that Mr. Doran mentioned, on their online library, the Tawhid Web site. Many of these idealogues are long dead. They died in the 13th Century. Even to me, for example, many are alive today. It does not matter. Once their ideas are out there online, they are there and they endure and they have an effect on the movement. There is clear evidence that the grand ideas developed by these scholars inspire terrorist attacks worldwide. For example, the Spanish indictment of the Madrid train bombers identifies more than 50 electronic books that had been downloaded from the Internet and were found on the hard drives of the bombers' computers. The authors of these books track very closely with the list of the most influential jihadi authors developed by our researchers at West Point. The power of the Internet is key to giving more people from more places more reasons to join the movement. It provides the opportunity to foster a sense of connection between the movement's supporters and its foot soldiers in the field and to expand its options for participation. In one extraordinary example, which Chairman Lieberman mentioned, they actually had this contest to develop the Web site. They made the prize of, with a mouse click, launching rockets into an American base in Iraq. So someone from the privacy of his own home anywhere in the world could click on the mouse and attack Americans and feel connected to the movement and to the foot soldiers in the field. A popular book available online today is entitled ``39 Ways to Participate in Jihad'' and it spells out a variety of ways to participate in jihad, short of going to Iraq and Afghanistan and actually fighting as a foot soldier. It is similar Marxism. Its main concept is from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. So they are expanding the options to participate in the movement and the Internet is making this possible. For example, if you are technically savvy or if you know how to use Google Earth, you can get on to Google Earth and provide targeting information for jihadis. They did it in Fallujah several years ago, where people were actually calling in saying, ``this is what this block looks like, move here. It is empowering more and more people to get involved with the foot soldiers in the field and connected to this movement.'' I would like to show a video for about 2 minutes that demonstrates how the jihadis are using the Internet to do some of these things and then conclude with a few recommendations. [Video played.] Colonel Felter. This is al-Qaeda showing its operatives in Northern Iraq and Kurdistan, to demonstrate that they actually have a presence there. They are actually walking in circles. It is a propaganda video. But they want to advertise their success and make people feel good about the movement. Here is the example of the technical expertise that is being applied on the battlefield, using Google Earth, for example. This is from the Islamist aArmy in Iraq. The youth are especially at risk for being influenced by the Internet. If it is entertaining, they are going to keep watching. If you celebrate attacks and executions, you can inform kids about the movement through an entertainment mechanism. This is a rap video that Mr. Cilluffo had in his report by the same group. This is Abu Musab al-Suri, one of the most prolific jihadi ideologues giving classes online and bringing more people into the movement. Ayman al-Zawahiri, you may recognize him. These terrorist groups, they are learning organizations. This is al-Masri, who was reported to have been killed last week but replaced al-Zarqawi after he was killed last year, demonstrating how to make explosions and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). We are seeing the same technology for IED technology in Iraq showing up in Afghanistan now and the Internet is directly responsible for that. [Video ends.] Colonel Felter. I hope that provided some context for my earlier description. I would like to conclude with some recommendations. Given what we know about how radical Islamist extremists are harnessing the power of the Internet, the CTC believes efforts to combat the threats posed by these terrorists can be enhanced in a number of ways. One, we have got to know our enemy. We have got to read what the terrorists are telling us online. At West Point, we are very familiar with Sun Tzu's maxim of knowing your enemy. In this war, the enemy has often been characterized as a hostile ideology responsible for extremist Islamist radicalism. We must develop a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of this ideology and what is driving it. I think our Center's systematic mapping of the ideology in one of our recent reports is a good example of doing this.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The CTC report is available at http://www.ctc.usma.edu/atlas/ atlas.asp. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overall, we just have to increase efforts and programs designed to translate and analyze the jihadi strategic texts proliferated online. We are very much in need of that. I know Mr. Doran and Mr. Cilluffo are involved in this, but we have to expand this greater and involve more organizations and centers. We need to exploit enemy vulnerabilities made publicly available on the Internet. There are many opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities and divisions identified by the jihadis themselves. It is made conveniently online. One of the most effective ways to hurt the jihadis is to use their own writings against them. Jihadis compete for membership. They do not all like each other. It is not a monolithic organization that everyone supports everyone. They are discrediting and delegitimizing their competitors online. We need to find those voices and empower them, identify them and find out what arguments are being used to delegitimize jihadis from the inside. The CTC is looking at much of al-Qaeda's internal discourse through a program at the U.S. Special Operations Command where we are mining the Harmony database, which is all of their internal documents captured in the course of operations. You do not need access to a classified database to do that. Much more information is available online. Areas of disagreement, ideological fault lines, internal riffs, and power struggles are all described in great detail on various Internet sites. These are opportunities we must better exploit. We also have to harness broader resources and bring them to bear in the fight. Just as the terrorists identified 39 ways to participate in jihad, we need to create greater opportunities for Americans with a wide array of expertise to quietly contribute to the fight against terrorism. We are doing this at West Point by being a bridge, bringing in some of the top academic experts in the field and bringing them to civilian and military decisionmakers where their expertise is most needed. We need to create more mechanisms and make it more attractive for a vast array of American expertise to be employed against this enemy. Much of this untapped talent is in the younger generation. At West Point we see the creative and Internet savvy potential of our young cadets and how they are particularly adept at identifying opportunities to enlist the power of the Internet to combat the terrorist threat. One of our cadets in the terrorism studies program, for instance, analyzed hundreds of online videos and attacks against American troops in Iraq to identify more effective countermeasures and tactics that can increase survivability of our forces. His analysis is being used in the field today. In closing, I would like to quote Douglas MacArthur in his farewell address to the Corps of Cadets in 1962. He admonished that ``Through all this welter of change, your mission remains fixed, determined, and inviable. It is to win our wars.'' This maxim remains true today. At West Point, we appreciate that the Internet is being used as a weapon in this generational conflict. We are committed to preparing our Nation's future military leaders to respond effectively to this threat and to use the same weapon to take the fight back to the enemy. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee and I look forward to answering your questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Colonel. Great point from MacArthur at the end. Thanks for your testimony. A vote has just gone off in the Senate but we probably have 10 or 12 minutes before we have to leave. I hope you can do your opening in that time, Mr. Cilluffo. If not, we will finish when we get back. Thanks for being here. Thanks for choosing to publicize your findings here at this hearing. STATEMENT OF FRANK J. CILLUFFO,\1\ ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR HOMELAND SECURITY, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY POLICY INSTITUTE, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Mr. Cilluffo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have rarely had an unspoken thought, but I will try to be quick, especially since we agreed with many of the findings, which is quite rare. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Cilluffo appears in the Appendix on page 248. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, Senator Voinovich, your continued examination of the issues involved in extremist radicalization is central to understanding our enemies. Thank you for your leadership in pushing these critical issues to the fore. These are complex issues. They do not make for simple hearings, so I applaud the efforts that all of you put in. I am pleased to be before you to share the findings and recommendations of our report, ``NETworked Radicalization: A Counter-Strategy.'' \1\ The work is a joint project of GWU's Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) and the University of Virginia's Critical Incident Analysis Group and was supported by a top-notch group of diverse subject matter experts, some of whom are here with me today, and I would like to acknowledge them quickly: Abdullah Ansary, Mary McCarthy, Steve Herrick, and David Heyman, a very diverse group of folks. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The report submitted by Mr. Cilluffo appears in the Appendix on page 257. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would also like to thank my co-chair and co-sponsor, Dr. Gregg Saathoff, along with my wonderful HSPI team. We are facing a global insurgency, as we have heard. To prevail, we must win the battle for hearts and minds, remove terrorist masterminds, and offer hope and opportunity to those who might otherwise be seduced by the jihadi Salafist ideology. We need to recognize that we must enter a new phase in our campaign. While not discounting military actions and the need to hunt down individual terrorists, the war is now one of ideas and cyberspace is the new battlefield. Our adversaries currently have firm possession of this battlefield because they understand the shift and have created and disseminated a narrative that resonates, energizes, and expands their ranks. By incorporating and manipulating local political grievances, some of which are legitimate, they have woven an effective tale of an imaginary clash of civilizations in which a monolithic West is engaged in an aggressive struggle against a monolithic Islam. Internet chat rooms are now supplementing and replacing mosques, community centers, and coffee shops as venues for recruitment and radicalization. The real-time two-way dialogue of the chat rooms has taken the fight global, enabling extremist ideas to be shared, take root, be reaffirmed, and spread exponentially. This mutual affirmation, in turn, gives rise to a sense of community and belonging, in essence a virtual ummah. From Toronto to Morocco, London to Madrid, and in Holland, America, and beyond, we have witnessed the effects of radicalization. Some have termed these instances as homegrown terrorism, a bit of a misnomer as the Internet has created a largely borderless world for terrorists. Therefore terror networks are best understood in this global context rather than simply a national framework. Connecting the dots of terrorist activity around the world, we are able to see that this pace of transformation is striking and has been accelerating, as the British have recently identified. Our report focuses on radicalization in the context of this transnational insurgency that is a global extremist jihadi Salafist movement, perhaps best exemplified by al-Qaeda but including other terror networks, those that think global but act local, ascribing to the same ideology. Radicalization is defined as the process of adopting an extremist belief system, including the willingness to use violence as a method to effect social change. Let me note that we have chosen not to use the term Islamist extremism in our discussions. Radicalization is not unique to Islam, nor is it a new phenomenon. The West is not at war with Islam. Terrorism is, in fact, un-Islamic. Recent polling by the University of Maryland indicates that 88 percent of Egyptians and two-thirds of Moroccans and Indonesians believe al-Qaeda attacks against civilians violate the principles of Islam. In addition, extremists have misappropriated the concept of jihad, using it wrongly to justify acts of violence not sanctioned by the tenets of Islam. Savvy use of the Internet has empowered terror networks to expand their reach beyond national borders by enabling wide distribution of this compelling narrative and social connectivity with new audiences. Previously, computer mediated communication was used for a range of terrorist operational activities: Communications, fundraising, planning, coordination, training, sharing of lessons learned instantaneously on the Internet, information gathering and data mining, propaganda, and obviously misinformation and disinformation. But the ``killer application'' of the Internet is, in fact, the nexus between the physical and the cyber, not so much its use as a propaganda and operations tool. There can be no compelling counter narrative until the extremist narrative itself is well understood, including how that message is couched, what is emphasized and ignored, what references and allusions are made, what audiences are targeted, and how messages are adapted to reach new audiences and respond to new events. How can the Nation that gave rise to Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and the Internet itself be outplayed in the realm of ideas? Part of the answer is that we have not really applied our collective talents and energies to the problem. Domination of the battlefield is not much of a feat when only one side has shown up. In this instance, it will require international collaboration as transnational threats require transnational solutions. The virtual world cannot be divorced from the physical world in which it is grounded. It is the complex iterative and dynamic interplay between the two that helps explain why the extremist narrative resonates and how it spreads. There is no set formula or profile that explains why someone is vulnerable to radicalization and goes on to become a terrorist. We do know, however, that social bonds play an important role in the radicalization process. This is especially true for diaspora communities which often turn inward for an enhanced sense of dignity. Youth in these communities, including second and third generation, may feel alienated not only from their parents' culture, but the culture of the very country in which they live. This ambivalence about their parents and new country means that young people may therefore rely on each other for a sense of community, making it easier for a single radicalized individual to influence others. Therefore, there may also be an element of youthful rebellion in all of this, and some may be swept in the romanticism of joining an international brigade. I hope we, too, do tap into our young talent to tackle that, as well. Let us not kid ourselves, American Muslims, like their European counterparts, may feel alienated, too, though not to the extent we have witnessed overseas. Perhaps the most striking example is Adam Gadahn, an American citizen from California who now serves as al-Qaeda's English-language spokesperson. Adept at building networks offline, he was able to carry that ability along with a sense of moral outrage to the online environment. Which raises another important issue in understanding radicalization, the need for social networking analysis, which offers a way to visualize the nodes in a network and how things move through that network, such as weapons, pieces of knowledge, or people. In other words, how networks thrive and grow, and how they atrophy and die. At least part of the solution lies within the Muslim community itself. Unless the counter messages come from within, they will fail to resonate because they will be seen as inauthentic and untrustworthy. The Koran and Islamic scholars are arguably the most important means of our response. While there may be a role for governments to play by helping at arm's length to amplify these voices at the grassroots, the challenge lies in figuring out how to do so without tainting the credibility of either the message or the messenger. So where do we go from here? First and foremost, we need to challenge the extremist doctrine by crafting a compelling counter narrative that debunks and discredits myths and falsehoods and recognizes the realities, such as the fact that more Muslims than all non-Muslims have been killed by terrorist activities in recent years, again in 2006 as well. Our ultimate aim is to deconstruct the al-Qaeda brand campaign and turn it into nothing more than a passing fad. The counter narrative should offer a dream focused on realistically attainable and alternative futures. One caution, however, the counter narrative is not to be confused with a PR campaign to improve the image of the United States. While the counter narrative must incorporate core values common to all, we must not shrink from using graphic visuals demonstrating the deadly impacts of terrorism. Where appropriate, we should fight fire with fire such as the unsanitized visuals from Beslan and Jordan. In counterterrorism we are always talking about terrorists and their martyrs. We have had our martyrs, too. The message must spring from authentic sources and in this case an authentic messenger may, in fact, be an extremist who has renounced terrorism. For example, ``60 Minutes,'' 2 weeks ago aired a segment in which Hassan Butt, once a recruiter for al-Qaeda in the United Kingdom, focused on how he was misled and became disillusioned with the movement. And how many times have we heard, ``Where are the moderate Muslims denouncing terrorism?'' In fact, the American-Muslim community and others issued a fatwa to this effect immediately following the September 11, 2001, attacks which was echoed again in 2005 by the Fiqh Council, but no one remembers. The media can play an important role by covering groups that speak out against the extremist elements in messaging and by using Islamic terms appropriately when reporting the story. The second element of a counter strategy involves cross- cultural dialogue and understanding. This dialogue includes addressing the perceptions and realities of American-Muslim alienation and marginalization. It is important to note that all of this takes place in a very public square where, as recent studies have shown, cultural and religious knowledge in general is lacking. Greater civic engagement of the Muslim communities will further enable integration. Senator Voinovich, I thank you for taking up these efforts yourself. If we accept that premise, then we need to align our means with our ends. Clearly there is something wrong when the DHS office responsible for engaging with American-Arab and American-Muslim communities nationwide has only a director and two full-time employees. Real traction will be generated outside government, though. People-to-people exchanges are critical to be able to actually strengthen the ties that bind us all. We also need to do our homework when it comes to the scientific aspect of all this. Chairman Lieberman. Because your recommendations are every important to us, I do not want you to rush and I want us all to be here to hear them. So I am going to ask you to hold. We will go right back to you to finish when we return. The hearing will stand in recess and we will return as soon as we can. Thank you. [Recess.] Chairman Lieberman. The hearing will reconvene. I apologize to the witnesses, particularly to you, Mr. Cilluffo. But thank you for your testimony so far. Proceed, please. Mr. Cilluffo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To pick up where we were, we also believe it is essential to do our homework when it comes to the scientific aspects of all of this. Our counter strategy will only be as powerful as the depth of our understanding of the process of radicalization both online and offline. Until we recognize and address the need for more behavioral science research in this area, we will be missing opportunities to intervene and stop the process dead in its tracks. And by that I mean the life cycle of terrorism. What is the cycle from sympathizer to activist to being willing to engage in indiscriminate violence, including potential suicide violence? Performing and exploiting the type of research that is needed will take time, of course, but there are many other steps that we can take in the interim. For starters, legal means to disrupt extremist use of the Internet must be deployed against Web sites that directly advocate violence or provide material support to known terrorist organizations, crossing the line from protected speech to illegal acts of violence. Technical means could also be used to knock our adversaries off balance. Practically speaking though, it is difficult to squelch an extremist presence online. Like a game of Whac-A- Mole, you knock one site down only to find it pop up elsewhere. Work in the shadows, where appropriate, may also yield results, as is true in the context of other criminal investigations. As chat rooms have replaced the smoke-filled bars of the Le Carre novels, we must have a greater footprint and presence here. More intelligence officers are needed to exploit the convergence of human intelligence and cyberspace to actively undermine the trust that binds enemy networks and to better inform our counterterrorism and counter narrative efforts. ``Honey pots'' offer one way to achieve these goals. Among other things, they could allow us to better understand how local political grievances may become appropriated by the larger extremist movement which, in turn, could help us drive wedges and blast open existing fault lines between and among factions. While unintended, some of our counterterrorism actions have had the net effect of uniting our adversaries. We must pursue a course of disaggregation and facilitate rifts and dissension among terrorists, their organizations, organizations from other organizations, that from a movement and that from society writ large. And along each step of the way there are different elements of statecraft that need to be brought to bear. Finally, we need to build capabilities at the Federal level. We have known for more than a decade that we need to shore up language skills and cultural knowledge in the Federal workforce. Moreover, we need to harness intergovernmental efforts to generate a strategic communications plan, one that is comprehensive, well informed, and that allows us to effectively articulate an anti-extremist message. We are not suggesting the sort of centralized approach that we adopted during World War II with the Office of War Information. Today, no single organization or institution, either within government or outside of it, is capable of managing this effort alone. Instead we need a decentralized approach, a network of networks that links and coordinates the efforts of both public and private actors to use all elements of statecraft to counter our adversaries. In closing, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I stand ready to try to answer any questions you may have. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Mr. Cilluffo. You are making a real contribution with your work. I thank you for it and I hope you will continue. Mr. Cilluffo. It is a group effort, Mr. Chairman, not me. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks. Let me start with a few factual questions about what you have told us. Am I correct that predominately these Web sites are in Arabic, Mr. Doran? Mr. Doran. I cannot give you exact numbers, but I think that they are in many different languages. I would say that, as far as al-Qaeda is concerned, the key Web sites are probably in Arabic originally, but this is a global phenomenon. Chairman Lieberman. To bring it closer to home, do they have Web sites that are in English, that people in the United States who do not speak Arabic can go up on? Mr. Doran. Yes. Mr. Cilluffo. Unequivocally. Colonel Felter. Yes. Chairman Lieberman. They do. There was one mention, I think maybe by Mr. Doran, about the use of a password or a code system to enter conversations. How difficult is it to break that system? Mr. Doran. It is very difficult because the people who are controlling access are familiar to each other. I think it was Colonel Felter who said that we are talking about social networks working with, incorporating the Internet into their non-Web-based activities. So if you have a group of people that know each other and are communicating through cyberspace, they can decide whether to let people in or not on the basis of word of mouth and not just what they see on the Internet. Chairman Lieberman. But am I correct, Mr. Cilluffo, in assuming that if one went to a Web site and got on one of these Web sites, and got engaged or drawn in, is there an obvious way in which that person would be recruited? Mr. Cilluffo. It is, in part, self-enlistment and it is, in part, recruitment. Chairman Lieberman. So you would click to a particular portal if you wanted to do more than just read the propaganda? Mr. Cilluffo. Absolutely. The Web sites themselves are static. It is the dynamic side where, just like every day use, my four children use the Internet and they have dolls, Webkinz, and they use it to interact with one another. It is a very similar process in this case. But obviously they are going to be distrustful of individuals they do not know. So there actually are known cases of where they test individuals. They actually put them--just like you are initiating to join a secret club or whatever it may be--they actually put them through tests to see how tough their skin really is, in terms of---- Chairman Lieberman. Right. In your testimony, Mr. Doran, you said that there were core Web sites that produce additional material and that there were others, perhaps thousands, that simply repeat what are on those core Web sites? If I got you right, for instance, al-Qaeda maintains five significant Web sites? Was that from your testimony? Mr. Doran. I did not use the number five. Chairman Lieberman. So talk to me about the impact of the core Web sites. Mr. Doran. These are Web sites that are controlled by people who are known to each other and they will post authoritative information on the Web site. And then it will be disseminated out by loyalists all across the Internet. On these bulletin boards, these are bulletin boards where they are password-protected. Certain individuals user names will become known as authoritative individuals. I will give you an example. There was this American, Johnson, who was kidnapped in Saudi Arabia and killed. Within hours of his kidnapping his wallet with his ID appeared, a photo of it appeared on this Web site. So from an event like that, you can then conclude that Web site is directly connected to the kidnappers and it is an authoritative Web site. Then an individual on that Web site, whenever an al-Qaeda related event would take place, would tell you if you want to see our statement about the event go to the following address. Then you go to that address. Once it is out there and authenticated, then it just spreads like wildfire. Chairman Lieberman. Colonel Felter, is there any way that you or either of the other panelists can answer for us how many hits these Web sites receive from within the United States of America? Colonel Felter. I think they can be tracked. I do not have an exact figure. But there are tools, like with any Web site, you can identify how many hits. Mr. Chairman, one thing that is important to know on the Internet, you may get one download from one terminal and then that individual may burn 1,000 CDs. So it is hard to say one download of a particular piece could go to--many more people have access to computers than Internet connection. So it is hard to know how many people are actually getting access to some of this information. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Cilluffo or Mr. Doran, do you have any basis for estimating how active these Web sites, the terrorist Web sites, are within the United States from within the United States? Mr. Cilluffo. I don't have a clear answer in terms of the domestic activity. But to get to one of the points that Colonel Felter made, not only do they burn CDs, but they will actually move from sites to other sites to other sites, many of which are what you call parasiting, they are on innocent or innocuous sites. So it does make it difficult. One point you had mentioned earlier, al-Qaeda does have a formal media arm, a production arm. And that is as-Sahab. If you were to actually look at the video quality from 2002 to 2007 today, it has improved exponentially. In addition to its production facilities and efforts, it actually has a clearinghouse. The Global Islamic Media Front serves as the clearinghouse not only for as-Sahab, but others as well. So they actually do have a traditional production entity. And maybe Colonel Felter wants to build on that. Chairman Lieberman. Do they have a single major Web site, al-Qaeda, that is theirs? Mr. Cilluffo. They have had many different Web sites. But one of the challenges, I think, is how do we delineate al-Qaeda classic from all the other groups it spawned? It does have its own sites, al-Zawahiri sites. But most of those we are also aware of and clearly they take operational security very seriously themselves. Chairman Lieberman. Colonel, did you want to add anything? Colonel Felter. No, that is fine, sir. Chairman Lieberman. My time is up. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Doran, Colonel Felter in his testimony has said that the government should not waste resources trying to take down the Web sites of extremist groups. He says, ``Attempts to shut down Web sites have proven as fruitless as a game of Whac-A- Mole.'' In other words, you shut down one place and another just pops up to take its place. But others argue that when you have Web sites, such as the one that you have talked about, that are broadcasting on the best way to shoot down a helicopter that you should shut it down. I would like to get your assessment of that. Some have argued that shutting down those Web sites, even if it is temporary, at least prevents others from accessing information that could be used to kill Americans and other innocent individuals. Others say that what we should do is just track those Web sites because it is useful to us and helps us understand how terrorists think. What is your judgment on that? Mr. Doran. I am going to come right down the middle between the two. I think it is a discussion that needs to be ongoing and we should not take a categorical position on either side. We need to talk about which Web site and for which purpose in terms of shutting down. But as Mr. Cilluffo was saying, al-Qaeda has this brand name, as-Sahab, its production facility. It has a number of other brand names, al-Faja'a, al-Borak, and so forth. It has engaged in this online branding precisely to get around the problem of not being able to present material on one single Web site. So you do run into this Whac-A-Mole problem, you whack it here and it pops up in another place. But keeping this branding, maintaining the integrity of its brand precisely to get around this problem. So they are quite adept at getting around it. Now that is not an argument not to do it, but it has to be an ongoing discussion. And it has to be an ongoing discussion on both the classified and unclassified level. So I would not like to get into that too deeply. Senator Collins. Mr. Cilluffo, what is your advice? Should we try to shut down the most violent and extremist of these Web sites? Or should we just monitor them carefully, try to devise countermeasures? What do you think we should do? Mr. Cilluffo. We, too, did not see it as an either/or proposition, that we can and must use all means and instruments that we have. But for the most part, you do have a Whac-A-Mole problem because the Internet is international by its very nature. You do not need to be a major country to be able to use some of those capacities. But I would like to recognize we do need to also look to how we can work with other countries. The United States hosts a number of these sites but so do others. The Saudis actually recently came up with a very aggressive plan on cyber crime. They actually have just put forward a bill that prohibits any Web sites that are linked to a terrorist organization with both prison time and financial penalties. So maybe there are some issues we can look at there. I am more interested not only in the Web sites themselves, but I think we have to go to where the action is, and that is the chat rooms. That is where the ideas themselves are propagating. We need to get our arms around this, roll up our sleeves, and engage here. This is where the battle of ideas are. The static issue, you know what? To some extent, there is not all that much we can do there. But what we can do is get people who are versed in the Koran, to be able to identify how these ideas are just flat wrong. And that is where I believe some of our activity should really be focusing. I also think in the intelligence business we need to put the same effort and resources we do for cultivating human sources in the physical world in the cyber environment and exploit advances in technology to be able to further enhance our capacities there. Senator Collins. Thank you. Colonel, I was intrigued by your recommendations when you talked about the need to create opportunities for more Americans to ``quietly participate'' in the fight against terrorism. And you talked about the Cold War and how there was a tremendous academic focus. We brought a lot of resources to bear across disciplines, not just in the military. What are your further thoughts on that? How can we engage more Americans, particularly those in the Muslim community, to as you put it ``quietly participate''? Colonel Felter. Thank you, Senator. I can use the example of our Center at West Point where we actively enlist the cooperation of a variety of academics around the country. They will not work for the U.S. Government. They will not work for the Army. They will not work for the intelligence agencies. But we found they were comfortable working with us as an academic institution. So I think if we could find these bridges, these appropriate bridges, to bring the tremendous expertise that is out there in our country that is not getting to your office, to the offices of the military leaders and the other policy makers, I think that would be a useful effort to make. Make people more comfortable joining the fight. We have been surprised, at West Point, where these academics may be a little gun shy to say do not put my name on that product because I do not want to lose academic credibility. Several months into that they realize that the U.S. Government is not such a bad organization to support and they have even come out and become more visible. But I think giving people more opportunities to contribute in the ways that they are comfortable with and in a way that gets to the people that really make the decisions and can take action on I think is a useful thing to pursue. Senator Collins. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. This problem that we have is multifaceted. I just was reading the recent issue of The Economist, ``Recent opinion polls suggest that three-quarters of Iraqis think America plays a negative role in their country and most want American troops to go.'' Then it went on, but America's troubles there do not stop at Iraq's borders. ``An opinion survey in four Muslim countries, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and Indonesia, this week shows 79 percent of the respondents believing that America aims to divide and weaken the Muslim world. Big majorities want American troops out of Muslim countries, most strikingly in Egypt, one of America's closest Arab allies--91 percent endorse attacks on American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.'' So that's one problem that we have. There is a feeling, I think, in the Muslim world that somehow we are there to undermine the Muslim world, which we are not. But that is what is being propagandized out there. Then the next issue you have is how do you get moderate Muslims or even fundamentalist Muslims who believe that what terrorists are doing is not consistent with the Koran to speak out? And I have read several books regarding the fact that in those countries, it is very difficult for someone to speak out and say that you can be a good Muslim and be for freedom, democracy, and rule of law. Because if you do, you risk harm. So where do you find the folks that have the credentials to come out and say what these violent extremists are giving you is inconsistent with what Mohammad would want you to do in these circumstances? There is some reluctance for people to speak out. It cannot be us. It has got to come from those people who have got the credentials to be listened to. The thing that concerns me is, whether anybody has, really sat down and developed a strategic plan about how we go about counteracting this particular issue. For example, the Internet. How do we bring all of our resources to bear? What are all the aspects about it? How do we develop a critical path, with identified tasks and a detailed plan for implementation? You are doing it at West Point. You have got the Defense Department. We have got Homeland Security. Mr. Cilluffo you said that we have only one key person at Homeland Security and two individuals to help them to work on radicialization? I would like the witnesses' comments. Have we really taken this seriously? And in your opinion, what is it that we need to do to bring our resources together to counteract this and make a difference? Mr. Doran. Is that to me? Senator Voinovich. It is to all of you. Mr. Doran. Yes, we are taking it extremely seriously. And it is a centralized effort of the President's Counterterrorism Strategy. The President has also charged Karen Hughes with leading the effort in this regard. And in my Department the seriousness with which we are taking it is evidenced by the creation of my office. Senator Voinovich. Have you ever seen a strategic plan about how we are going to institutionalize this and make a difference? Mr. Doran. With the problem of radical Islam? Senator Voinovich. Yes, the overall issue and its various components, such as dealing with the Internet problem. Mr. Doran. The Internet problem is part of a larger terrorism problem. And so I think it needs to be seen in that regard. We do not regard our answer to the Internet problem as just things that we do on the Internet, but it is our entire policy and the entire freedom agenda. Senator Voinovich. Do you coordinate with Homeland Security? Mr. Doran. Yes, we coordinate with Homeland Security, with the State Department, and all agencies. Senator Voinovich. And you are saying Karen Hughes, at the State Department, is the one in charge, she is the orchestra leader? Mr. Doran. She is the interagency lead on public diplomacy countering extremism. Colonel Felter. Sir, as an academic institution we are a little bit off the hook for this. But I would say we try to support the efforts of our colleagues that are on the hot seat by providing content to what may be the strategic plan might look like. I think it is important, from the academic side if I can speak for that, to identify these opportunities to identify the divisions within the movement. We are limited in what we can do, as Americans and Westerners, to discredit and delegitimize the movement. But we can find voices within the movement that are delegitimizing and discrediting the movement from within. Sometimes these voices are within the jihadis themselves. Sometimes they are on the margins of support for jihadis, within the Salafist community, in the broader Islamist community. From the academic perspective, Senator, I think we can find those dissenting voices in those divisions and empower them, amplify them. Make sure that voices within the movement are getting the air time that they need. Because I think the most damaging thing that can happen to the jihadis and these extremists is to have folks within their movement or slightly on the fringes discredit them, say hey, Muslim on Muslim violence is not good. Attacking the sources of a Nation's wealth, do not want it. These forces are out there. They are out there online and we can find them, as Mr. Cilluffo said, in real time in the chat rooms. Mr. Cilluffo. Senator Voinovich, if I could build on that, because I am very much in line with Colonel Felter's thinking here. I am not sure there is the possibility to have a single agency that should be--that can be held accountable for this issue. Quite honestly, I think government is only part of the solution. But government does have a role in recognizing some of the problems, amplifying the voices that are out there already in a way that does not discredit them. We can look at organized crime models. For example, by that, I look back to the Falconi assassination, the judge in Sicily. Prior to that there had been a number of assassinations. But this was a judge that actually tried to help the Sicilian people. He had a good working relationship with the United States, tried to bring in opportunities that were usurped by the Mafia to provide services. Once he was assassinated, the hearts and minds of the people turned overnight against the Mafia. Abu Nidal organization, this was super terrorist No. 1, we seem to forget. He was the big mover and shaker. He did not get defeated through external means. He was defeated because he started losing trust and confidence in his own minions, not to use--since we used the Mafia, not to use the wrong term, but he whacked them because he lost confidence in his own people. We need to look to other unconventional means to be able to look at that. Now part of that is in the national security environment. The more important set of issues is how do we get the communities that are out there? How do we amplify that? How do we make that message sticky? Part of it is the stickiness of the message. Their message is sticky to a certain constituency. Sometimes the status quo is not sticky. So we have to find new ways to be able to provide stickiness. One of the ironies we are seeing here is that they are revolting, as I mentioned in my oral remarks, part of them do not feel part of their first and second generation, the parents who moved to, whether it is Western Europe. Nor do they feel part of their own country that they sort of have reaffirmed these aberrant attitudes among themselves. Well, education has an important role here. There are people who are out there, their messages are not necessarily getting heard. But I would suggest that we have a lot to learn from other countries. I am impressed with the United Kingdom--they have got their hands full. And maybe their issue is a little more focused. It has got a much stronger Pakistan connection than some of the other areas. And you cannot generalize France, Germany, they all have their own unique attributes. But they proposed an effort called the Radical Middle Way which is a program, I think we heard from them publicly, they were willing to be recognized in our report, as were other Islamic scholars or Sharia law experts, too. I would recommend that is one place to give some thought to. They are putting together a counter radicalization strategy. The British Government is there. Only part of it, though, is in the security services. The other part is in other civil departments within the British Government that are sometimes at odds with one another. But we never have that problem here, do we? Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Let me pick up a little bit on Senator Voinovich's last question because the three of you have laid out a picture here which is serious, that the enemy that attacked us on September 11, 2001, the enemy that we declared war against shortly thereafter, is using the Internet to propagandize, radicalize, recruit, and in some cases actually to operate. I hear one thing clearly, which is that--well, we ought to develop a counter narrative, which is a way to try to compete with the propagandizing radicalizing recruiting part of it. Is the U.S. Government doing enough to counteract the use of the Internet for radicalization and recruiting to the Islamist extremist cause? Mr. Cilluffo. Mr. Cilluffo. Unequivocally, no. Chairman Lieberman. Colonel Felter. Colonel Felter. I think we have a lot of other opportunities that we could take advantage of. Chairman Lieberman. That we are not doing. Mr. Doran. Mr. Doran. I think we are taking it very seriously and our policy is evolving on this. As I said, the creation of my office is one of the signs of the seriousness with which we are taking it. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Doran. If I could say one word about that---- Chairman Lieberman. But you would not say that we are doing enough yet to meet this Internet threat? Mr. Doran. That is a tricky question because what is enough? We will have done enough when al-Qaeda is defeated, but we are taking it extremely seriously. Chairman Lieberman. What I hear is we have a lot more to do. I want to ask you, Mr. Cilluffo, a brief question to lead to this because in your testimony you touched on this. I want you to draw it out for a minute or two. Are we seeing evidence that the Internet is actually accelerating the radicalization process? Is it possible that virtual relationships are replacing human relationships that we once thought were essential to the radicalization process? Mr. Cilluffo. That is an excellent question and we do need to focus a little more on small and large group psychology here in terms of what is happening. But what is unique and we have seen is people on the Internet will say things to one another that they would never say face-to-face. There is a bravado. They are already like-minded in some way that they are drawn to one another. I can get my news RSS if I want to look at it through a political filter or a religious filter, I will always be reaffirmed in that particular perspective that will never have context. We are seeing that same challenge on the Internet and there is that reaffirmation. Now at some point they need to go from the cyber to the physical. Whether it is the Toronto 18 case, which this is our backyard. This was Canada and the United States. It starts on the Internet but then at some point they go and bond in a physical sense. There are also studies in terms of counterintelligence that are interesting to look at where people commit espionage, those that are more into the technology will do things in that sense that they will never do person to person. So I think if you are jogged in the right way, jotted in the right way, and I am sure I have written e-mails I wish I did not and probably would not say person to person. But you do see that. Now the psychology there, I think it is more of a reaffirmation right now. And kiddie porn, I am sorry, but child predators as well. It is not just terrorism. You look at other environments, suicide in Tokyo, the group suicide---- Chairman Lieberman. I want to ask you a question about that and pose it in this way. The child predator is exactly what I had in mind. Let me use the terrorists. If we knew that a group of terrorists was meeting in an apartment or even a mosque, and they were meeting with some regularity, presumably our government would--hopefully, our government would try to either infiltrate that operation with a covert agent or would try to use electronic devices to hear what was going on so that we could stop it before it actually acted. You have testified to us today that there are some operations that are occurring, that is work on operations, actual terrorist operations are occurring over the Internet. What can we do to disrupt them? We talked about the passwords before and are we doing enough? The example that I had in mind as I read your testimony is that we know that there are many police departments around the country today that are having members pose as child predators in chat rooms--excuse me, pose as the potential victims of child predators in chat rooms, to entice the predators into a situation where they can be arrested. Is the U.S. Government doing any of that now? And should we? Mr. Cilluffo, go ahead. Mr. Cilluffo. Mr. Chairman, we actually played with--and my team will probably now turn pale--but I used that exact example as something we might want to consider. Not the government, but if media does it. But it actually may be against the law for media to do that if they actually talk about terrorist activities. Chairman Lieberman. What we are talking about here, and you understand it, is I am using the child predator example. Mr. Cilluffo. We actually looked at it even further. Chairman Lieberman. What I am saying is somebody, an agent of our government would go on one of these Web sites, attempt to be recruited, and then infiltrate the operation as a way to get information before they strike. Mr. Doran, do you have a thought about the wisdom of such action? Mr. Doran. No, I do not because that is an operational issue. Chairman Lieberman. Which would fall under the FBI? Mr. Doran. It is best discussed in a classified setting. Chairman Lieberman. Colonel, do you want to add anything? Colonel Felter. Sir, I echo Mr. Doran's comment. I would hope that we are exploring all opportunities to interdict the terrorists but I imagine that the details of something like this would probably be best talked about in a classified environment. Chairman Lieberman. I do want you to know that after the open session of the hearing is concluded, we are going to have a closed session with a representative of the Director of National Intelligence to ask these questions. You know I, for one, would like those who are operating these terrorist Web sites to worry that we are working very hard at infiltrating them just to create a bit of imbalance and caution. My time is up. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cilluffo, one of the challenges that we face as we deal with such a powerful tool as the Internet is whether or not we understand sufficiently the radicalization process. Do you think that we do understand that? I mean radicalization has gone on for decades with different groups. But the Internet allows radicalization to reach people who in an earlier pre- Internet age never would have been exposed to the message that could radicalize them. Do we understand the process of radicalization sufficiently? Mr. Cilluffo. Not well enough. The limited insights we do have actually come to conclude that there is no single profile. We do need to understand, forgive the bad pun, but what makes them tick. We have come to recognize that there is not a one- size-fits-all. And that is important because if you look at the message itself, it has something that everyone can agree to and it resonates with the individual. But then it is tailored to the very specific constituencies, communities that they are trying to address. And I actually look at the physical threat in this way. It is actually a transnational insurgency, but it has got very local sets of issues, as well, that are being exploited by those that can use it for their aims. So no, we do not. The United Kingdom is a little different from Germany, which is a little different from France, which is very different from the United States. But I think we are getting a better sense of what that is. I do not think we will ever have a cookie-cutter, we know when they do this, this, this, and this, that those are all the indicators that they are going to go blow themselves up. Because I am not sure that they know. And I am not sure they have actually thought it through as much as we always say. But one thing we would like to do and should be doing, as much as we can be interviewing everyone, not just those in the U.S. custody, but others what is that process? And we need to get a better understanding of what that is. Senator Collins. Because there may be certain triggers that we can identify along the spectrum that would help us develop more effective countermeasures. Mr. Cilluffo. That I agree with fully. Senator Collins. Mr. Doran, in addition to having sufficient knowledge and understanding we also need sufficient resources, the point that Senator Voinovich was making. I am struck, as I read about these Web sites and as I look at them, very few of them are in English. Do we have a sufficient number of translators who can help us translate these Web sites, as well as understand the nuances that might be lost even to someone who understands Arabic, for example, but does not have the cultural awareness of why certain images are powerful? Mr. Doran. It was precisely in recognition of that fact that the Department set up, in 2003, the Center for International Issues Research. The Center combines people who are fluent in different Arabic dialects and different languages around the world, but specifically on the Arabic side, people who are fluent in different dialects together with English speaking analysts, to convey to an English-speaking audience some of these nuances of dialect and culture and so on. And they examine the images and they try to understand what it means when somebody in an Iraqi dialect says something as opposed to somebody in a Saudi dialect and so forth. So we are working very hard on that. Senator Collins. Colonel, I am still struck by your idea of trying to get more participation by Americans. We are never going to be able to hire a sufficient number of translators. We obviously could do much better than we are doing now, but it is unlikely that we will ever be able to have a sufficient number of government employees to act as translators. But undoubtedly, in the American population at large, we do have individuals who have the language and cultural knowledge that we so desperately need. Are you aware of any efforts to try to enlist Americans who are not members of the government or affiliated with West Point to assist in this important task? Colonel Felter. Senator, thank you. I have one example that we just sponsored at West Point in our Center. We are having a contest. In sending this contest out, the question is can terrorists be deterred? A big question. We are adding a little prize money and sending it out to schools around the country. I think we are going to tap into some creative expertise that we otherwise would never have thought. I think we have a tremendous amount of expertise in our country that is not being tapped. I think like the jihadis use many people to further the interests of their movement, we can do the same. I think people would get involved given the right opportunity and provided the right mechanism. It does not have to be government. It does not have to be a burden on the taxpayers. I think there are ways to bring more people into the fight, so to speak. We just have to be creative and think a little out of the box. Senator Collins. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. I have been very active over the last several years with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and trying to work with an organization called the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), to elevate the issues of anti-Semitism and xenophobia to a serious undertaking by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. We are finally making some progress. They finally established a core budget after 4 years. One of the things that I discovered as we went through the process is that in other countries it does not seem that these kinds of groups have the access to the Internet that they have here in the United States. Abe Foxman, in his book, ``Never Again,'' outlines specifically what some of these countries are doing. Is there something that we can do that other countries are doing within the framework of our Constitution that could limit Internet use for recruiting and propaganda purposes by extremists here in the United States? And are other countries doing a better job of monitoring what is on the Web and somehow, through technology, making sure that it does not get through? Mr. Cilluffo. I think that is actually a fascinating set of issues. Rather than shutting down and closing, maybe the best solution is greater transparency and openness and further-- first, part of it is making sure they have access to the Internet. But we can also circumvent their filters and get down to individuals and try to change their minds there. So that, to me, should be an important part. And it should not be government. It should be through multicultural, multireligious denominational groups, because a lot of the--because we cannot--I think it should be in a multi-denominational kind of way. That is where I think the British are doing some unique work. And that is this Radical Middle Way where I may not agree with 90 percent of it. But do you know what? That is irrelevant. But it does denounce and it supports and agrees with certain principles that I think we all value. I think that is a way to get around that. Senator Voinovich. So other countries screen out more than what we do. Mr. Cilluffo. And this is a way we can touch them, too, is to use the Internet as an advantage. Senator Voinovich. You are basically saying because of our freedom of speech and so forth that we should let it come through? Mr. Cilluffo. Let us get to them, too. I am actually saying using it in a positive way where more transparency on our side can touch constituencies that maybe are being filtered by their own---- Senator Voinovich. So improve our monitoring? But the fact of the matter is that at this stage of the game we are not doing the job. Mr. Cilluffo. From my perspective, not enough. Senator Voinovich. So there is a wonderful opportunity there to get the best minds together and say how do we counteract this? And then start to have a plan to get that done? Mr. Cilluffo. In both the cyber but also the physical world. Ambassador Korologos, when he was in Belgium, he briefed our group. I thought he had a very neat---- Senator Voinovich. I had dinner with Tom Korologos. He is fantastic. He brought Muslims from the United States to Brussels to talk about how Muslims are treated here in the United States and to generate ideas on how they could do a much better job in Belgium in terms of integration and dialogue. Mr. Cilluffo. It was positive, too. Senator Voinovich. One thing I think that the Committee ought to know is that Senator Akaka and I have been zeroing in on the need for more people becoming fluent in Arabic and Farsi. We have something called the National Virtual Translation Center that is working on this. And in the competitiveness bill the Senate passed last week, we are talking about putting more money into foreign language capabilities. So there is some real concentration on seeing if we cannot get more people to be made available to you, Mr. Doran, and West Point, and so on for foreign language. The real issue is--Mr. Cilluffo maybe you can answer this-- what are we doing to try on the local level to get groups together to start talking with each other within the Muslim community itself and also in terms of the Muslim community with the rest of the community so you develop a dialogue? We had testimony that the FBI is sitting down with various organizations and having them vet their concerns about their civil rights being violated--profiling and all of that. But the next level down is, how do you reach individuals who are really starting to feel like they are becoming isolated. How do we break them out of that, so that we tear down the walls and there is more dialogue going on? Mr. Cilluffo. At the local level, I recently came back from Los Angeles. I think there are some models with Sheriff Baca and Chief Bratton at the Los Angeles Police Department that are well worth the effort and time. These are not things that are instantaneous. If you go in with only a counterterrorism mindset, it is going to create a distrustful environment to begin with. If you come in with a community policing environment where--we had some of this dialogue in our own task force effort where people did come in with totally wrong stereotypes, within the Muslim community, thought that the PATRIOT Act was meant to do specifically this, this, and this, and law enforcement who thought oh, everyone has got to be on the wrong side of the issue, they have to be terrorists themselves. Once you actually sat them around the room, we were able to diffuse myths on both sides. And these were very knowledgeable senior people. I am not talking necessarily the other citizens. So I think that is part of it. I think that Los Angeles has done a very good job there. And I think you have had Sheriff Baca up here to testify recently. It might be worth getting Bill Bratton out, as well. Colonel Felter. Sir, if I could highlight an example from academia again. At West Point we have a course called ``Winning the Peace,'' where the culminating exercise is we take a group of cadets, many of whom will be deployed within months to Iraq and Afghanistan, down to Jersey City where there is a 2-day exercise where they go to a mosque, they meet people of a variety of faiths, Jewish, Christian, Coptic Christian, Muslim, and Hindu. And they do exactly what you are describing, a 2-day dialogue. And it is amazing the stereotypes that are dispelled, both from the cadets who may have stereotypes as they deploy into these areas of similar faiths, and from the representatives of the different faiths that they are talking to soldiers about the U.S. military. I think it is those grassroots efforts that are going to make a difference. Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, to Senator Voinovich. I want to thank the witnesses. You have been extremely helpful. You have educated us in a lot of ways. I want to come back to what Senator Collins noted from your testimony, Colonel Felter, which is it is quite interesting that we have not really developed the body of knowledge and academic interest in these critical subjects in this next period of our history as we did at the outset of the Soviet era and the Cold War. Though it is reassuring that the three of you actually are involved, or have been before you came into the government in such studies, both of Islam and what I have come to call Islamism, by which I mean a political ideology that has grown out of Islam, but is clearly not Islam. So I thank you for that. My conclusion is, and it is hard to reach anything other than this conclusion, that we have a real problem here on both levels, both on the level of the counter narrative to the propaganda and radicalization that the Islamist terrorist Web sites are putting out. And then the second part, which we are going to pursue both in the closed session we are going into now and next week with witnesses from the FBI, as to what we can and are doing to disrupt the more operational use of the Internet for actual terrorist activities. But you have greatly assisted our work here. This Committee is going to stay on this because I think it is critically important to carrying out our responsibility as the Homeland Security Committee. So I thank you. The record of the hearing we will keep open for 10 days in case you have any additional testimony or responses you would like to submit or we may have a couple of more questions we want to give to you. Senator Voinovich. Mr. Chairman, can I just add something? Chairman Lieberman. Please. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. It just came to me. When I was mayor and when I was governor, we had major diversity sessions. In other words, we ran our people through a diversity training because I thought that they would better understand each other, it would help management, and they go back in their respective communities and have--particularly emphasis on African- Americans and Hispanics. But it just hit me, there was not anything at all about the Muslim religion or the Jewish religion or some of the Christians. And I just wonder if the people that do that kind of work have added that as a new dimension. Because we really do not understand each other. I got this book by Esposito on the Muslim religion, a very good book. I bought it for the members of the Foreign Relations Committee and said will you read it? Because, the fact is, we are Members of the Senate. I do not think any of us, a lot of us, understand what the Muslim religion is talking about. There are stereotypes about that. I think that more Americans understand that, I think the better off we are all going to be. I think that maybe that is something that we ought to really give some thought to. Chairman Lieberman. I agree and what the appropriate role for government is here, I think we have to determine. It is both. It is the long rich remarkable history of Islam and it is the shorter, but now very real, history of Islamism, which itself has an intellectual history that you all know about and we have begun--there have been some very, I think, helpful and good TV documentaries on this in the last half year or so. But in a constructive way, person to person, Senator Voinovich, you are absolutely right, that a lot of the work that we have put into race relations in this country and trying to better understand each other has to now go into the same kind of mutual understanding among religious groups. Senator Collins, do you want to say anything in closing? Senator Collins. I am fine, thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks again to the three of you. The hearing is recessed. [Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the Committee was recessed, to reconvene in closed session.] VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO DEFEAT IT ---------- THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2007 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Carper, Collins, and Stevens. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. The hearing will come to order. I thank our witnesses and members of the public for being here. Today's hearing--our fourth on Islamist radicalization within the United States--takes on a special sense of urgency with the arrests Tuesday of six would-be terrorists who are accused of plotting to force their way into Fort Dix with automatic assault rifles to kill as many American soldiers there as possible. According to the FBI's affidavit in the case, the perpetrators thought that the death toll from their action could reach into the hundreds. This was obviously a chilling story. A part of it that I want to focus on at the outset of this hearing is this: These six were not radicalized in faraway extremist madrassas, nor did they receive their weapons or tactical training at al-Qaeda camps in distant mountains. According to the FBI affidavit, the accused New Jersey terrorists were radicalized and planned and trained for their attacks right here in the United States. They were propagandized and instructed with videos either downloaded from the Internet or passed from computer to computer on DVDs. Though there is no evidence at this time of an operational link to al-Qaeda, there quite clearly is an ideological link. Osama bin Laden's radical message reached across cyberspace and traditional borders, and poisoned the hearts and minds of these six men in New Jersey. This is not the first terrorist plot against the United States since September 11, 2001, that has been stopped before it could be carried out, and it most surely will not be the last to be attempted. It is another wake-up call to the American people that there are people in this world who so hate our American way of life that they are intent on wantonly killing Americans. These arrests in New Jersey remind us that the work we have done since September 11, 2001, through this Committee to create the Department of Homeland Security, reform our intelligence agencies, protect our borders, and strengthen our law enforcement agencies' anti-terrorist capabilities has been absolutely necessary. But there is much more we still need to do. The topic of today's hearing is ``Violent Islamist Extremism: Government Efforts to Defeat It.'' It follows on our Committee's earlier hearings into Islamist radicalization within United States, particularly in U.S. prisons and over the Internet. Today we want to ask representatives of Federal Government agencies what they are doing to combat such radicalization at home, and in the case of two of the agencies represented here whose responsibilities are largely abroad, what they are doing to reach out to build bridges into the Muslim world that will present an alternative path to the future than the one the Islamist extremists present. And this is relevant because of the role that foreign Islamist terrorists' thinking has on the radicalization of Americans, as we have seen in the allegations in the New Jersey case. The other thought that struck me in response to what happened in New Jersey is that most of us have taken some comfort since September 11, 2001, from confidence that our best hope for preventing Islamist radicalization and terrorism within America by Americans was America itself--the openness and opportunity, the freedom of speech and religion that our country provides to all who live here. We have thought that the American Muslims were more fully integrated into American society than Muslim communities, for instance, in Europe and therefore that the threat of homegrown Islamist extremism was small or nonexistent here, certainly much less than elsewhere. I personally believe that remains true but, obviously, not for all Muslims in America, as the case of the Fort Dix six shows. These were young men working their way up in America, owning businesses, buying homes, going to college, and raising families. And yet, according to the affidavit filed by the FBI, they became so hostile to this country that welcomed them and gave them opportunities that they planned to attack it and kill a large number of its citizens. This morning we are going to ask our witnesses why they believe this happened, how we can prevent such radicalization here at home, and if we cannot in all cases, how can we stop it before it strikes us. This is an important hearing and painfully timely. I again thank the witnesses for being here, and I look forward to their testimony. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this very timely and important hearing. As you mentioned, earlier this week the plot by the six men in New Jersey who planned to attack Fort Dix and kill hundreds of American soldiers was uncovered. These violent extremists were living within our borders, three of them legally. They appear to have had no direct contact with foreign terrorists, but were inspired and motivated in some measure by violent messages and videos available over the Internet. The New Jersey conspirators serves as a chilling reminder that no matter how secure we make our borders, no matter how effectively we track foreign terrorist groups, America remains exposed to the threat of ``homegrown terrorism.'' The planned attack on Americans at Fort Dix is a stark warning to citizens, to law enforcement officers, and to homeland security and intelligence officials of the urgent need to be alert to this domestic threat. The thwarting of the conspiracy against Fort Dix offers hope, however. A concerned citizen--an alert store clerk--told local police about a video with gunfire and extremist rhetoric. This clerk followed the slogan that one sees in New York City on the subway of ``See something, say something.'' Through the local police partnership with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, this report was passed along to Federal officials, including the FBI. Cooperation among citizens and officials defeated a potentially lethal plot. Today's hearing focuses on Federal efforts to counter this violent extremist ideology. What are we doing to encourage citizens to remain attentive to the threat of homegrown terrorism? What steps can we take to work more closely with peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Americans--the vast majority--to understand the process of radicalization and to counter the violent messages spread by terrorist groups? What are Federal agencies doing to explain to other nations that America wants peace, protects religious freedom, aids its friends, and opposes intolerance and tyranny? Last fall, Senator Voinovich and I expressed our concerns in a letter to the White House in which we inquired about the administration's strategy for confronting the threat of homegrown terrorism, especially by seeking assistance from America's Muslim communities. The challenge is to engage Muslim-American leaders in the battle against an extremism that distorts their faith to justify violence. Their outreach and assistance are essential to counter radical messages that can lead some to adopt a violent ideology. The agencies represented before us today have many worthwhile initiatives underway to combat this violent and hateful movement. These efforts are directed not only at terrorists and their plots, but also at the misperceptions and distortions that terrorists exploit to attract and energize new recruits and donors. There are several such programs: The FBI, the Treasury Department, the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)--all have worthwhile programs and policies. I will not repeat them in my opening statement because we are going to hear about them today. Let me just conclude by saying that I hope that today's hearing will help us better understand what needs to be done and to evaluate the successes of these and other measures and to consider opportunities for new initiatives. Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this very important hearing. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Collins. Senator Stevens, thanks for joining us. We will now go to our witnesses. First, Jeremy Curtin is the Coordinator, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, and obviously we understand that you are focused on public diplomacy abroad, but I know you have been grappling with the central question that we are asking about homegrown radicalization, which is how do we prevent it, and the challenge to prevention here is how do we build bridges to the people who otherwise would become radicalized and perhaps commit terrorist acts. Thanks for being here. We look forward to your testimony now. TESTIMONY OF JEREMY F. CURTIN,\1\ COORDINATOR, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Mr. Curtin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, and Senator Stevens. I appreciate being here and the connection you are making between our work in public diplomacy and national security. Even though we take different perspectives on the challenge, we are very much working towards the same end, to make the United States safer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Curtin appears in the Appendix on page 291. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The mission of my particular bureau, the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) in the State Department, includes countering violent extremist ideology overseas. We have specific programs dedicated to this objective, including a new Counterterrorism Communication Center intended to coordinate interagency public diplomacy activities in this area. I will describe these programs briefly in a moment, but first I would like to put our work in the broader context of public diplomacy because, as Under Secretary Karen Hughes has said, meeting this challenge is not a question of an immediate threat today, but rather it is the work of years and generations. We have to reach out to the next generation and to broader populations overseas that might be vulnerable to extremist lies and messages of hate. Focusing on the longer term, our sister bureau, Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), under Assistant Secretary Dina Powell, has extended our exchange programs and educational programs overseas to younger and more diverse participants in order to reach them earlier than ever before and in order to provide opportunities to people who earlier had been outside the circle of opportunity provided by our exchange programs. ECA is creating a strategic continuum for engaging future leaders and at-risk populations. English ACCESS micro- scholarships and other programs reach people as young as 14 years old, definitely the next generation. On the nearer horizon, Under Secretary Hughes is focusing our information resources on populations and programs important to the ideological struggle. Citizen Dialogues, which is part of a new Strategic Speaker Program, sends teams of American Muslims abroad to engage Muslim communities in other countries. We also send individual speakers to talk about Muslim life in America, as well as about religious freedom, diversity, tolerance, and other core values. IIP's Digital Outreach Team and Arabic Web-based programs have established a U.S. Government presence in Arabic cyberspace, ensuring that we are ``present for the debate,'' as recommended by Ambassador Edward Djerejian. Our Persian- language Web site serves as a virtual embassy to Iran and allows U.S. officials and others to discuss issues like nuclear non-proliferation with the Iranian people. The Public Affairs Bureau's Rapid Response Unit monitors foreign media and provides embassies and military commands with background and talking points. New media hubs in Dubai, Brussels, and London facilitate engagement by U.S. officials with Arabic and other foreign media, especially television, in real time. The Internet is the central focus of my bureau's engagement strategy, as exemplified by our Digital Outreach Team and our Arabic and Persian electronic outreach programs. We have increased our presence on Internet discussion forums and increased our Webchat and Webcast activities. We are exploring the applicability of other new cybertechnologies like the virtual world of Second Life. In cooperation with other agencies, we are monitoring and analyzing Internet activity, especially in Arabic and English, more vigorously than ever before. Even in this high-tech age, our diplomats in the field are the linchpins to everything we do. They know what works locally. They deliver the message to editors and appear on local television. They manage our in-country Web sites, in local languages. And they also manage our exchange and educational programs. Under Secretary Hughes has put together a pilot country initiative, the purpose of which is to bring new resources to our diplomats in the field specifically working on these issues of countering the ideological message. Over the 20 months of Under Secretary Hughes' tenure, we have created or expanded exchanges and information programs. Much of what we have done, we have done out of existing funds, and we are depending heavily on the fiscal year 2007 emergency supplemental appropriation and on increased requests in the FY 2008 budget so we can continue these programs. I want to speak for a moment about our Counterterrorism Communication Center. It is an interagency initiative to develop and deliver effective messages to undermine ideological support for terror and to counter terrorist propaganda. The Center provides leadership and coordination for interagency efforts in the war of ideas and seeks to integrate and enhance the U.S. Government's diverse public diplomacy counterterrorism activities. The Center issued its first product this past weekend--counterpoints to al-Zawahiri's tape which was released on Saturday. All these programs are brought together under the Policy Coordination Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication headed by Under Secretary Hughes. This is a process that involves engagement with many of our partner agencies, USAID in particular, but also DOD and others. Just very briefly, I would say this cooperation and coordination is improving all the time. We have daily discussions, and we have many specific forums for discussion and for action now, which I would be glad to discuss later if you would like. The main point I want to make, in addition to the details of what we do, is that we do have to see it all as part of the whole. Public diplomacy and our information programs must be seen as part of the broader global response to terrorism, which also includes the domestic side as well as our international and global side. Thank you, Senator. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Curtin. We have a lot of questions for you, but that was a good opening statement. Next we are going to hear from Chip Poncy, Director of Strategic Policy, Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Department of Treasury. TESTIMONY OF CHIP PONCY,\1\ DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC POLICY, OFFICE OF TERRORIST FINANCING AND FINANCIAL CRIMES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Mr. Poncy. Chairman Lieberman and Ranking Member Collins, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the efforts of our Department, the Department of the Treasury, to conduct charitable sector outreach and to develop a better understanding of Muslim-American communities. It is also an honor to testify with friends from the FBI, from the Department of State, and from USAID. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Poncy appears in the Appendix on page 295. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since September 11, 2001, and under the direction and leadership of the Administration and the Congress, Treasury has tackled terrorist financing issues together with its partners from these and other agencies across the Administration, as well as with our international counterparts from finance ministries around the world, State and local governments, and the private sector. In 2004, the Congress and the Administration improved Treasury's ability to contribute to the counterterrorist financing campaign through the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). TFI's overarching mission is to: One, safeguard the financial system from illicit finance; and, two, develop and apply economic and financial measures to combat rogue nations, terrorist organizations, weapons of mass destruction proliferators, and other national security threats. It is the only office of its kind in the world. To advance our counterterrorism financing campaign, we must aggressively apply the authorities and the resources that we have to identify, disrupt, and dismantle terrorist organizations and their support networks. A critical component of this campaign is combating terrorist exploitation of charities. These efforts form the basis for our outreach to the charitable sector and to the Muslim-American communities. Our efforts in this regard must begin with a clear understanding that terrorist organizations consistently establish and infiltrate charities to raise funds and support. Charities are an attractive target for terrorist organizations for a variety of reasons, two of which bear emphasis: First, the legitimate activities of charities operated by terrorist organizations, such as establishing and operating schools, religious institutions, and hospitals, create fertile recruitment grounds, allowing terrorists to generate support for their causes, and to propagate violent and extremist ideologies. Second, by providing such genuine relief and development services, these terrorist-related charities engender broader public support or sympathy, thereby making many governments reluctant to take enforcement action against them. The ongoing nature of such terrorist exploitation of charities is well documented and is described in the annex to Treasury's recently revised Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines. Two prominent examples are: The critical role of Hamas charities in building popular support for the Hamas terrorist organization in the Palestinian territories, and Hezbollah's effective and substantial control of the charitable distribution networks in southern Lebanon. In response to this ongoing abuse of charity, TFI has worked with its interagency partners to develop and implement a four-pronged approach that includes: One, more effective oversight; two, preventive measures, such as targeted sanctions; three, comprehensive and sustained outreach; and, four, international engagement. These comprehensive efforts to combat terrorist exploitation are particularly important in countering violent Islamist extremism for two reasons: First, such efforts cut off a primary means of terrorist financing; and second, these efforts prevent terrorist organizations and violent Islamist extremists from leveraging charitable assistance in order to recruit and radicalize additional members and operatives for terrorist organizations. This aggressive strategy also requires sustained outreach to charitable and Muslim communities. Our outreach underscores the four following fundamental points: First, strong U.S. support for charity in Muslim, American, and global societies; two, the ongoing, deliberate, and effective exploitation of charity by terrorist organizations; three, the comprehensive approach that the United States is applying to overcome this exploitation; and, four, the need for strong communication and collaboration between the U.S. Government and the charitable sector to overcome such abuse. Although these four fundamental points may seem somewhat self-evident at first glance, they present substantial challenges upon further examination. One good example can be seen in examining and communicating the nature of terrorist exploitation. Such exploitation may involve the narrow diversion of funds intended to support charitable activities but actually redirected for terrorist purposes. This type of abuse, although difficult to detect, can be easier to understand and accept by many in the charitable and Muslim- American communities as a threat. A more common and difficult problem arises when explaining the broader exploitation and deliberate use of charity that well-organized terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, employ. Often charitable and Muslim communities are not aware of this form of broader exploitation because their charitable funds are actually used for charitable purposes. A fundamental problem arises, however, when a terrorist organization controls and administers such charity in ways that radicalize communities and recruit support for terrorist organizations. This broader form of exploitation is difficult to detect, and it is not broadly understood. Other significant challenges in our outreach involve explaining the actions that we are taking to combat this exploitation, including our use of targeted economic sanctions. As this Committee has noted in prior hearings, sustained outreach is critical to ensure that the rationale for our policies is well understood, is well explained, and that implementation is fair, reasonable, and effective. Treasury engages in such sustained outreach in a variety of ways. A core component of our outreach program involves coordinating with and joining our interagency partners from the FBI, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, to organize and participate in public meetings, discussion groups, and conferences around the country, including in cities such as Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Dearborn, Michigan. These efforts are organized with and directed specifically towards Muslim-American and Arab-American communities to discuss our counterterrorism policies. Another aspect of our outreach involves participating in a similar range of engagements with the charitable sector. Our engagement with the charitable sector is both direct and often in partnership with the IRS, the National Association of State Charities Officials, the National Association of Attorneys General, and the American Bar Association and the American Legal Institute. Through such outreach to Muslim communities in the charitable sector, Treasury has developed numerous working- level relationships to address of particular concern and to develop guidance that these communities can use to promote and to protect their charitable giving. One good example of this can be seen in the development of Treasury's voluntary anti- terrorist financing guidelines. These best practices outline in detail a range of financial, programmatic, organizational, and specific counterterrorist financing practices that charities can employ to protect themselves from terrorist abuse. Treasury's guidelines and other helpful materials are publicly available on TFI's Web site. Treasury, in coordination with its interagency partners, is also discussing with the charitable sector and with Muslim- American communities ways that we can build upon these efforts. A particularly important challenge is developing safe and effective mechanisms for charitable and Muslim communities to deliver assistance to places of evident need but where terrorist groups are known to operate extensively. We will continue to explore ways to help address such particularly challenging circumstances in consultation with the private sector and our interagency partners. In closing, I would like to underscore the importance of maintaining a comprehensive approach to countering violent Islamist extremism. This approach must include the continued and aggressive application of our clinical trial financing authorities. It must also include sustained outreach to the charitable and Muslim communities about the threats we face and the actions we are taking to combat these threats, with the recognition that the moderate Islamic community is our most important asset in these efforts. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues with you. I would also like to publicly thank my family for being here today, and particularly my wife, Jane, for their unwavering personal support. I would be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks a lot, Mr. Poncy. I think you made them all proud, and you helped our work here. I have been very impressed by the work of your office, but I must say I did not appreciate until hearing your testimony the outreach that you are doing to the Muslim community, and I would like to ask you more about that when we get to the questions. Next we have John J. Miller, Assistant Director, Office of Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice. Thank you. You are not the first person I have seen from the Bureau since Tuesday, but the first I have seen in public, so I therefore want to express the gratitude of all of us here, and of, I am sure, the American people, for the extraordinary work that the Bureau did in breaking up the group in New Jersey. TESTIMONY OF JOHN J. MILLER,\1\ ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Mr. Miller. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member Collins, and it is good to see you again. It is very good to have the opportunity to discuss the FBI's Community Outreach Program in my capacity as the Assistant Director for Public Affairs of the FBI. I am happy to join with my colleagues here from the State Department, the Department of Treasury, as well as USAID, to discuss the important efforts of the U.S. Government to strengthen our relationship with segments of the community and to better allow us to recognize and prevent violent and other illegal activities. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Miller appears in the Appendix on page 304. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This past Tuesday afternoon, just as the affidavit and complaint were being unsealed in the Fort Dix terrorist plot case, the FBI's Community Relations Unit initiated a conference call from FBI headquarters to organizations representing American-Arab and American-Muslim communities across the country. We briefed them on the background of the case, as was laid out in the affidavit, which was extraordinarily detailed. I have seen the material outside the affidavit, and most of the case is contained in that public record. We also referred them to places where they could access that public record and study the documents themselves. This kind of spontaneous dialogue, which would have been remarkable, has become part of our set operations plan when there is a breaking event involving terrorism, especially in the context that we know that can bring stress on the Arab- American and Muslim communities. In our discussions, they asked what they could do to be helpful in terms of messaging. They asked, would it be helpful, for instance, if they reiterated from those mainstream and large national groups their prior public messages condemning terrorism and radicalization? We discussed, from our side, about law enforcement's message being measured and deliberate to say the indictment charges a group of individuals, not a religion, not an ethnic group, not a community, but individuals for discrete and specific alleged acts. We do this because we want to be aware of and responsive to any potential backlash in terms of hate crimes, rumors, suspicions directed at that community. It is a key part of our outreach effort, especially when we know there is going to be intensive publicity surrounding those events. Allow me to give you some background on why these conference calls have become a key tool in our efforts. Over the past 2 years, the FBI has worked very hard to strengthen and refocus our community outreach efforts in general, but with some specificity towards the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities. We began these efforts by strengthening our outreach to the leaders of the key national groups. We brought in the key leaders to meet with the Director of the FBI, with the Deputy Director, and with the Office of Public Affairs on a number of occasions over the last 2 years, and we maintain regular contact with those groups. While that gives us a good view of the larger national picture, what it was not giving us from FBI headquarters' standpoint was a grassroots view. So we set out very quickly after developing that to work our way down really to the street level. Every one of the FBI's 56 field offices has a community outreach specialist or someone with that responsibility. What we first tried to do was to marshal those forces and leverage their ability to reach out into the key communities in those cities. We started that by using our secure video teleconferencing system at FBI headquarters, by breaking the community outreach specialists by field division up into regions, and then by engaging them on the teleconferencing to assess what their community outreach efforts and issues were. We also brought in the community leaders from the national groups into a 1-day conference that touched each one of the 56 field offices, and they were able to question the community outreach specialists, the assistant special agents in charge, supervisors of various programs who attended this, to say, ``Tell us about your community. Are you aware of this community here or that community there? Can you outline for us the efforts?'' In some places, they were able to provide real added value. In other places, they were candidly surprised at the level of positive outreach efforts that were going on in the field that they as national members of their groups just were not aware of. So it was a generally positive experience. Last year, nationally the FBI held approximately 85 outreach events in the community. These events are attended in the field by FBI executive management, in most cases the special agent in charge, in other cases the assistant special agent in charge, in some cases the Assistant Director in charge when it comes to large offices. I would like to share a few of the other focused events we have done in different forums. We have tried to set a goal nationally of trying to achieve a 25-percent participation from these communities in our FBI citizens academies. This is a very successful program, one that is geared at bringing the FBI closer to the community and demystifying the FBI for the community through a series of classes that will go in some cases over 8 weeks. We have also found that there are barriers between certain communities where there are serious trust issues to bringing them into an FBI office, getting their names and backgrounds, and engaging them for that long a period of time. So we developed the Community Relations Executive Seminar Training, which is the CREST program, and that is focused on taking the program out, whether it is to a mosque, a meeting hall, a restaurant, a community meeting place, and asking them to help us develop the curriculum. What are the areas they are interested in? Maybe we want to talk about counterterrorism and radicalization. Their concerns may be are their kids safe on the Internet, are their businesses safe from credit card fraud, and are they safe from identity theft? But when we develop the program in partnership, it has a much more user-friendly feel, and I think we are breaking barriers with that program. In New Jersey, the field office based out of Newark developed a Children's Day, which was held at Giants' Stadium, involved recruitment efforts towards making youngsters up through even high school-aged children, largely from the Egyptian community, aware of opportunities in the FBI, even if that is a long look forward for some of them. There were recruiters there. There were FBI agents with FBI gear, even a helicopter. It received very good reviews from the community in terms of opening doors, opening eyes, and very good press coverage from the media. In November, the New York field office did a day-long conference focused on the youth of the Pakistani-American community based in Queens. The event featured speakers from the community, as well as religious leaders, as well as FBI officials, as well as other well-known figures within the Pakistani-American community, including Hamid Mir, a very well- known television journalist from Pakistan, someone who as a journalist has interviewed Osama bin Laden, who is familiar with many of the issues and spoke to some of them. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Miller, I am going to interrupt. What did they talk about? What was the program? Mr. Miller. Well, it was a little cutting edge, Senator, and I say that because they talked about community impressions, about law enforcement and the government. The government talked about its outreach efforts to the community, and it was spirited throughout the day, but I would say useful in that it opened a door of dialogue, particularly into the younger Pakistani-American community that, before the conference, had not yet fully been opened, and that is something that the New York office is trying to continue. It was no small feat. We had to reach into the Finance Division and really cobble together $33,000 to get the hotel space, fly people in, get the right people to get the amount of attention to make it successful. But I think on balance it worked in a very positive way. Far from New York City in a very different environment in Springfield, Illinois, the special agent in charge there, Weysan Dun, did a similar day-long conference, bringing in statewide leaders to a Holiday Inn, serving a Halal meal, and discussing many of the same issues, although with a more mature, older crowd. But the issues fell along some of the same lines. Several divisions have benefited from cultural diversity training given by our partners in the Arab-American Anti- Defamation Committee, including an attorney who is staffed there named Noar Shor, who has been a good friend of the FBI and a good training partner. We have stepped up our outreach to Arab-American media, including appearances by FBI executives on al-Jazeera, Bridges TV, and others. In the big cities, in New York and Los Angeles, particularly in Los Angeles, and especially here in the Washington field office, they have leveraged their relationships with the community by putting together cultural diversity committees from the Arab-American, Sikh, Muslim communities and having monthly meetings, whether there were burning issues or not, to discuss the regular dialogue between them. And I look back on Los Angeles, in particular. They had some very serious issues between the office and the community, and they hashed them out at those meetings. And even though they did not achieve full agreement on every issue every time, the meetings continue. They still come back. The dialogue remains open. And we think that is a key. The Muslim leaders we have been talking to have acknowledged that there is a growing discussion here in the United States about fears of radicalization. From their sense-- and this is based on a recent conference call we had--they do not believe that their community is as ripe for radicalization as many of the observers in this discussion suggest. Additionally, what we got out of that call is there is a good deal of concern among Muslim and Arab-American leaders that the increasing volume of this discussion may have an unintended consequence in that there could be a further backlash of suspicion against the Muslim community, which they feel they have suffered under since September 11, 2001, on some level or another. They emphasize that, in their view, if we overlook the progress we have made, we do so at our own peril. It is hard to say, I will submit right now, whether putting the spotlight on this issue is more helpful or reinforces a negative stereotype. I think the conference calls we have been doing serve as a good example of the frank and candid discussions that we have going on because I do not think we can begin to attack, deal with, or stem the real root problems of radicalization or turning that around if we do not have these clear and open and regular two-way lines of communication between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Treasury, the State Department, and these communities. And our approach has been in the national meetings to bring the other agencies in with us and to attend their meetings so that the government approach to this is a whole government approach, to the extent we can make it that way. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Again, impressive outreach, and I want to ask you a little bit more about what the content of it is and what your goals from it are. The last witness on the panel is Jeffrey J. Grieco, Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs, U.S. Agency for International Development. Thank you for being here, Mr. Grieco. TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY J. GRIECO,\1\ ACTING ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR LEGISLATIVE AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Mr. Grieco. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, and the Committee for inviting me today to testify on behalf of the agency and its work to help counter violent Islamist extremism and our efforts to coordinate our public diplomacy efforts overseas. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Grieco with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 313. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The President's National Security Strategy is emphatic in calling for a more robust role for development in our national security architecture. Development reinforces diplomacy and defense, it reduces the long-term threats to our national security, and it is essential at bringing hope and opportunity to societies that are subject to terrorist subversion and vulnerable to terrorist messaging. To support the strategic policy positions that were set forth by President Bush in both the 2002 and the 2006 National Security Strategies, the Department of State and USAID have collaborated on publication of two Joint Strategic Plans--the 2004 and 2007 editions--which set forth the Secretary's direction and policy priorities for both organizations in the coming years. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes has been tasked by the President with leading the efforts to promote America's values and to confront ideological support for terrorism around the world. She has spoken about her strategy involving a diplomacy of deeds as among the most effective means for defusing the hostile propaganda purveyed by extremist enemies of the United States. As the principal agency of the U.S. Government delivering development assistance and humanitarian aid around the world, USAID performs deeds every day--day in, day out--in over 80 missions around the world. We play a critical role in the diplomacy of deeds that Under Secretary Hughes has talked about. USAID has missions in 27 of the 49 countries that have more than a 50-percent Muslim population. Significantly, approximately 50 percent of our funding goes to predominantly Muslim countries. This agency has extended a lifeline in many cases to countries in the Muslim world that would have been devastated by natural disasters, unprecedented droughts, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Development funds are allocated, as you know, to a wide range of programs that include health, education, job creation, etc. It may come, though, as somewhat of a surprise to learn that most of the employees at USAID are not American citizens. Over 5,000 of our employees are what we term ``Foreign Service Nationals''--that is, they are citizens of the country in which we are operating. They are the backbone of our missions overseas, especially in the Muslim countries, and they are regarded among our richest assets. They often work in some of the most dangerous and forbidding regions--regions that our expatriates cannot go into. Last year, the agency lost two of these heroes. One was assassinated by terrorists in Baghdad for simply working for our USAID mission. The other, Dr. Bijnan Acharya, worked for our USAID/Nepal office and was an environmental officer there for more than a decade. He died last year in a helicopter crash traveling to a site to conduct public diplomacy and outreach on a project in the Himalayas. Many Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs), in the agency go on to serve their countries in important government roles. For example, Dr. Mohammed Mubaid used to work at the USAID mission in West Bank/Gaza doing democracy and governance programming. Today Dr. Mubaid is one of the most prominent leaders in Palestinian civil society. He successfully led the largest ever civil society and democracy-strengthening project ever done in the West Bank and Gaza during a very challenging and politically sensitive time. He established and worked together to strengthen the capacity of over 100 other Palestinian civil society organizations throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Our engagement with FSNs is a capacity-building measure of a wholly different sort. Our hope, though, is that we will not forget the public diplomacy benefit that we gain from them and we will not forget to engage, empower, and support that effort. The Department of State has the lead in America's public diplomacy activities. They have direct authority over the communications vehicles that the United States has at its hands, including the full range of public affairs, international information programs, and educational and cultural programs that Mr. Curtin has summarized. USAID's authorities in this regard are a little more narrowly drawn, but not fully exploited as of yet. Section 641 of the Foreign Assistance Act requires us to clearly identify to foreign audiences where we are working, that the assistance is ``American aid.'' USAID's role in public diplomacy has been focused on telling America's foreign assistance story to the world. However, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, USAID decided to expand its activities under this authorization in several ways: First, we organized and implemented a new comprehensive U.S. branding and marking effort across the foreign assistance landscape. I will be discussing each of these points briefly. Second, we established a professional and trained communications field capacity that we never had before. Third, we developed and produced a targeted public affairs/ information campaign in targeted countries that receive U.S. foreign assistance. Let me first talk about the branding and marking. This has come up even this morning in the Secretary's testimony at the Senate appropriation Committee on Foreign Operations (SACFO) hearing. USAID has established detailed policies and regulations and guidelines for marking and publicizing our assistance to ensure that the U.S. taxpayer receives full credit for the assistance that we are delivering overseas. USAID has established a universal brand that conveys that the assistance is from the American people. To help focus this image abroad, USAID, under the supervision of our administrator, developed a new brand that was updating our traditional USAID logo or seal, and combined it with a new U.S. foreign assistance brand name and a tagline. We have provided a sample of one of our humanitarian flour bags. You can see how the new branding looks. It says in big, bold letters, ``From the American People.'' This campaign included the development of clearer graphic identities and other assistance in terms of graphic standards manuals that helped the field to understand how to implement the changed rules. In January 2006, we revised the foreign assistance regulations at the agency to include new branding and marking requirements for USAID staff and all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive funding either through grants or cooperative agreements. These regulations require that all of our programs, all of our projects, our activities, our public communications, our commodities, whether they be partially or fully funded by a USAID grant or cooperative agreement, must now be marked appropriately overseas. USAID's Food for Peace program, which is our Public Law 480 humanitarian food assistance program that is feeding Darfur and many other regions, also has requirements for marking on all of the food bags and other materials that go in. The regulations require that, to the maximum extent practical, public recognition be given that Title II-funded commodities have been ``provided through the friendship of the American people as food for peace.'' Overall, the agency believes that the marking and branding effort that we have undertaken has finally brought credit in the field, and we see that on our trips for the foreign assistance generosity that the American people have bestowed. Just a quick example is the Pew Research study that was done after the tsunami in Southeast Asia where they stated that the U.S. tsunami aid effort was widely hailed there, with over 79 percent of Indonesians saying they have a more favorable view of the United States now as a result of the relief efforts and having seen the relief efforts on television and in other ways. Second, talking about USAID's new field capacity, in 2004, in order to improve the public knowledge of our foreign assistance in developing countries, we established new communications guidelines for the agency and began building a network of over 100 communications specialists located at each of our missions around the world. Their job is to help promote the foreign assistance message abroad and to serve as a key humanitarian and development assistance content provider to the Department of State. These specialists are complementary to the State Department's public affairs officers in the field. They oversee the agency's branding and marking efforts; they provide vital coordination with the U.S. Embassy Public Affairs offices; they provide content for the Ambassador and other VIP representatives' speeches on various foreign assistance matters; and, more importantly, they provide well-written and understandable local language support and cultural support for our activities. Third, our targeted public affairs campaigns. Another pilot activity that was funded by USAID headquarters was conducted by our mission in the West Bank and Gaza. In late 2004, we concluded that efforts to increase awareness among Palestinians of U.S. foreign assistance could potentially achieve a measurable, positive change in the awareness of the populations toward the United States. In November 2004, our research showed that only 5 percent of Palestinians were even aware that the American people provided assistance to the Palestinian people. USAID designed a first-ever comprehensive public affairs campaign. We designed a combination of television, radio, print, and billboard advertising. The campaign was designed to highlight and explain how American assistance was provided to the Palestinian people and to tie that assistance directly to a core theme of the focus groups that we ran in advance of the campaign. The tag lines that we had in this West Bank/Gaza campaign read, ``From One Human Being to Another: U.S. Aid From the American People.'' In April and May 2005, the campaign was launched. The public opinion research we conducted shortly thereafter by an independent public opinion polling agency demonstrated the effectiveness of this kind of campaign. Over 46 percent of the Palestinians that were surveyed said they saw the advertising; 54 percent of the Palestinians surveyed confirmed they now had awareness of contributions of the United States to the well- being of their people and to the development of the West Bank and Gaza; 33 percent could now identify--which is a pretty big number--that the United States was now their largest donor for West Bank and Gaza affairs; this is also a very big number for us: 61 percent of the respondents indicated that their views toward the American people had become more positive because of the campaign. We have undertaken similar pilot campaigns now. We funded a pilot activity in Indonesia following the tsunami. In Jordan, we did a modest public affairs campaign using print ads and bulk e-mails in 2006 and 2007, and that resulted in over half of Jordanians polled showing that they were aware that the United States was the largest provider. That is the largest recognition level of any bilateral donor. With these modest public affairs pilot projects overseas, we have shown at the agency than you can have United States aid efforts have a meaningful impact on public opinion, both towards the U.S. Government and towards the American people. What has proved successful for us is: Using generally accepted commercial advertising practices, which in the government sometimes may be difficult; tailoring our public affairs campaigns to individual audiences with carefully tested messages; using local firms to do the production and the advertising who know the local environment and know the cultural issues involved; and, lastly, using standard private sector practices of monitoring, polling, and focus group follow-up. In closing, Under Secretary Karen Hughes likes to say that she views her job every day as ``waging peace.'' The word ``waging'' is used deliberately, she says, because she believes we have to be very intentional about what we are doing in our public diplomacy activities. I hope this testimony makes clear that USAID is waging peace every day in the field and that we are taking very proactive steps to brand, mark, communicate, and inform our audiences about how our humanitarian and our development assistance from the American people is helping them every day. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Grieco. That was very interesting. Obviously, foreign aid programs begin for a host of reasons, but insofar as American credibility and the attitude toward America in foreign countries, particularly in this case predominantly Arab or Muslim countries, the better the attitude is toward us, presumably the less appeal there will be for radicalization. So I am really intrigued and encouraged that you have done some before-and-after surveying and that you find that the branding and marketing you have done has worked. I appreciate that. Mr. Curtin, USAID is out there in the way described trying to do good, but also to create a more positive attitude generally toward America. How do we confront the competitive challenge of al-Qaeda and the other Islamist extremists? At the same time that this general attempt by the United States to help develop more positive feelings toward us is going on, how do we try to intervene in the negative campaign to poison the minds of people in the Islamic world against the United States and against everybody who does not follow their extreme views? Mr. Curtin. In the public diplomacy context, the first step we try to take is to offer an alternative vision, and some of that is the sort of thing that Mr. Grieco was talking about. We offer them opportunities that they might not have in their lives to focus on the future instead of a message of death and hatred. Chairman Lieberman. How do you do that? Mr. Curtin. Well, through offering education programs, through programs like the English teaching programs which the State Department sponsors, training programs that USAID fosters through some of our NGO partners, but also basic things like digging wells. I mean, Mr. Grieco digs the wells and we talk about them. But it is not only a matter of image. It is not only a matter of making sure people know what we are doing, although that is an important part of it, but it is actually putting in place things that can change people's lives. The terrorists' messages per se, which tend to be introduced in a small way through the Internet or otherwise and then spread through more traditional media, especially television, we are trying to confront directly through some of our programs like our Digital Outreach Team, which---- Chairman Lieberman. In those same media? Mr. Curtin. Not in the extremist media, but in, for lack of a better term, mainstream Arabic media--Internet, television. One of the things Under Secretary Hughes has done is to insist that our people are out there appearing on television, including in Arabic. Ambassador Djerejian made the point in the study about public diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world. The first thing is to be in the conversation. If you are not there, you cannot have an effect. So we are there now, I would say, in a way that we have never been before. But we also have to be engaged across the board. There are no single answers. There is broadcasting, there is Internet, which is our area. We send speakers out. We send Muslim Americans out. Chairman Lieberman. Do you reach out into the mosques, which we know in some cases are centers of the radicalization? Mr. Curtin. We do. We do not send people to preach. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Curtin. But we send Muslim Americans to go into the mosque communities and engage with Muslims overseas. That approach comes from a very specific incident that Under Secretary Hughes encountered in Germany with a Turkish woman. Under Secretary Hughes asked her, ``Can I come and visit your community?'' And this woman said, ``No. We don't invite our government there. Why would we invite an American Government official?'' ``Well, what if we sent Muslim-American citizens?'' And the Turkish woman said, ``Yes, that person would be welcome.'' And we do that. We do that on a fairly broad scale. It is not to say this is right, this is wrong, but to tell people about America so that we can overcome some of the negative images they are painting. Chairman Lieberman. Now, you have a harder job doing what Mr. Grieco did or USAID does with polling before and after. But how do you determine whether these programs are working? Mr. Curtin. We have taken seriously the need for evaluation. In our exchange programs in particular, we have what I think is a good process for measuring the effects of exchange and educational programs and it has been going on for a couple of years. It is through interviews before, during, after; interviews with groups that are not participating so we have a standard. And with our OMB process, which requires us to have evaluation programs, that specific evaluation process has been judged very highly, among the top in the government. We are trying to develop now ways to measure, in similar fashion, our information programs. We are doing studies for American Corners, which is one of our programs. We are going to undertake them with our hard language Web sites. Honestly, we are less well along in that process than we have been in other areas, but we do take it serious, and we are applying expertise in that area. We have a separate office now for public diplomacy evaluation. I have an office in my bureau that does it too. Chairman Lieberman. I happened to have a meeting this morning with a man--not an American--who has been active in international efforts to combat terrorism, and I asked him, ``Just step back globally, how do you think we are doing?'' And he said, ``I think we are doing much better at protecting the borders, at coordinating international intelligence, at some of the homeland security measures that have been taken.'' He said, ``But what we have not figured out yet how to do is public diplomacy.'' And he acknowledged that it is a totally different realm than the other work. How would you respond to that? Mr. Curtin. I would never want to say we are satisfied, but I think, in fact, that we have put into place a number of very strong and meaningful programs on the information side, the education side, and exchanges and otherwise. It is a new ball game. Even though September 11, 2001, was 6 years ago, we are playing on a very different field from the Cold War. It is a much more competitive international information environment. If we look at the polls, we are not doing very well at all, but I think we have to take those snapshots in time and also snapshots in place. And we take them seriously, but I do not think it is a good measure of how well we are doing. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Thank you. My time is up on this round. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you. Mr. Poncy, I was particularly interested in your testimony about the use of certain Islamic charities as conduits for terrorism financing. Back in 2003 and 2004, I chaired a series of hearings looking at terrorism financing, and I remember in particular a report from the Council on Foreign Relations that found that individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia were the most important source of funds for al-Qaeda. I was struck, as I listened to your testimony, by the difficulty in dealing with Islamic charities which may have a dual purpose. In other words, some of these charities may well be conduits for charitable contributions and for good works, and yet may also be a source of funding for terrorists' activities. And that dual purpose makes it very difficult to counter the terrorism financing aspects because these charities at the same time are doing some good works for the Muslim community. Could you talk a little more about how you are countering donations to charities that may be doing good, legitimate charitable works at the same time they are supporting terrorist attacks? Mr. Poncy. Thank you, Senator. I think you have put your finger on the most challenging aspect of this component of our terrorist financing strategy, which is the charities that we are talking about that are engaged in terrorist financing are not charities that live in a black-and-white universe. Out of the 44 charities that we have designated since September 11, 2001, on account of terrorist financing activity, I am not familiar with a single charity out of that group that was actually not engaged in some charitable assistance. So if we look at---- Chairman Lieberman. You have designated them as supporting terrorist activities? Mr. Poncy. Exactly. We have subjected 44 different charitable organizations to sanction under our Executive Order 13224, but none of these charities was exclusively engaged in terrorist financing activity. Every one of these was engaged also in legitimate charitable assistance, and that is exactly the difficulty that we are facing. So, again, I think the way that we can combat this most effectively is first by education, explaining to the donor communities, to the charitable communities, and to the Muslim- American communities that this is the nature of the problem we face. And, therefore, if you see the U.S. Government and its allies taking steps to shut down these charities, then a defense cannot be, well, these charities actually were engaged in some charitable assistance, because that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not these charities are, in fact, engaging in terrorist support. They may be doing a number of other things, some of which may be laudable. But the view that we have always taken is that if any aspect of a charity's organization is engaged in terrorist support, then the charitable organization is a problem. Now, it does raise operational issues as to whether or not we can look at minimizing collateral damage when we look at shutting down a charity that may be engaged in legitimate work in addition to terrorist financing support, and that is a very difficult challenge. I would say that our approach so far has been to look behind the charity, at the individuals in addition to the organization, and at those branches of international organizations that may be engaged in this and to try to get an analysis that allows us to distinguish potentially those elements that may not be engaged versus those that are engaged. And in some instances, for example, we have been able to designate an entire global network of charities. Al-Haramain is a good example. In other instances, we have only gone after certain branches. IIR is an example of that. So it will just depend on where we see the abuse happening, but going back to the outreach to the sector, it has to start with a fundamental recognition of the problem, which is the complicated mix that you have alluded to, rather than the unfortunate fiction that there are charities that pretend to be charities and are not, and there are charities that actually just do charitable work. Senator Collins. And, in fact, the vast majority of the ones that are problems are doing both. Mr. Poncy. Exactly. Senator Collins. And I do think that makes this so challenging, and that is what our hearing showed when we had this series of hearings in 2003 and 2004. And it sounds like the situation is much the same now. If you move to close down a branch of a charity because you know that it is a conduit to terrorists and is providing financing, and yet in the community, the local community's eyes, that charity is doing all good works, providing a community center, programming, a health clinic, I think that makes the case for why outreach and having a relationship with the community is absolutely vital, because otherwise all you are going to get is suspicion about the actions our government is taking and a feeling that something good is being taken away from the community rather than, in fact, that it is something that is a source of evil. Mr. Curtin, you mentioned in your testimony the Digital Outreach Team that is engaged in Arabic language forums and chat rooms, and that certainly is very helpful. The previous hearing we held looking at the use of the Internet was very illuminating as far as what kinds of radical messages you could access on the Internet, including--and I just found this horrifying--explicit and accurate instructions on how to shoot down a helicopter. I am, however, concerned about the level of resources that we have dedicated to that task of the Digital Outreach Team. How many people do you actually have engaged in this? Mr. Curtin. The team itself has three people on it. It is brand new. It is backed up by our broader Arabic team and we are expanding it now, practically as I speak, to 10 people. But we are also--through this Counterterrorism Communication Center which I mentioned, of which the Digital Outreach Team will be part--connecting to DOD in a more operational way so we will be able to draw on their resources. But it is a very small operation. We want to expand it more. We hope we will be able to do that through the supplemental appropriations, first of all. But it is an effort to get inside people's heads. Instead of just spouting--not that we spout talking points--but instead of just making speeches to them, we will get into conversations and rebut what they are talking about. I am optimistic that it will have an impact over time. We are starting and I think it is going to make a difference over time. Senator Collins. Thank you. I think that is absolutely critical, and it is an effort that we should fully fund and not shortchange. I know initially you had only two people involved. I am glad it is up to three. Mr. Curtin. Well, there are two analysts, but it is run by a Foreign Service Officer who knows the policy and is very careful about what we are saying, even though we say it more informally than we normally would. Senator Collins. It is just if you look at those sites and you look at the prevalence of the Internet in our society today, and that it is a means of radicalization and recruitment, that does not involve, as the Chairman said, having to go to Pakistan for training or even face-to-face contact at all, it seems that it would be foolhardy for us not to invest in countermeasures, and that is certainly an important one. Mr. Curtin. If I might just say, what we are doing is one level and it is a public diplomacy response. There are other agencies that are very heavily involved in these issues. Senator Collins. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. Mr. Poncy, let me ask you a few follow-up questions. Of the 44 charities that the Federal Government has sanctioned since September 11, 2001, because they are, to some extent, involved in terrorist financing, are any of them effectively subdivisions or wholly owned subsidiaries of a terrorist organization abroad? Mr. Poncy. The relationship between the charities and the terrorist organizations is very much fact specific, but the general theme that we have seen is that these charities operate as an essential element of the organization. One way to look at this historically that some countries have adopted and that we have resisted is to look at terrorist organizations and to try to distinguish--break the organization down into different components: A political party, a militant wing, a social services and charitable organization component. And we have resisted that, and we have very strongly advocated to our partners overseas that that sort of a division with terrorist organizations does not work for a couple of reasons. The fact that the money is fungible to the extent that you are giving money for the social welfare services of a terrorist organization, it frees up money to build bombs and conduct militant activity. There is also a level of control with respect to these organizations, and, again, it will differ by organization and by the facts of particular charities. But the level of control that a terrorist organization exerts across all elements of its operations, including its charitable operations. So those are the facts that we look at. Chairman Lieberman. Right. So I assume, therefore, that of the charities that you have closed, certain ones had a unique and close relationship to, for instance, Hezbollah or Hamas. Mr. Poncy. Absolutely. Chairman Lieberman. So these are not charities that started out as legitimate charities and then just started inadvertently to contribute to terrorist-related organizations, correct? Mr. Poncy. The fact patterns are most often where terrorist organizations actually establish these charities. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Poncy. That does not always happen. Sometimes you can see a charity or a particular branch become infiltrated through management---- Chairman Lieberman. Right. Yes, that is very important. And, obviously, they are playing on the good will or ethnic identity of people that they are trying to raise money from. But the connection, therefore, between the local charities, American-based charities, and foreign terrorist groups is knowing. I mean, they are not being duped by, for example, Hamas or Hezbollah. They intend to support them. Correct? Mr. Poncy. That is certainly our view of it. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Let me just ask you very briefly about your outreach to the American-Muslim, and American-Arab communities? What is the purpose of it? Is it to explain why you have sanctioned the 44 organizations? Is it to say that we think these 44 are up to a lot of no good but there are others, obviously, in your community that are OK and so--we know that giving charity is one of the great sort of religious mandates of Islam--if you want to fulfill that religious responsibility, there are a lot better ways to do it? Or is it to gain information that will help you determine whether to take action? Mr. Poncy. The way that we have conducted all of our outreach I think is under an umbrella, a very broad objective, which would be to assimilate, to integrate the Islamic community, the Arab-American community into American society, into the global economy, not just through our engagement on terrorist financing issues, but more broadly. There are other elements of the Treasury Department that are engaged in economic dialogue on financial markets, etc., that attempt to integrate more than anything. Our engagement on the terrorist financing issues, it really goes back to the four fundamental points that we consistently find are not evident out in these Islamic, Muslim-American communities. One, the fact that the U.S. Government does support charity, as self-evident as that seems, I think the numbers from Mr. Grieco, my colleague over at AID, are telling. There are, in my view, a surprising number of people that are not aware that the U.S. Government, in addition to the American people, are among the most generous sources of charity in the world. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Poncy. So just that is a fundamental message that we take to the community. Second, the nature of the abuse that we have been talking about, what Senator Collins was referencing in terms of the mixed bag that we find in these charities, that is often a surprise. There is an assumption that there is this black-and- white picture, and it never is black and white. And that does help with the third point, which is to explain why the U.S. Government acts the way we do when we see these problems and the fact that if a charity is engaged in legitimate services in addition to financing terrorism, that is not a defense. That also can be surprising to the broader community. And then, last, the very good work that we can do if we are working together, and I think that the guidance that we have put together from the Treasury Department with the Muslim- American community and the charitable sector about what are the steps they can take to avoid this typology from happening to them, to protect their operations, not only with their own organizations but, frankly, with their overseas recipients, and what should they be looking for, what kind of questions should they be asking, that kind of information is now available through our guidance that we were not able to put together but for working closely with the charitable sector and the community. So those four elements would be really the touchstone of our outreach. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Miller, let me ask you a similar question. Obviously, since September 11, 2001, was one of the main missions of the FBI--and we have invested a lot of money in beefing up your ability to do this--has been to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, here in the United States particularly. Can you explain for us how the Bureau's outreach programs to the American-Arab and American-Muslim communities support that mission? And you have described a lot of the context, which has been quite impressive. But what is the purpose? Is it to, in the most direct law enforcement sense, gain information, and even to engage informants? Is it to just have an understanding of what we are about, that the government is not anti-Muslim, it is anti-Islamist terrorists? Tell me what the purpose is and how it relates to the mission? Mr. Miller. It is to try and open the doors to the FBI to a community where, as I have indicated--and I think we all understand--there is a certain level of suspicion from the fallout in the post-September 11, 2001, world. I think I would also separate those two issues. Chairman Lieberman. Which two? Mr. Miller. When you mix community outreach with informant development, you almost doom both to failure. There are people at the FBI who are very skilled at developing sources and informants, sources in their communities of interest, whether it is Chinese espionage, organized crime, or terrorism, informants as they develop through their cases. And they will continue to do that. Community outreach is to develop better citizens who have a confidence in their government, and particularly their FBI. The corollary I would use is if a person is walking down the street and they see two guys in hooded sweatshirts running out of a bank with a big bag with money signs on it and one is stuffing a gun in his pants and jumps into a car and gets away, we all expect that person to walk to the phone on the corner and call 911. One of the difficulties we have in engaging some communities is when they are more suspicious of or afraid of the FBI or their government than they are of what they are seeing in the community, we do not have that dialogue. We are pushing very hard to try and allay those suspicions, to try and relax those tensions by becoming more transparent more accessible, and accessing the community on a more grassroots level, not just the national groups here in Washington--that is very helpful--but in the street. So when somebody turns to somebody in the community and says, ``I think I am concerned about something, and I want to tell somebody, but I am afraid to just call up. Do you know somebody?'' That person they turn to might have been in the CREST program, a citizens academy, and now have a face and a name at the FBI that they have a bond of trust with, some confidence in that they will go to. That is part of the goal of this program. Chairman Lieberman. Very interesting. I am just going to ask Senator Collins' indulgence to ask one more related question, which is, as I listen to your testimony, it is hard not to draw the conclusion, which probably is surprising to most people, that it is the FBI that has the most extensive contact of any agency in the Federal Government with the American-Arab and American-Muslim communities. Do you think that is right? I cannot think of another offhand. Mr. Miller. I would say that we are operating at a certain advantage because, among agencies at this table and other agencies now, we have 56 field offices and 104 resident agencies (RAs). Chairman Lieberman. Yes, exactly. Right. Mr. Miller. Over the last 2 years, seeking to leverage those field components into this discussion, to activate them, to monitor them, to push them, I think we have positioned ourselves that way. But I have to say quickly after that, when we go to a community meeting, a town hall event, the questions that come back at us come from communities that look at the government as a monolith. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Miller. And Steve Tidwell, our Assistant Director in charge of the Los Angeles office, only half-jokingly has a sign for community meetings that says, ``I don't do foreign policy.'' Eventually, the questions go beyond FBI issues into immigration issues, into Treasury issues, State Department issues, and then into foreign policy. They want the FBI official there as a U.S. Government official to defend our policies with Israel and answer to those concerns for that community. So what we have sought to do--and Mr. Poncy is nodding because I have pulled him into this, and he has pulled me into Treasury's--is when we hold these meetings, even if they are not in Washington, we try to get the component agencies to get somebody to go out and be at the big long table at the front of the room. So rather than blow off those questions by saying, ``Well, that is not an FBI issue,'' we are able to say, ``Well, we have the right person here.'' And that is a further part of that development of opening channels to the government from people that we are going to want to hear from. Chairman Lieberman. Ideally, the hope would be that with this kind of outreach--and maybe it should be augmented by other groups in building these bridges, you may actually be doing something to reduce the possibility that the people in that community will become radicalized and fall into the path that these six in New Jersey apparently did. I am going to stop there and yield to Senator Collins, and you have a lot of time now. It is part of a balance-of-payments system. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually just have one final question that I want to raise with Mr. Miller, and it follows along with the conversation that you just had with our Chairman. We have heard of the great success that the Los Angeles FBI field office has had with developing relationships with Muslim and Arab communities in the region. And you mentioned that you have 56 offices; each of them is required to establish outreach programs. Give us your assessment of that effort nationwide. It clearly is going well in L.A. What about in other communities with large Muslim populations, such as Detroit, for example? Mr. Miller. I think the Detroit office--and that is an obvious one for the reasons you point out--even before September 11, 2001, had that level of engagement and has a very good relationship. Dan Roberts, the former SAC, or special agent in charge, of the Detroit office, has been very engaged. And even to the extent in charity cases where they have had to execute search warrants, they have brought in community leaders and briefed them very quickly, and they have kind of graded their procedures in such a way to maintain community relations when they do enforcement actions out of sensitivity. I think when you look at 56 field offices or 104 RAs, you are going to see some have a large community, some have a small community. What we found was, because the community was off to itself and fairly quiet, some were not aware of their community before we engaged them on the video teleconferences with the community leaders, and they said, ``We do not really have any issues here.'' And one of the community leaders said, ``Well, do you know about this neighborhood? It is just 10 miles outside the city, but it is part of your area.'' So we created that awareness or stimulated that awareness and engaged. In the smaller offices, we urged them to use the citizens academy because it is a good way to bring people in and then to get them to go forth and share that message. In the larger offices, we asked them to step up to something much closer to what L.A. and Washington do with the advisory boards and the regular meetings with the same individuals. Senator Collins. Have these outreach efforts had an impact on recruitment, since obviously the Bureau does not have as many Arabic speakers or Muslim field agents as you would like? Mr. Miller. I do not think we can see the full effects of it because we have only nationally realigned and focused this really in the last just under 2 years, starting in December 2005. But I think when you see the recruitment of our linguists in the Arabic languages and the other dialects, it has been going very well and continues; 95 percent of them are native speakers, not people who learned the language to get a job. That is working. We still have a lot of work to do on the special agent side of that, but I think that these programs as they go forward are making the FBI more attractive to those people who may start off with a town hall meeting, maybe attend a CREST, end up in a citizens academy, and leave saying, ``I should be with these people.'' Senator Collins. Thank you, and let me just end my questions by echoing Senator Lieberman's praise of the Bureau. The case at Fort Dix really is heartening because it was an alert, average citizen who brought the information to the attention of local law enforcement, which in turn turned it over to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. It was our hope when we created or encouraged the creation of the Joint Terrorism Task Force that we would have that kind of cooperation and synergies among all levels of government, and in this case it appears to truly have happened. And I really believe that is key to our successful efforts in dealing with homegrown terrorism as well. Mr. Miller. I thank you for that, Senator, and if you will allow me, I would like to add that we have seen that. We have seen in the Toledo case, a member of the community came forward. We have seen in the Miami case, it was a member of the community, and specifically a member of the Muslim community who came forward, even though the group behind the plot was not a Muslim group. And we see that again here. So we know those efforts are having some effect. Senator Collins. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Collins. Mr. Miller, let me build on this. I want to ask you whether there are any conclusions we can draw from the Fort Dix case or other information you have about the trend lines in homegrown terrorism. And I come back to what I said in my opening statement, which I think is still largely true from my experience, that America's best defense to terrorism by Americans is America. We were shaken by the fact that the subway bombings in London, of course, were carried out by British--a lot of them British citizens, certainly long-time residents, who turned against the government, and the facile American response is, ``Well, they have never been allowed to really integrate into British society, but that is different here.'' Yet we saw in this case that these were immigrants to the country, three here illegally, three not, who were seen ostensibly to be making their way up in America and yet got radicalized and were allegedly planning this terrorist act. From the large interaction that the Bureau has with the American-Arab and American-Muslim communities, should we expect more homegrown terrorist acts? Mr. Miller. I think if you look at the cases of the last couple of years, let's say starting on August 31, 2005, with the Torrance case, followed by the case in Toledo, followed by the case in Miami, up through the case in Atlanta where you had the connections between those two operators and the group in Canada, and then others in London and in Denmark, through the case in mid-December with Derrick Shareef, in Chicago, planning the hand-grenade bombings of the mall, you see a certain tempo of activity, of U.S.-based, self-initiating, self-radicalizing, self-financing groups coming together. Now, when you look at them within the context of the larger Muslim population, there is a very few number of individuals. So the questions that we ask are--and now we ask them again and in a different way with the Fort Dix case--where did they become radicalized, how did they become radicalized. If you go back to the incident you cited, the July 7, 2005 bombings, the House of Commons report concluded, after a pretty good look at the circumstances of the individuals, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, some of them second-generation British citizens---- Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Miller [continuing]. That there was no accurate profile across the cases that said that this is the type of person or the single set of dynamics that will cause radicalization. If you pull up the Torrance case as an example, what you see is a mix. You have a piece of prison radicalization involving Kevin Lamar James and prisonmate, Levar Haney Washington, who then gets out of jail. But when he gets out of jail, he does not recruit fellow criminals. He goes to people, one of whom is already a Muslim, the other of whom is a fairly recent convert, but both of whom have no predisposition towards criminal activity, and he takes them through a path of radicalization. So you see a mix there of several different themes. We are looking hard at this. We are working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and the larger intelligence community and the Director of National Intelligence to try and figure out if there are a set of models or anything that will tell us better where to lay those tripwires to look for people who are going over the line from radical ideas, which is legal in a free society, and encouraged, to going operational and finding where to set those tripwires has been a daunting and amorphous task. Chairman Lieberman. Well, you anticipated exactly the question I was going to ask, and you are absolutely right, it is very important to say it, always, that we are talking about a very small number of people, a very small percentage of the American-Arab or American-Muslim communities. But obviously, as we found on September 11, 2001, it only took 19 people, a small number of people, to wreak havoc on our country and really change our sense of ourselves for a long time. And I suppose ideally--I am thinking of this not from a law enforcement point of view, because I think you have got a lot set up now to deal with that, as the string of cases you have broken reveals, but in the ideal world you would be able to follow the profile and do something to prevent the radicalization of those individuals, almost like the work that is being done in medical science to try to find a mutated gene that will create cancer and get in there and affect that gene before it does. Mr. Miller. Well, let me first say, Mr. Chairman, we are not there yet. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Miller. But we have started down that path. I think as Mr. Curtin said, part of it is a competing message. That is probably the bulwark behind our community outreach program. Part of the competing message is that the FBI is there for the community and should be considered with confidence and trust. That involves transparency of the FBI. Keeping that separate from source development, I think, as we discussed, is key also. But the engagement on the community level in the towns I think is for the FBI's standpoint as a law enforcement organization probably as close as we will get to that while we continue to look at the model. Chairman Lieberman. Just a few more questions. One of the responsibilities of this Committee is governmental organization, so I need to ask whether you, Mr. Miller, and you, Mr. Poncy, coordinate what you are doing in any way. Mr. Miller. It is a closely coordinated conspiracy. [Laughter.] Chairman Lieberman. Good. In the public interest. Mr. Miller. I am sure that Mr. Poncy is tired of being hauled over to the FBI. We do not have any short meetings on this subject. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Miller. Our last engagement, we had Mr. Poncy and then people from the Terrorist Screening Center and DHS sit through the meeting with the community leaders and the director, which takes a little more than an hour, and then adjourn to a rest- of-the-day meeting where we identified the action items. We have a habit in government, Mr. Chairman, of having meetings, writing down lists, and then going away, and the next meeting is in 6 months. Chairman Lieberman. Yes, I have noticed that. Mr. Miller. So we wanted to take action items out of that room and then sit down with the other component agencies and work through them. The privacy officer from the Terrorist Screening Center stayed through the day. The deputy there stayed through half the day but had to leave for another meeting. Mr. Poncy was there and stayed until the last bitter question and came up with a list of things that, come the next meeting--and this is a two-way street. When we come up with action items for them, we will go back into the community and try to float this balloon, ask these questions, help us on recruiting and so on, think of a program. Would it be an FBI camp for kids, more engagement with an organization like the Boy Scouts or a youth organization? When we come back together, we are all expected to have the answers to that. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Curtin and Mr. Grieco, I assume that the key person in the Federal Government for outreach outside of the United States, to the Arab and Muslim world is Under Secretary Hughes. Mr. Curtin. That is right, on the public diplomacy side, and our embassies are engaged in many different ways, including with USAID, with Muslim communities or communities all around the world, including countries with significant Muslim population, but it is the Under Secretary. Chairman Lieberman. Do you all interact, that is, those of you who are involved in public diplomacy abroad and people like Mr. Miller and Mr. Poncy who are outreaching to the Arab- American and American-Muslim community here? Mr. Curtin. The State Department has not been part of the same formal process that they are talking about. We do talk to one another on particular issues. We do have outreach to the American-Muslim communities to hear what they are thinking about. Chairman Lieberman. Through your office and Under Secretary Hughes? Mr. Curtin. Through Under Secretary Hughes, and my office does in order to help us--get them to help us to engage Muslim communities overseas. So we are not formally part of their process, but we do talk to one another, in fact. Chairman Lieberman. Based on your experience abroad--and I know these are two very different worlds, the world of the American-Arab and American-Muslim community and the world of the international Muslim community. But do you have any counsel to give your colleagues or to us about what the Federal Government can wisely do to try to prevent more radicalization within the American-Muslim community? Mr. Curtin. I do not really have certainly counsel to offer this esteemed group and my colleagues. But one thing I would say, for us in public diplomacy the key word has always been ``engagement.'' And it seems to me that what we see with the Treasury and the FBI is centered on engagement, so that we know whom we are dealing with, we know what they are thinking about, we know what their concerns are, and we know what their perspective is. And overseas it is critical that we know what the people in different countries are thinking about and how they are looking at us because, as you know, it is very different. People in different countries look at the world in different ways from the way Americans do. And I think it is true in the United States. We have such a mix of people. So I would say more of the same as far as my own limited knowledge of what the FBI and the Treasury are doing. Chairman Lieberman. Well, I thank you all. We are living, as I said, in a post-September 11, 2001, world, which is a different world for us here in America and for the rest of the world, and we are asking the kinds of questions that we have not asked before. I appreciate what you are doing in this outreach and also in using the law enforcement tools that you had and that you have been given since September 11, 2001. I think you have used them very effectively to protect our freedom and our security here at home. We are going to leave the record of this hearing open for 10 days if you want to add anything or we want to submit questions. I am actually going to send you a question in writing, this is the kind of question that the Federal Government employees love to have us ask, which is: You are doing such a critical mission, whose importance we saw just in the last few days. What are the one or two things more you need to better carry out the mission that we are asking you to carry out in our interest? Senator Collins, do you want to add anything more? Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to join you in thanking our witnesses not only for their testimony today, but also for their very important work. Again, I appreciate your leadership on this issue. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins. Well, you began it when you were Chairman. I thank everybody for being here. The hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 4:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: THE EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE ---------- WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2007 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:34 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Carper, and Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. Good morning and welcome to this fourth hearing in the Homeland Security Committee's ongoing investigation of Islamist radicalization within the United States. The goals of these hearings are four in number, as I see them: First, to determine the extent of Islamist radicalization within the United States; second, to learn how and why radicalization occurs; third, to ask what can be done to counter the extremist message that incites its recruits to violence; and, fourth, to assure that our government is doing everything it can to prevent Islamist extremists from carrying out violent attacks against the American people from within our country. With today's hearing, which is titled ``Violent Islamist Extremism: The European Experience,'' we look across the Atlantic Ocean for advice and guidance from those on the front lines of the battle against terrorism in Europe, as well as those who have studied it there and here in the United States. We will be hearing also from the co-authors of a new report on the integration of Muslims into American society who, I believe, will compare and contrast their findings about the Muslim-American community with communities in Europe. Let me welcome our witnesses and thank them for taking the time and, in the case of our two European distinguished visitors, making the effort to join us today to offer their testimony and answer our questions. The witnesses are: Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's leading magistrate for counterterrorism; Lidewijde Ongering, Deputy National Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the Netherlands; Dr. Marc Sageman, leading American researcher on global Islamist extremism; and Lynn Martin and Farooq Kathwari, co-chairs of the Task Force on Muslim American Civil and Political Engagement, which was created by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We look to Europe today because European nations have experienced over the last several years a sharp growth in ``homegrown terrorism,'' terrorism that--while it may be inspired by the same ideology that has fueled the atrocities of al-Qaeda--has been perpetrated by individuals born and raised within Europe. Research tends to show that, overall, European populations have thus far been more susceptible to Islamist radicalization than those in the United States, but that may be changing. And that is one of the questions that we want to ask. The bombing attacks in London, the killing of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, and the Madrid train bombings in 2004 all were either carried out exclusively by or aided by homegrown terrorists. Many other Islamist terrorist plots have been disrupted across Western Europe, thanks to aggressive law enforcement and excellent intelligence, including the extraordinary attempt to blow up airliners on the way to the United States from the United Kingdom last summer, which, of course, thankfully was stopped. We look to Europe because of the decisive steps that governments there have taken to address these threats. Just as we created the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of September 11, 2001, and its dreadful attacks, European governments have altered their structures, policies, and procedures to adapt to the new threat. We hope today to learn from your experiences and your successes. We in the United States cannot ignore the warning signs within our Nation. Homegrown Islamist extremists have recently been arrested and accused of forming plans to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey, and in a separate case to set ablaze the underground aviation fuel lines that feed JFK Airport in New York. These are just the most recent examples. Since September 11, 2001, the fact is that a significant number of terrorist plots have been thwarted by American law enforcement, often working with our allies throughout the world, particularly in Europe. There was a recent Pew Center report on Muslims in America which gave us new and unsettling reasons to be concerned about the threat of Islamist radicalization in the United States. The poll showed that, among Muslims in America between the ages of 18 and 29, 26 percent said there were times that suicide bombings may be justified. A shocking 5 percent of American- Muslim adults 18 and over had a favorable opinion of al-Qaeda; another 16 percent had a somewhat unfavorable view; and a puzzling 27 percent had no opinion at all. These numbers are profoundly troubling, of course, because September 11, 2001, showed us that it takes only a handful of committed terrorists, in that case 19, to carry out a devastating attack. And the recent arrest of the alleged Fort Dix and JFK plotters shows that thanks to modern media, like the Internet, these homegrown terrorists do not need to meet with an al-Qaeda operative or journey to a terrorist training camp faraway from the United States to plan attacks against Americans from within America. They can now become fully radicalized on virtual networks by just sitting at their computers. That is why it is important, as I said at the beginning, to understand how people become radicalized so that we can counter that process, if at all possible, before it turns into action. I would say finally that the evidence that I have cited, while some of it is very unsettling, is not cause for panic. It is not a time to panic or divide. It is, rather, a time to unite and defend the freedoms that we cherish here in the United States of America and, of course, among our allies in Europe. I look forward to hearing our panel's thoughts on these questions, and, again, I thank you all for joining us today. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have gotten a late start today because of our classified briefing that both of us attended. Your opening statement, as usual, gave an excellent overview of our investigation and the hearing today. So I am going to forego my opening statement, although I want to assure everyone it was eloquent, and I am going to ask unanimous consent that it be put into the record so that we can proceed with our witnesses' testimony. Chairman Lieberman. So ordered. Without objection, the record will note that the statement was eloquent. [Laughter.] As I am sure it would have been. [The prepared statement of Senator Collins follows:] OPENING PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Americans have no monopoly as targets of violent extremists. We are not alone in our determination to defeat terrorism and to protect innocent lives. Many of our European allies have also felt the lash of hatred and murder. The bombings in London and Madrid and the violent protests in the Netherlands demonstrated that violent extremism has many targets in addition to Americans. Like the six men arrested last month in the Fort Dix case, those charged with the bombings in London and Madrid were home-grown terrorists. They were living and working in the countries whose people they chose to attack. In Europe, as in America, the main focus of the battle against violent extremists is that small but deadly group of terrorists who invoke a warped vision of Islam as their guide and justification. In Europe, as in America, violent extremists include both non-citizens and native-born; both the self-radicalized and those won over by outside messages; both the lone wolf and the group member. Today's hearing gives us an invaluable opportunity to learn from the experience of others. Europe's large Muslim immigrant populations, its proximity to Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East, and its demographic trends give its governments at least as much incentive as America has to understand the sources and targets of violent radicalization and to take effective action to counter the threat. What I have already learned has reinforced my belief that there is no universal solvent to wipe away the stain of violent extremism. Police work, border security, and intelligence gathering are certainly part of the mix, but as the office of the Netherlands Coordinator for Counterterrorism recently observed, ``Polarization, inter-ethnic violence, and xenophobia remain causes of concerns,'' because they can increase the sense of rejection and alienation among Muslim communities. As the French experience with riots by young Muslims from housing projects suggests, unemployment and poor prospects for integration into the economic life of a country may also foster grievances that feed the radicalization process. And as research among actual violent jihadists reveals, ties of kinship, friendship, and community can play a role in drawing isolated or aggrieved young people into the ranks of extremists. The work of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs task force will also prove useful as this Committee continues its work. Among its many points, the task force makes the important observation that some people's belief that Islam is incompatible with American values may simultaneously promote exclusionary attitudes in the larger population while undermining Muslims' receptivity to our efforts to engage them. I hope the Chicago Council witnesses may be able to draw distinctions between European and American society that will help us understand and address the factors that radicalize Muslim citizens and residents to violent extremism. In particular, I am interested to hear if our witnesses believe whether factors that have led to recent violent activity in Europe are also present in the United States. I also look forward to hearing what we can do proactively to prevent a similar cycle of radicalization in the United States. All of these considerations are important as we seek ways to combat violent extremism directly and to curb its growth by improving outreach efforts to our Muslim neighbors, and by promoting the inclusion of all resident Muslims in the peaceful and tolerant fabric of American life. I join you, Mr. Chairman, in welcoming today's witnesses. Their testimony and comments will be valuable additions to our understanding of the threat we are all trying to counter. Chairman Lieberman. Let us begin now with Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere. Judge Bruguiere has been at this work for a long time. He is really a globally known and admired figure, and I am personally grateful that you took the time to be here and share your thoughts with us. He is a great ally of the United States who, I know, enjoys tremendous respect among our law enforcement community. Judge Bruguiere, welcome. TESTIMONY OF JUDGE JEAN-LOUIS BRUGUIERE,\1\ FIRST VICE PRESIDENT, INVESTIGATING MAGISTRATE, FRANCE Judge Bruguiere. Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, thank you very much for inviting me to be here today. I will provide a brief summary of my statement, but I would ask that my entire statement be included in the hearing record. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Judge Bruguiere with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 326. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chairman Lieberman. Without objection. Judge Bruguiere. At the judicial level in France, I have been responsible for the fight against terrorism since 1981. In France--unlike in the United States--criminal investigations are conducted by judges, who have sweeping judicial capabilities such as issuing on their own search warrants, seizures of evidence, intrusive measures, including wiretapping, and cooperating with other countries in the fight against terrorism. I do not need to convince you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, in a country that has also heavily suffered from terrorism, culminating on September 11, 2001, of the gravity and the severity of the terrorist phenomenon, a phenomenon that is at the heart of the concerns of the United States today. Terrorism of Islamist origin, the one conveyed by al-Qaeda, is a deadly poison for our democracies that we must fight adamantly without second thought. France and the United States are particularly mobilized in this fight against terrorism. In this fight, we must stand together. France has always stood by the United States. I have personally stood by the United States in my duties under all circumstances. Terrorism is a strategic menace, a global menace of a new, atypical, and asymmetrical genre. It demands recourse to all the State's means. Obviously, a counterattack strategy against terrorism entails the use of military means, when and where necessary, specifically in Afghanistan and in Iraq. But the specifics of this threat require other resources. Recourse to military means must not be exclusive to the use of other tools in the field of intelligence and law enforcement. This panoply of tools and measures must serve as a real operational strategy, anticipatory and flexible, adapting to the contours of the threat and aimed at preventing the occurrence of terrorist actions and to stay a step ahead of terrorist organizations. The system that we have implemented in France since the beginning of the 1990s has allowed us to effectively counter all terrorist activities aimed at our soil to date. But before outlining the main components of our strategy to fight terrorism, I will present briefly the evolution of the Islamist terrorist threat over the last 20 years. In Europe, and more specifically in France, the first manifestations of terrorist threat of Islamist origin dates back to 1993. After the interruption of the electoral process in Algeria and the banning of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a radical Salafist movement, Armed Islamic Group (GIA), emerged. This situation has caused in Europe, but especially in France, the creation of clandestine structures of logistic support to guerrillas in Algeria. These networks were activated in 1995 by the GIA for its operations on French soil. So the GIA, a Salafist organization, evolved beyond the Franco-Algerian framework. This new strategy was a precursor to that of al-Qaeda. This global strategy led the GIA to hijack an Air France aircraft in 1994 in order to crash it over Paris, and 6 months later, to perpetrate a series of attacks in France. This was the first time an airplane was designed to be used as a weapon of mass destruction. The decline of the GIA in 1996 should have been accompanied by the displacement of the epicenter of terrorist activism towards the Pakistani-Afghan zone. It is in this context that we have detected since 1996, through an investigation, the ``Ressam'' network, the Millennium Bomber. This was al-Qaeda's first attempt to strike the United States on its homeland. September 11, 2001, was the result of this continuing trend. It was neither an unforeseeable occurrence nor a historical accident. The period after September 11, 2001, has shown that the danger has not disappeared and has always been a worldwide dimension. The al-Qaeda network, although deprived of their sanctuary in Afghanistan, has demonstrated that it is still active. The European Islamist movement, composed principally of Maghrebis, has always been active and presents the characteristic of being constituted of a network of dispersed, polymorphic, and mutating cells. In addition, during this period, other lands of jihad appeared to be active: Pakistan and the Caucasus. But it is Iraq that has been the most powerful driver of terrorist activity, having a greater force of attraction than previous lands of jihad, especially in regard to radical European Islamist movement. Several phases must be distinguished. From 2003 to 2004 the European mujahideen left for Iraq without thinking of returning, but to die there as martyrs. After 2004, because of the influence from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, these mujahideen were mostly trained to commit attacks in Europe. The current situation is characterized by the permanence of the menace, the increased globalization of Islamist networks, and the search for new strategies to validate the terrorist message. The terrorist menace is reoriented on two fronts: The first in the North and the second in the South, in the Maghreb area. In 2006, the GSPC, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Fighting, rejoined al-Qaeda after having made an operational alliance 2 years earlier with the al-Zarqawi network operating in Iraq. This development marked the appearance of a new terrorist entity called ``al-Qaeda of the Maghreb Countries,'' significantly increasing the terrorist threat in Europe and over France. A strategy in the fight against terrorism must meet a certain number of conditions to be effective. Even when there are no attacks, the powers of intelligence services must be strengthened, a criminal legal system with the appropriate legislative tools must be implemented, and international cooperation must be reinforced. In this regard, the French system for fighting terrorism has proved its efficiency. Over the years, this system, intentionally consistent with the law, without relying upon special legislation, has demonstrated that it is unrivaled in effectiveness and legality. France has a long experience of fighting terrorism which goes back to the early 1970s. Thus, France has developed a complete legal doctrine for fighting terrorism which is considered to be a strategic threat. This doctrine led to the publication of a White Paper in 2006 that I will submit for the record.\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The White Paper submitted by Judge Bruguiere appears in the Appendix on page 342. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The White Paper describes several changes to the legal system, with respect to laws as well as implementing procedures. With respect to laws, the French Parliament has given the French system for fighting terrorism an arsenal of laws designed for this purpose. The criminal charges of terrorist conspiracy is unquestionably the most effective legal weapon against terrorist networks. It makes it possible to fight the threat at the top, by attacking the logistical and financial support for the networks. There is no need to prove that the network in question is linked to an organization or even to a specific plan. It is sufficient that the network was likely to give any assistance in a terrorist context to activists, even when the activists are unidentified. In addition, there are procedural laws. The cornerstone of our system is the centralization in Paris of prosecution, investigations, and trials. It enables us to better understand the terrorist phenomenon which is becoming more widespread, polymorphous, and changing. In addition, on this subject, the investigating judges may use intrusive measures, such as telephone wiretaps and audio surveillance of private places. However, to be effective, this legislative arsenal must be implemented as a part of a real operational strategy. From this point of view, the participants in the fight against terrorism have developed a proactive methodology in France that is directed to preventing the threat. This risk prevention strategy brings together, in a real operational synergy, intelligence agencies, law enforcement authorities, and the judiciary. In addition, France has significantly increased international cooperation, especially with the United States, for the sole purpose of neutralizing terrorist networks where they are operating. This legal system, which is flexible and centralized at the same time, has enabled us to anticipate terrorist acts for more than 10 years and to contain the terrorist threat and stop attacks on our soil and even outside of our borders, specifically in Australia. Thank you for your attention. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Judge, for that excellent opening statement, and your description of the comprehensive French program and, in fact, the aggressiveness of both the laws and the implementation is something I would guess that most Americans do not appreciate. It is important for us to consider those and also to note, if I am correct, that in the last decade there has not been a significant terrorist attack in France. That is correct, yes? There has not been a significant terrorist attack in France in the last decade or more. Judge Bruguiere. Yes. As I explained, since 1996 we have not suffered any attack in France, and that is the major reason that we have the capacity within the system to track down all the sleeping cells that support such operations. For example, in 2000, we have succeeded to arrest groups who are intending to carry out a very deadly operation in Strasbourg, and we arrested them maybe one week before they had the capacity to do it. We seized all the materials, explosive materials, devices, and so if we didn't have this system, we would have suffered a very deadly attack at that time. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Lidewijde Ongering, we are grateful that you are here. You come to us after a distinguished career in a wide array of public service responsibilities in the Netherlands as the Deputy National Coordinator for Counterterrorism of the Ministry of Justice, a relatively new organization of your government. And I will say to note for the record--and perhaps you will tell us more--that the threat level, what we would call the terrorist threat level, within the Netherlands has been dropped since the creation and functioning of your department. So thank you for making the trip, and we look forward to your testimony now. TESTIMONY OF LIDEWIJDE ONGERING,\1\ DEPUTY NATIONAL COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, MINISTRY OF JUSTICE, NETHERLANDS Mrs. Ongering. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and distinguished Members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I would like to thank you for inviting me to testify here today. It is a great honor for me to speak about our experiences with homegrown terrorism in the Netherlands. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mrs. Ongering appears in the Appendix on page 460. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My organization was established in 2004 to coordinate and direct the Dutch counterterrorist policy. I have chosen to limit myself to the subject of jihadism. This is by far the greatest threat in my country at present. I would like to outline what we regard as the main sectors contributing to this threat, and then I will describe the Dutch approach to counterterrorism. The horrifying attacks of September 11, 2001, opened the eyes of the world to the dangers of jihadist terrorism. Even a small country like the Netherlands was not immune to this threat. This realization was soon driven home by a far smaller incident: The death of two Dutch Muslims in Kashmir in January 2002. The Dutch Intelligence and Security Service was soon able to report that both men had been recruited for the jihad by Salafist militants. The two young people both grew up in the Netherlands. At that time many people were shocked that terrorists could be living among us. The reality that terrorists could emerge from our society and strike in the Netherlands was made painfully clear at the end of 2004 with the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The murderer was a young man of Moroccan descent who grew up in Amsterdam and seemed to be fully integrated in our society. He was part of a network of young Dutch jihadists who had fallen under the sway of a Salafist from Syria. These examples make clear that we define radicalization as homegrown when the process has taken place in the Netherlands. Radicalization and terrorism are both domestic and international phenomena, interlinked and interdependent. Globalization has intensified these links. The appearance of homegrown terrorism in the West can be attributed to a variety of factors. Your Congress has asked what the Dutch Government's view is on the causes in our country. I would like to mention a number of ``push and pull factors'' that could provide an explanation. One pull factor is Islamic missionary activity, particularly sponsored by Saudi Arabia. They are propagating Salafism to the world's Muslims. This has in some cases proved to be a breeding ground for radical sympathies. The Salafist movement preaches a return to the earliest incarnation of the faith and fiercely opposes all forms of ``non-belief,'' including democracy, Western laws, and lifestyles. For most of the known Dutch terrorists, the nonviolent variety of Salafism was the first step towards jihadism. Another pull factor is the global dissemination of jihadist ideology. Al-Qaeda is not only a terrorist network. Al-Qaeda is first and foremost an ideology, which appeals to Muslims from a wide variety of backgrounds. Their ideas are being spread all over the world, thanks in large part to the Internet. A last pull factor is the influence of what we call trigger events. Modern communication technology enables us to follow news from the other side of the world as it unfolds. Even small incidents can spur people on to violence, even at an individual level. Turning to the push side of the equation for a moment, I believe it is relevant to understand the history of Muslim immigrants in our country. This has made some of them more open to radical influences. Large numbers of Muslims were brought to the Netherlands as cheap labor in the 1960s. A lack of education, cultural differences, and difficulties in social integration beset this group. Muslims' integration into Dutch society has not been helped by the growth of radicalization and Islamophobia due to the many acts of jihadist violence in the world. This has led to a growing polarization between Muslims and non-Muslims, a trend that can further accelerate radicalization. An underlying factor in radicalization is the identity crisis often experienced by young people trapped between two cultures. In their search for identity, some of these young people turn to radical Islam. For these young Muslims, national borders hardly exist anymore. For that reason, the term ``homegrown terrorism'' is slightly outdated. Dutch Muslims went, for instance, to Kashmir. Spanish participation in the war in Iraq formed the motive for jihadists in Madrid to blow up several trains. Clearly, terrorism can manifest itself at any time anywhere in the world. We have decided to analyze and tackle the dangers of radicalization and terrorism as a coherent whole. We have developed a comprehensive approach, including both repressive measures and a strong emphasis on prevention. After all, no one is born a terrorist. People who set out to kill other people first go through a process of radicalization. We are convinced that there are many opportunities to intervene in this initial phase. Of course, the main goal of the comprehensive approach is to identify acute threats in time and prevent bloodshed. We have done everything possible in recent years to create the conditions for an effective counterterrorism policy. Our laws have been amended. The police and criminal justice authorities have been given new powers to be able to investigate and arrest in an earlier stage. Intelligence and security services received more staff and funds, and their information can now be used in court by the public prosecutor. These measures have been clearly successful. Several terrorist networks in our country have been broken up. A sizable number of jihadists have been given prison sentences. Jihadist recruiters have also been tackled. These government actions have been effective in disrupting the formation of jihadist networks in the Netherlands. As a result, jihadists are contending with a lack of leadership and major internal divisions. Taken together, these developments made us decide to lower the general threat for the Netherlands from ``substantial'' to ``limited.'' The lowering of the threat level has been made public. The Dutch Government wants to inform its citizens about the real threat situation to prevent unnecessary fear. A lower threat level, though, is no reason to be less stringent in any of the measures that we have taken. It does, however, encourage us to push ahead with the course we have been following. Above all, we want to prevent the formation of new terrorist networks. That is why we are investing so much in tackling radicalization in many different ways. We do it at the national level, but our primary focus remains our cities and neighborhoods and the role of police and local government. The Dutch approach has three main planks: First, we are working to integrate Muslims into Dutch society. Our focus is on paying more attention to the identity issues confronting young Muslims in a Western environment, combating discrimination, and encouraging Muslims to participate in society and politics. We are also trying to counteract polarization and Islamophobia. Dutch training programs for imams are being supported so that Dutch Muslims will no longer be dependent on imams imported from their countries of origin. Second, we are promoting and supporting social resistance to radicalization within the Muslim community. This problem cannot be solved without the help of our own country's Muslims. A crucial aspect of these efforts is ensuring the availability of a wide range of information. We have set out to counteract the radical Islamic voices on Dutch language Web sites. We are working on taking radical sites offline, with a notice and takedown procedure directed at the providers. At the same time, we are working with Muslim institutions to increase the diversity of the information available about moderate Islamic currents--in other words, challenging ideas with ideas. A third and final way we work to prevent radicalization is by identifying, isolating, and containing radical processes. We want to stop radicalization before it leads to violence. This requires the authorities to be proactive in detecting signals that an individual might be isolating themselves or even turning against society. Systems have now been developed in several major Dutch cities to report suspected radicalization to a local information point where it can be assessed and used to develop a tailor-made approach. In some cases, the police and security services follow radicals closely, sometimes openly. Special attention is paid to the risk of radicalization in prison. To protect other detainees from becoming contaminated, we have decided to concentrate convicted jihadists in two detention centers and keep them separated from other prisoners. Prison staff in these institutions are specially trained to detect signs of radicalization. Special attention is also paid to what we call ``hotbeds of radicalization.'' A small number of locations in the Netherlands, such as a few Salafist centers and mosques, have been identified as potential gateways to radical milieus. The Dutch authorities keep a close watch on the imams and governing bodies of these institutions and remind them forcefully of their social responsibilities. Our message is clear: We will not allow them to preach intolerance. They must also exclude jihadist recruiters and stop young people from opting for violence. If people in or around these centers prove to be promoting radicalization or spreading hatred, we do not hesitate to prosecute them or deport them as a threat to national security. I have given you a brief overview of the Dutch analysis and the approach to fighting radicalization and homegrown terrorism. I do not claim that our experiences and conclusions can be transplanted to other European countries or the United States. I am convinced, however, that thanks to the many international dimensions and interconnections, real and virtual, in today's world all Western countries are at risk from homegrown terrorism. This demands an intelligent, broad strategy. Finally, I would like to stress our outstanding cooperation with the United States, including this and other exchanges of information and experiences. Thank you, and I will be glad to answer your questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Mrs. Ongering. That was extremely helpful in all ways. I do want to say, having heard our two European witnesses, that you have been much more timely, which is to say, you have adhered more to the time limit than our normal homegrown witnesses do. So I appreciate that. [Laughter.] Unfortunately, the bell has gone off for a vote on the Senate floor, but I do believe we have enough time, Dr. Sageman, to hear your testimony, and then with apologies, we will recess so we can go and vote, and then we will come back quickly to hear our final two witnesses. Dr. Sageman, thanks for being here. TESTIMONY OF MARC SAGEMAN, M.D., PH.D.,\1\ PRINCIPAL, SAGEMAN CONSULTING, LLC Dr. Sageman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senators Collins and Carper. Thank you for inviting me to present my views on the threat of violent Islamist extremists in Europe and the United States. There is a great disparity in the threat faced in these two continents. Data on arrests for Islamist terrorism indicate that the rate of arrest per Muslim capita in Europe is about five times that of the United States. In order to understand this discrepancy, we must analyze the process transforming normal young Muslims into people willing to use violence for political ends. I call this process ``radicalization,'' and it is critical to understanding and assessing the threat faced by the West. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Sageman appears in the Appendix on page 470. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a complicated issue, and given the time constraints of this hearing, my remarks will necessarily sound a little too simplistic. I apologize for this. My continuing research shows that the terrorists are really idealistic young people who seek glory and thrills by trying to build a utopia. Contrary to popular belief, radicalization is not the product of poverty, various forms of brainwashing, youth, ignorance, lack of education, lack of job, lack of social responsibility, criminality, or mental illness. Their mobilization into this violent Islamist born-again social movement is based on friendship and kinship. Lately, over 80 percent of arrested terrorists in Europe and the United States are part of the Muslim Diaspora, mostly second or third generation. They are radicalized in the West, not in the Middle East. Usually, they are small groups of friends and relatives who spontaneously self-organize into groups that later turn to terrorism. Before September 11, 2001, they were able to travel freely and connect to al-Qaeda. This is no longer the case, except for the British. So these groups are physically isolated and connected through Internet forums, inspired by the extremist ideology and hoping that they will be accepted as members of al-Qaeda through their operations. From my research both in Europe and the United States, I have come to think about the process of radicalization as consisting of four prongs: A sense of moral outrage; a specific interpretation of the world; resonance with personal experiences; and mobilization through networks. This process is, of course, driven by young Muslims chasing dreams of glory by fighting for justice and fairness as they define it. They are enthusiastic volunteers, trying to impress their friends. Unfortunately, suicide bombers right now have become the rock stars of young Muslim militants. The sense of moral outrage is really driven by Iraq at this point. Iraq did not cause this problem, but Iraq is now fueling it. As I speak to young Muslims in Europe or here, Iraq dominates the conversation. More locally, they also pay particular attention to police action, bridging the local and the global. On the level of interpretation, in order for this sense of moral outrage to be translated to radicalization, it must be interpreted in a special way, and the way they interpret it is a ``war against Islam.'' Having said this, it is important to realize that the terrorists are not--and I emphasize ``not''--Islamic scholars. The defendants at the various trials in here and in Europe are definitely not intellectuals who decide what to do after careful deliberation. I believe that the explanation about their behavior is not found in how they think but, rather, in how they feel. All these perpetrators dream about becoming Islamic heroes in this war on Islam, modeling themselves on the mujahideen in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Soviets or seventh century warriors. Many hope to emulate their predecessors by now fighting in Iraq against coalition forces. Their interpretation, a ``war against Islam,'' occurs within a certain cultural tradition, and this is where Europe and the United States differ. First, our founding concept is this is a melting pot. In Europe, nationalism is built on an essence, and if it is built on an essence, this is not as welcoming to outsiders as a melting pot would be. Second, the notion of the American dream, which is the land of opportunity, a recent poll, the one that you mentioned, the Pew Research Center poll showed that 71 percent of Muslim Americans believe in the American dream. This is not the case in Europe. And, third, American individualism in a sense protects us from having Muslims interpret what is happening to them in a collective way hostile to the host country. Probably the biggest difference between the United States and Europe is resonance with personal experience, and here we are facing very different Muslim populations. The American- Muslim population is upper class or middle class. I would say middle class. The ones in Europe, as was mentioned, are unskilled labor, and so we are facing very different populations because of our history. In terms of labor market, there is far less discrimination in the United States than we find in Europe, and this is very important because a lot of unemployed young Muslims are attracted by the thrill of belonging to a clandestine operation. And, finally, the fourth prong is that they mobilize through networks, and this is very important because, up to now, you have angry young Muslims but really not violent ones. It is really through the networks that they are transformed into terrorists through a process, a natural process of mutual support and the development of a small collective identity praising other terrorists. And, therefore, they become terrorists themselves. Now that I have analyzed the threat, let me make a few comments about what can be done. First and foremost, we have to remove the glory from this concept. We have to deglorify it. We have to really put it now into a law enforcement perspective as opposed to militarize the problem, because there is nothing more thrilling to a young person than to go against a uniformed person of the only remaining superpower. On the first prong, I think that we need to leave Iraq as soon as it is feasible. [Applause.] Dr. Sageman. Iraq is driving this process in Europe and around the world. We may need to be in Iraq for local reasons, but not for terrorism. Terrorism is a one-way street. In terms of policing, community policing, what you heard before from both the French and the Dutch is exactly right, and I think those two countries have done it right. But we need to have police forces recruit young Muslims into police forces so that you do not have white Caucasians patrolling South Asians or North Africans. So far Muslim Americans have shown themselves to be very patriotic, and this has not been well recognized by the press or our government. It is important that we recognize the patriotism. On the second prong, what we need to look at is not so much the ideology and the text, but really the images, the dreams. And here I think we should not really focus on the war of ideas as much as war of dreams. In this sense, we should learn our lesson from our experience with the civil rights movement when Martin Luther King inspired a generation with his speech, ``I Have a Dream.'' On the third prong, I think we are doing much better than in Europe. On the fourth prong, it is absolutely important to disrupt the networks, as the French and the Dutch did. This is critical. But also we need to have some presence on the Internet where young Muslims share their dreams, hopes, and grievances. This is an internal Muslim discussion. However, we can encourage some young Muslims who reject violence to actively participate in these discussions in order to actively challenge the various calls to violence emerging from them. The American-Muslim community is relatively young, having mostly immigrated in the last half of the past century. It is a young generation searching for its identity and trying to define its role with respect to the rest of American society. It is important for the rest of American society to welcome them and help them integrate better within the fabric of our Nation. We are doing better than our European counterparts in this regard, but we must continue to promote core American values of justice and fairness and fight those elements in our society that try to single out and antagonize part of our Nation. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Doctor. You, too, were very punctual and had some interesting things to say. I am going to recess the hearing now, and we will be back as soon as we can. [Recess.] Senator Collins [presiding]. The Committee will come to order. Dr. Sageman, did you finish your testimony before we broke for the vote? Dr. Sageman. Yes, I did. Thank you very much. Senator Collins. Thank you. It was very interesting. I had to leave a little bit before Senator Lieberman, so I was not sure. We will now turn to Secretary Martin for her testimony and Mr. Kathwari's testimony. TESTIMONY OF HON. LYNN M. MARTIN AND FAROOQ M. KATHWARI,\1\ CO- CHAIRS, TASK FORCE FOR MUSLIM AMERICAN CIVIC AND POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT, CHICAGO COUNCIL ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS Ms. Martin. Thank you, Senator, and we are honored, of course, to be here, too. We all listened to Dr. Sageman, actually, with great interest because it is always nice when you hear yourself reflected in data to some extent. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The joint prepared statement of Ms. Martin and Mr. Kathwari appears in the Appendix on page 476. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As some of you may know, yesterday we released a report called ``Strengthening America: The Civic and Political Integration of Muslim Americans.'' So we are not here to talk about the European experience, which is, as both the Europeans who gave such superb testimony, in my view, and Dr. Sageman said, really totally different than the American experience. But what this group has done over 18 months, a group that is half Muslim and half non-Muslim--and I suspect it is clear which part of that I probably was in--tried to see what could we do to make America stronger, to see a problem, the possible alienation, the increasing belief among many Muslim Americans that they were not as large a part of the American experience as they could be, and what could we do to accelerate that assimilation. Other groups have gone through the same things. That is no different. But we do not believe that there is the time, the leisure to let it take 10 or 50 or 100 years, as it did for my forebears and yours. We think it has to be accelerated, so we have come up with--we released yesterday a group of ideas for both Muslims and non-Muslims to accelerate the process and, in doing so, to strengthen America and its security. We divided it. We have six very quick points. First of all, start recognizing Muslim-American contributions, which are many. Now, this does not mean that Muslim Americans mustn't speak out more. They must, and it must be better articulated. And you will see a lot of these recommendations fall into each other. There are not as many strong Muslim organizations because they are young. They are babies at the organization level. And we think strong Muslim organizations that reflect the true feelings and beliefs of the citizens, of the American citizens who are Muslim, would be very helpful to everyone. We know we have to increase the civic engagement of Muslims. We know that we have to build a different kind of media coverage. Everybody can't always be bad. We have got to see the success stories, and you know of one who has, in fact, strong business in your State, Senator, and you know that, too. We think we have to give increasing national attention to the diversity of American Muslims. They don't come from one country. They come from all over the world, and that diversity is reflected in how they produce and some of their feelings and the level of the experiences they bring. We also know that they are first generation, that they tend to have equal or better education than the average American, that many of them are our doctors, our lawyers, lead our businesses in ways that, if we did not have them, it would be a loss for America. We also know it is the American dream, and we believe strongly that there are American problems with this assimilation, and not just assimilation, not in the sense that they must blend, but in ways that one can be proud of one's faith, can practice one's faith, and still be more than 100 percent American. I would also add here that it took a year and a half. It was not easy. It is never easy--perhaps you recognize that, Senator--to get 32 very different people to agree on anything, especially when a few of us always know we are right. That was my experience, at least in the House. And the fact is we all stand by this report--not with every sentence, not with every part, not with every mention, but with both the tenor and with the six recommendations, which we believe are the core of it. Much of my learning took place because I had one of the great Americans and a superb Co-Chair. The CEO of Ethan Allen, Farooq Kathwari, is with me, and I would like to just pass the baton to him. Senator Collins. Thank you. Mr. Kathwari. Mr. Kathwari. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity of being here, and it was a privilege co-chairing with Lynn Martin over the last 15 months. Now, some of the things that I am going to say are, I think, somewhat a repeat of what Ms. Martin has said. That is, notwithstanding September 11, 2001, challenges faced by Muslim Americans, the experiences of Muslim Americans--Senator Lieberman, good to be here and good to see you again. Chairman Lieberman [presiding]. Good to see you, and thank you. I apologize for the strange life that we lead. Ms. Martin. I, too, was eloquent. [Laughter.] Mr. Kathwari. Well, it is a pleasure to be here, and, of course, our headquarters are in Danbury, Connecticut. Chairman Lieberman. Duly noted for the record, with thanks. Mr. Kathwari. I was just saying that notwithstanding September 11, 2001, the experience of the Muslim Americans has not been much different from other immigrant communities. All had to struggle to make America their home. In fact, there are two communities that are also treated with a religious identity. It is the Jewish Americans and the Muslim Americans. One does not see the religious identification with others, such as Italians, Irish, the Polish, and many others. This does create a perception of a Muslim monolith. The fact is that the Muslim community here in the United States and the rest of the world has tremendous diversity in ethnic, linguistic, ideological, social, economic. It is wrong and dangerous to think of them as one monolith. Now, despite the perception, Muslim Americans are successful. They are entrepreneurs, they are professionals, they are academics. They are, most of them, first-generation immigrants from across the globe, and a significant portion of the remainder is African-American. Muslim Americans are having issues of real and perceived discrimination after September 11, 2001. There is a Pew study which says that Muslim Americans under the age of 29, which happens to be about 60 percent of the population, since September 11, 2001, about 40 percent of them said that they have had some sort of a discrimination. So we have to be careful about it. In our study, we also found different perceptions. The non- Muslim Americans perceive that Muslim Americans must speak more strongly against political extremism and the use of violence. American Muslims, on the other hand, perceive that they do speak, but the behavior of the minority extremists gets most, if not all, of the media coverage. As Ms. Martin has said, there are six recommendation and, again, for Senator Lieberman, the report called on Muslim Americans to get across to the broad American public by getting the message across that they are opposed to terrorism and extremism. The report called for fostering close relations with the media, including efforts to increase the number of Muslim- American journalists and creating a national organization focused on educating the public on the diversity of Muslim cultures in society. It encourages civic engagement among Muslim Americans and greater efforts of interfaith dialogue. Other recommendations include building strong Muslim- American institutions by such means as expanding engagements with universities and policy research institutes. And, finally, my strong plea to our national leadership and the media is that it is wrong and dangerous to think of Muslims and Islam as one monolith and also to associate Muslims and Islam with terrorists and extremists. When we do that, we help the terrorists and extremists, and not the Muslim Americans or Muslims of the world, and, more importantly, the well-being and the security of the country here. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Mr. Kathwari. I apologize, Secretary Martin, that I was not here for your comments. I appreciate the work of the task force, and I thank you for what you have said. And, of course, your concluding remarks, this is exactly what we are grappling with. In so many ways, the Muslim-American community is like every other immigrant community that has come here. And we have always prided ourselves on our openness and inclusiveness, and the fact is that a significant number of Muslim Americans, including yourself, are playing leading roles in this society, very constructive roles. And I would say, generally speaking, the Muslim-American community is composed of good American citizens. Incidentally, you make a very good point, very important. I know it, but maybe other people do not know it. The Muslim- American community is a very diverse community, including a significant number of people, particularly African-Americans, who are not immigrants, who were born here. So the challenge to us, obviously, is to be true to our values, to recognize the truths of the broader community, while also trying to deal with what, unfortunately, appears to be the danger from a small number who are being radicalized. And that is exactly what this Committee inquiry is about. Let me start with a question I was going to get to a little bit later on, but it flows naturally from your testimony. In my opening statement--and you were not able to be here at that point--I pointed to some of the numbers in the recent Pew study on Muslim Americans. Of course, the troubling part was the number of younger Muslim Americans who said that suicide bombing in some cases was--I do not know the exact word, but ``justifiable'' or ``understandable.'' And then a number of others who either had no opinion and a small number, but nonetheless 5 percent, thought that they had some sympathy with al-Qaeda. So how do you interpret those numbers? And what do they say to you, as an American, is happening here? And I ask both of you, really, but I would appreciate it if you would start, Mr. Kathwari. Mr. Kathwari. I think you are absolutely right that we have to understand that there is not one Islamic or Muslim monolith. You are going to have different perspectives. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Kathwari. And I think that is very important, and the leadership should understand it because when it filters down, it filters down to law enforcement, it filters down to the folks at immigration because without realizing it, they start looking upon Muslims as one. So it is very important, because it is very important that, God forbid, there is some radical, some extremist--and you are going to have--you cannot control everybody, do something what you do not want to have in a situation that all the Muslim Americans with this great diversity are impacted, because that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And, in fact, we know that those who are radicals, extremists, want that kind of a thing to happen. So I think what needs to be done is the responsibility is on all sides. First, American Muslims, this very diverse community has to help shape the debate. They have to help shape the debate about educating. We also heard when Dr. Sageman was saying that many of the young people really are not scholars. And, in fact, sometimes the people that talk to them are also not scholars. Chairman Lieberman. Yes. Mr. Kathwari. They impact them. And young people get impacted. So I think it is extremely important among the Muslim-American community that they should have spokespeople, they should have people who can speak with the full understanding of the religion, because Islam does not preach extremism, does not preach violence, does not preach killing of innocent people. So I think that is very important. The second is I think the tone of the voice of our leadership--and I was very glad this morning, I was a little bit late because the White House invited me to be with the President, and he had decided to go to the 50th anniversary of the Muslim Center in Washington. Chairman Lieberman. Yes. Mr. Kathwari. And I was there, and he spoke, and with a tone of saying that, yes, American Muslims are diverse and they also are American citizens, and we have to be careful of not associating terrorism and extremism with them, even though that was the terrorists--so I think, from a leadership point of view, that is very important to project, and also I think that message and partnerships with the media has to be done, because it is important. And I think also efforts have to be made that alienation should not take place among the young, because alienation brings humiliation, and humiliation results in acts of violence. So we need to be careful about that, too. Chairman Lieberman. I appreciate that. I am actually going to go from that point back to Judge Bruguiere and Mrs. Ongering and ask you both to comment on the last point that Mr. Kathwari made about alienation, but also about Dr. Sageman's provocative interpretations about the motivations of young Muslims being radicalized. In other words, in particular, I was really fascinated by the emphasis on friendship and kinship, and, of course, the quest to be heroes, and the lesser role, if I might say so, of religious radicalization, whether that is borne out in the work that you have done in France and the Netherlands. Judge Bruguiere. It is not so easy to answer the question because it is a very difficult problem, a difficult issue. As you know, in France, we have basically about 5 million of the community coming from the Maghreb, especially Algerians. At the present, 8.5 percent of the global population, that is a lot. And globally it is a peaceful population. We do not have any problem, just with basically about 100, maybe less, who are directly involved in the radical operation. The difficulty that we have is to know in what way one-- there is no typology of the terrorist. We do not know exactly why such individuals shift from fundamentalism to radicalism and operational. Generally, it is very reactive to outside operations and context. Iraq played a major role in converts. That is true, we know. But also we have also incidents with the Internet, with all the sites, and so the capacity to discuss about choices and the activity of some individuals who are much more radical and try to recruit them. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Judge Bruguiere. And that is a very concerning problem because it is very difficult for us, on the intelligence level as well as law enforcement, to detect those because we do not know exactly when. And so we know that external factors--Iran, Afghanistan--have an impact in the process of radicalization. And, second, what is a key point on that is the situation in the prison. We can maybe have a discussion specifically about that. Those are powerful factors of converts. Chairman Lieberman. That is very interesting, because we touched on that in the first in the series of these hearings, that there is some evidence of radicalization, Islamist radicalization, in American prisons. So you are saying you have found that as well in France? Judge Bruguiere. Absolutely. Chairman Lieberman. Which is to say that a single person or maybe a few people are actually converting for the purposes of radicalization others that they are in prison with. Judge Bruguiere. In the prisons, there is a very high level of contamination. That is very difficult, because there are many solutions. We can separate the individual. It is difficult because we would need to have many prisons to do it, that we now know that is the best response. We have experience about that, regarding the recruitment of individuals. These are directly implied in operational cells. We saw that about one year ago. Chairman Lieberman. So then you try to break up the groups and separate the prisoners in the different facilities? Judge Bruguiere. Yes, but it is difficult. We do not have the capacity in France because it is necessary to build new prisons, and that is not so easy to do. But the fact that we arrest a lot of people, a very high rate of arrests because our system allows us to arrest anyone that could be implied or suspected to support anyone, as you know, associated with terror, has prevented many attacks. We have many members in the prisons, and we have difficulty in separating them and preventing them from actively recruiting new members of jihad. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Mrs. Ongering. Mrs. Ongering. It is hard to give a typical profile of extremists. What we see in our country, the children of immigrants from Muslim culture are likely to suffer an identity crisis, and sometimes that makes them vulnerable for extremist ideas. First and foremost, they are seeking an identity, and it is not religion in the first place. So on that point I agree with Dr. Sageman. But we also find the level of education does not tell us all. We have examples of very well educated people in our country who also seem very well integrated in the country, and then all of a sudden, they turn their back to our society. And the London bombers showed us the same. So that is also a difficult explanation. But we find that stronger social bonds within the groups, that will certainly help. We have Islamic people from Turkish background and Islamic people from Moroccan background. The Turkish people, they seem to be less affected by the extremist ideas because their social bonds--well, they are really close, so that might give an explanation there. On the point of the prison, we also find that radicalization in the prison taking place in our country, and that is why we decided to concentrate those extremist people who were sentenced to prison in certain areas, and especially from preventing them spreading their ideas to others. Chairman Lieberman. Unfortunately, they have called another vote, and I am going to go back. So I think I am going to ask one more question and then let you go. I do not want to put you through the torture of the life that we lead. Dr. Sageman, if you want to add anything, I want to ask you a question about how to counter the proliferation of extremism propaganda which plays into some of the psychological factors you have described, and you have talked particularly, as we saw at a previous hearing, that the Internet is playing an important role not only in facilitating the radicalization process, but in reducing the amount of time people take to go through the process. And I wonder what your thoughts are--and I do not know whether your task force, Ms. Martin, approached this--on how the government or others can counter those radical messages being pushed out over the Internet on radical Web sites to this small but vulnerable population. Dr. Sageman. Yes, it probably is a critical issue of the future because, like my son who is growing up and is on the Internet quite a bit. Young people are on the Internet, not my generation. And what we find is that it is the interactivity in the chat room. It is not those Web sites, those horrible Web sites. It is really the interactivity. Chairman Lieberman. Correct. Dr. Sageman. And before, what we had was groups, face-to- face interaction. Now it has all migrated to the Internet. Unfortunately for the government, this is an internal Muslim dialogue. It is not one that I think the U.S. Government can participate in. That's why I was mentioning--I think Mr. Kathwari also mentioned it--that we should encourage young people to actually participate in that type of discussion and challenge the people who call for violence. Chairman Lieberman. Yes. So the best answers will come from within the Muslim communities themselves. Mr. Kathwari. Yes. Chairman Lieberman. Secretary Martin, do you want to add anything? Ms. Martin. Just very quickly, again, our thanks, first of all, Chairman, on this. Ultimately, it has to come from within, and then from all Americans. Traditionally, American solutions are best when we come at them together. Chairman Lieberman. Correct. Ms. Martin. But having said this, one of the parts of what we were looking at is how to more greatly involve young people. Whether they are Muslim or not, we all know teenage angst. We all know that some young people become more religious, some young people go to whole different--how do we, in the best sense of the word, harness that? So I think your point of getting young Muslims and non- Muslims alike, I believe, conversing, talking in part of the Internet where they are not listening to us, because I think asking them to listen to us is a non-starter, if you want to know the truth. Chairman Lieberman. That is a good point. Ms. Martin. And so what we are looking at is the next step. Chairman Lieberman. That is very important. One of the great challenges--it is true here, and it is true in so many other areas of challenge in our society. How do you get attention for something that is not dramatic? In other words, how to get coverage of the majority mainstream Muslim voices? That is the challenge that we have. Ms. Martin. Could I just say this? Senator, I have never heard you shout, and you and I go back a long time. Chairman Lieberman. Well, you have not talked to my wife. [Laughter.] Ms. Martin. Well, luckily--I will stay with my statement--I have never heard you publicly shout. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Ms. Martin. And I think one of our concerns is that we have entered a TV, and almost exclamation point to the Internet, time of shouters. And it is time for the non-shouters to again work. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. You all have not been shouters today. You have really shed some light. There are different opinions here, but it has been very helpful to our Committee. I thank all of you for coming. I particularly want to thank Judge Bruguiere and Mrs. Ongering for taking the time and making the effort to come here. I know you have wonderful relations with your peers in the U.S. Government. They appreciate your help and respect what you have done greatly, and I do as well. We are going to keep the record of the hearing open for 2 weeks if any of you would like to add additional statements or any of the Members of the Committee want to submit questions to you. But I thank you very much, and with that I adjourn the hearing. [Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] THE ROLE OF LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT IN COUNTERING VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM ---------- TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2007 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in Room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Pryor, McCaskill, Collins, and Voinovich. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. Good morning. The hearing will come to order. I thank our witnesses for being here. Today we convene the fifth hearing of this year on the challenge of ``homegrown'' Islamist extremism right here in America. This is an inquiry that began under Senator Collins' chairmanship and that we have continued together now this year. This hearing focuses on the critical role of local law enforcement in detecting and preventing another terrorist attack on our homeland, not one planned, manned, and financed from abroad like the September 11, 2001, attacks, but one conceived from within our country by what one of our witnesses calls ``unremarkable people'' bent on spectacular destruction. Earlier this year, our Committee heard testimony from Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and DHS Chief Intelligence Officer Charles Allen, and the testimony was quite clear that the threat from homegrown Islamist extremism is on the rise here in America and that the Federal Government simply cannot counter it alone. At our September 10, 2007, hearing, Director Mueller said, ``The role of our local law enforcement partners is absolutely critical to identifying individuals and groups presenting this threat.'' In fact, it is the men and women of State and local law enforcement who both by the strength of their numbers and through their daily contact with the public in the communities they serve, including the Muslim-American communities that they serve, are most likely to be the first to come across homegrown terrorists. That makes this proud blue line of 750,000 State and local law enforcement officers across our country our first line of defense against the growing problem of homegrown terrorism. Today's two panels of witnesses will give us the opportunity to learn about the terrorism strategies local law enforcers are following and to do so from a geographic cross- section of our Nation's police departments. We have officials here from North and South, East and West, and that reminds us that the threat of Islamist terrorism is ultimately national. We are first going to hear from the Intelligence Division of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), whose representatives will discuss the findings of their ground- breaking report, which is entitled ``Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat.'' After more than 2 years of investigation and research, the NYPD team has, for the first time, at least in this amount of detail, mapped out the radicalization process that is taking place in New York City, and certainly by inference in the United States generally, and elsewhere. Their conclusions are riveting, impressive, and disturbing. Violent Islamist ideology can radicalize alienated but otherwise, as I said earlier, ``unremarkable'' individuals who are not normally found on the radar screens of State and local law enforcement. Often the Internet is a driver and an enabler of the radicalization process in America, as our Committee learned in a hearing that we held earlier this year. Once radicalized, people may act on their own or in small cells without any direction or connection to a foreign terrorist organization. That is the pattern that we know has developed in attacks, both those that have been carried out and those that have been, thankfully, thwarted in the United States and Europe, from London, England, to Lackawanna, New York, from Fort Dix, New Jersey, to Portland, Oregon. The NYPD report also lays out the challenge for local law enforcement, which is to identify, preempt, and, thus, prevent homegrown terrorist attacks, even though--and I repeat--such attacks may not resemble typical criminal behavior that normally draws police attention before they are carried out. That is why neighborhood intelligence and outreach to Muslim- American communities is so important. The second panel includes officials from the Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and Kansas City, Missouri, police departments. They are going to tell us about the tools and tactics that they have been developing to help detect, deter, and disrupt homegrown terrorist plots. At the heart of their strategies, it seems to me, is the requirement for knowledge of and familiarity with violent Islamist ideology and the local Muslim communities, the overwhelming majority of which, of course, are not engaged in violent Islamist ideology. Each of these local police departments has reached out to their Muslim-American communities and established relationships with them and their leaders. Each has developed strategies that integrate the global threat of Islamist terror into local solutions, whether it is the LAPD's new Community Mapping Project, Miami-Dade County's focus on long-term intelligence gathering, or Kansas City's patrolling strategies and actions to stop terrorist financing. It is crucial, I think, that these and other local efforts be linked together so that clues to potential terrorist attacks are not lost through jurisdictional silos but are shared by local departments nationwide through national intelligence databases, fusion centers, and Joint Terrorism Task Forces that can connect the dots with information gathered at all levels and geographies of law enforcement. In other words, one of the major post-September 11, 2001, conclusions and reforms adopted by the Federal Government was to break down the stovepipes and to create places where intelligence was fused so that, to use the familiar phrase, we would be able to connect the dots. I think it is critically important now that the same reforms happen at local levels to keep them working together. I want to make a final point here. The departments represented before us today are doing their work in this critical area very well, but it is my impression at this point of our investigation that this is not the case nationwide. And that is a conclusion I want to stress. The evidence suggests we have a problem growing here of homegrown terrorism. I do not want to overstate it, and yet we would understate it at our peril. We have a problem. And these four police forces that are before us today are unique among local law enforcement in this country in developing the kinds of outreach, prevention, and detection programs that are now the exception, not the rule. And that reality represents a national vulnerability that we must together fix as soon as possible. So this is going to be a very important and interesting hearing. I thank our witnesses for coming from all across the country. As I said before you were here, Senator Collins, this is an investigation that began when you were Chairman and we have continued it now together, and I do not know that anybody else in Congress is doing anything quite like it. I think it is critically important for our security, so I thank you for initiating it, and I call on you at this time for your opening statement. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted that you are holding this hearing today. I think it will help deepen our understanding of the threat of homegrown terrorism and the role that local law enforcement can play in countering it. The rising threat of homegrown terrorism magnifies the importance of local law enforcement in our efforts to protect our country from attacks. While some terrorists are foreign nationals crossing borders to operate as part of an international network like al-Qaeda, others may be native-born or naturalized Americans radicalized by a Web site advocating violence or in an extremist mosque or even in prison. As recent domestic plots against Fort Dix and the JFK International Airport demonstrate, local law enforcement officers are often our first line of defense against such homegrown terrorist threats. Whether local officers are patrolling, investigating the link between a stolen car and a driver's forged identification, or conducting community outreach, their actions can help to disrupt terrorists' planned attacks within our country. These officers are often present at the first encounter with radical elements in their communities. For example, four of the September 11, 2001, terrorists, including the one who hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, had earlier been pulled over and ticketed for speeding. Each of them had violated a U.S. immigration law, but the State and local officers who stopped them were not aware of that. If standard procedures had included checks for such infractions, and if we had set up an effective system to get that data to these front-line officers, perhaps part of the September 11, 2001, plot might have been detected and disrupted. Surveilling and photographing public buildings, smuggling drugs or cash, buying precursor materials for bombs, making violent statements or threats--checking on any of these behaviors can turn a routine policing incident into a chapter of the broader fight against terrorism. Alert officers sensitized to the potential implications of these behaviors are powerful weapons in our homeland security arsenal. Local police are also particularly well positioned to understand the roots of violent extremist behavior in the ethnic, racial, or religious communities in their towns and cities and to reach out to those communities in a respectful and cooperative spirit. Each of the departments represented before us today has worked on understanding the process of radicalization to the point of violence and on avoiding attitudes or tactics that can alienate local populations and reduce their willingness to report suspicious events or to cooperate in police investigations. With wider awareness of threats, more extensive coordination, and better information sharing, the Nation's local law enforcement officers can play an even stronger, more collaborative role in our counterterrorism partnership. Today we will learn more about the initiatives of the New York City, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and Miami-Dade police departments to combat the threat of radicalization and domestic terrorism. I particularly look forward to hearing about New York City's study of the radicalization process based on foreign and domestic case studies. It offers a very useful framework for analyzing and intervening in this lethal process. Like the Chairman, I was struck by the finding that often the individuals who go through the radicalization process are ``unremarkable'' citizens, living lives without any contact with the criminal justice system. Similarly, the work of the LAPD in creating a fusion center, which I have visited, and in developing a Community Mapping Project provides examples of best practices that can be extended elsewhere. I look forward to deepening this Committee's understanding of how local police departments have organized themselves for counterterrorism work, how they develop and use personnel and programs, and how they interact and coordinate with agencies on the Federal level, like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. They can also help us identify and disseminate best practices and lessons learned and ensure that our sharing of information and analysis provides effective, actionable leads. While our witnesses today represent major cities, we must keep in mind that terrorists, whether foreign or homegrown, can also plan, train, buy supplies, assemble bombs, or carry out attacks in smaller communities or rural areas. We must ensure that those officers in smaller departments benefit from the skills and knowledge developed in larger departments and that our Federal assistance is delivered in ways that can provide the greatest support for all local law enforcement efforts. So, again, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for scheduling this very important hearing. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. We will go now to the first panel. We are glad to welcome Lawrence Sanchez, Assistant Commissioner, New York City Police Department, and Mitchell Silber, Senior Intelligence Analyst of the New York City Police Department. Thanks for all your work. I think you have broken new ground, and we are very grateful that you are here to talk to us about it. Commissioner Sanchez, I believe you are going to begin. TESTIMONY OF LAWRENCE H. SANCHEZ, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT Mr. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senators, Committee Members, staff, and guests. We, in the New York Police Department, again are very grateful for the opportunity to address this Committee on what this department views as a critical issue affecting the safety of the citizens of New York City. Since September 11, 2001, the world has witnessed dozens of attack plots, all highlighting the potential threat of radicalization by Islamist extremism, especially in Western democracies. In New York City itself, we have experienced this phenomenon up close as evidenced by the 34th Street case, the Fort Dix case, and the JFK case. Your Committee's interest in the role of local law enforcement relative to the Islamist extremist-based threat is one that the NYPD has continued to evolve since the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001. In a city of about 8.5 million, where 40 percent of its population is foreign born, the New York Police Department views its mission as going beyond that of the more traditional Federal mission on terrorism. In other words, rather than just protecting New York City citizens from terrorists, the New York Police Department believes that part of its mission is to protect New York City citizens from turning into terrorists. And that is a very important point because it changes the threshold, it changes the focus, and actually it makes the job a lot harder. That is why the understanding of all aspects of Islamist extremism, how it plays into radicalization, the agents involved, and the tactics involved, are all vital to our department's ability to counter the effects of this phenomenon across this 8.5 million population. As you mentioned, we published this study on the homegrown radicalization in the West. This analysis and compilation of 11 cases documents a continuity of behaviors and indicators across all 11 cases that may--and I emphasize ``may''--be signatures or precursors of potential future terrorist acts. Mitch Silber, one of our senior civilian analysts, who has been actually working on this for the past 3 years, has spent a good part of his time traveling to the front lines of homegrown radicalization, which are in Europe, in the U.K., the Netherlands, France, Spain, and spending a lot of time actually looking at what has been termed ``innocuous behaviors,'' and plotted and documented these in his study of these 11 cases. I am going to turn the floor over to him so he can give you a brief synopsis of the highlights of what this study encompassed. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Commissioner. Mr. Silber. TESTIMONY OF MITCHELL D. SILBER,\1\ SENIOR INTELLIGENCE ANALYST, INTELLIGENCE DIVISION, NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT Mr. Silber. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Senators. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ ``Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,'' report from the City of New York Police Department, prepared by Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt appears in the Appendix on page 537. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The NYPD believes that the threat, and the nature of the threat, of al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism to New York City has evolved since September 11, 2001. While the threat from overseas remains, most of the terrorist attacks or thwarted plots against cities in the West since September 11, 2001, have fit a different pattern. The individuals who plotted or conducted the attacks were generally citizens or residents of the nations in which the attacks occurred. Though a few may have received training in al-Qaeda camps, the great majority did not. Although al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for each attack, these attacks were not under the command and control of al-Qaeda Central, nor were they specifically funded by al-Qaeda Central. Rather, they were conducted by local residents and citizens who used al-Qaeda as their ideological inspiration. This is a homegrown threat, and it is driven by radicalization. The current threat that homegrown al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism presents to Europe is on an order of magnitude greater than that of the homegrown threat to the United States. Second- and third-generation Muslim citizens, whether they are in Britain, Spain, Germany, Denmark, or other European nations, are more alienated, less accepted, and, thus, more vulnerable to radicalization than in America. To some degree, America's longstanding tradition of absorbing varied diaspora populations has protected the United States and retarded the radicalization process at home. However, one of the primary conclusions of our report, ``Radicalization in the West,'' is that the process of radicalization that led homegrown groups in Europe, Canada, and Australia to plot against their host countries is applicable and has already occurred within the United States. American Muslims are more resistant, though not immune, to the jihadi-Salafi narrative. The thwarted plot against Fort Dix in New Jersey in May 2007, was conceived by homegrown jihadists, took place less than 2 hours from Manhattan, and only underscored the seriousness of this emerging threat to the homeland. With this in mind, NYPD sought to better understand this trend and the radicalization process in the West that drives unremarkable people to become terrorists. Our study examined the trajectories of radicalization that produced operational cells in Madrid, in Amsterdam, in London, in Sydney, and in Toronto to construct an analytical framework that tracks jihadist recruits from the stages of pre-radicalization to self-identification to indoctrination through jihadization--a cycle that ends with either capture or death. It then compares this model with the trajectories of radicalization observed in conspiracies within the United States, including the jihadist clusters in Lackawanna, New York; Northern Virginia; Portland, Oregon; New York City; and, last, with the Hamburg cell that was responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001. More recently, based on my travels to Denmark and Germany this past month, and based on conversations with their intelligence and police services, the two plots that were thwarted this past September in both countries also seemed to follow the same basic process that we have identified. The dissection and comparison of these plots led to the assessment that there is a common pathway of radicalization in the West. Each of the stages in this process is distinct and a specific signature is associated with it. All individuals who begin this process do not necessarily pass through all of the stages, and the vast majority stop or abandon this process at different points. Moreover, although this model is sequential, individuals do not always follow a perfectly linear progression. However, individuals who do pass through this entire process are quite likely to be involved in a terrorist act. Pre-radicalization: Pre-radicalization is the point of origin for individuals before they begin this progression. It is their life situation before they were exposed to and adopted jihadi-Salafi Islam as their own ideology. Based on our comparative studies of 11 cases, individuals who are vulnerable to this radicalization tend to be male Muslims between the age of 15 to 35 who are local residents and citizens from varied ethnic backgrounds. Significant proportions come from middle- class backgrounds and are not economically destitute. Moreover, many are educated, with at least a high school background, if not university students. Recent converts to Islam are particularly vulnerable to this ideology and have played an important role in many of the groups. Nevertheless, the far majority of group members do not start out as radical, or even devout, Muslims. Self-identification: Self-identification is the phase where individuals, influenced by both internal and external factors, begin to explore Salafi Islam, gradually gravitate away from their old identity, and begin to associate themselves with and adopt this ideology as their own. The catalyst for this identity crisis and subsequent religious seeking is often what is called in behavioral science a ``cognitive opening.'' This is an event which challenges one's certitude in previously held beliefs and opens one's mind to a new perception or view of the world. Some of the crises that can jump-start this process include economic--losing a job, blocked mobility; social issues-- alienation, discrimination, racism, real or perceived; political issues--international conflicts involving Muslims; or personal issues--a close death in the family. For many Muslims in the West, especially those of the second and third generations, who are seeking to learn about their Muslim heritage, the Salafi interpretation is the version of Islam that they are most widely exposed to. It has become more mainstream and has proliferated within diaspora communities. This interpretation of Islam is not the cultural Islam of their parents or of their home countries. And while this may begin as an adoption of a more peaceful, apolitical, or political variants of Salafi ideology, it also can become a stepping stone to the jihadi-Salafi interpretation which paves a path to terrorism by its doctrines, which suggest that violence is a viable and legitimate means to defend Islam from perceived enemies, even if it means attacking one's own government and/or sacrificing one's own life. Indoctrination: Indoctrination is the stage in which an individual progressively intensifies his beliefs, wholly adopts this ideology and concludes, without question, that the conditions and circumstances exist where action is required to support and further the cause. This action is militant jihad. Group members leave the mosque if it is not sufficiently extreme and too conspicuous. Gradually, they begin to separate themselves from secular society, and they self-radicalize. Radicalization continues in the living room of the nearby private house or apartment. The only window left open to the world is the Internet. However, at this point individuals are interacting with like-minded others in a virtual echo chamber-- individuals who only reinforce their beliefs. Jihadization: This is the phase in which members of the cluster accept their individual duty to participate in militant jihad and self-designate themselves as holy warriors or mujahideen. Ultimately, the group will begin operational planning for the attack. These ``acts in furtherance'' will include planning, preparation, and execution. One particularly important observation is that this process of participating in autonomous jihad is very much a group phenomenon. While earlier stages may occur on an individual basis, this phase is closely associated with friends deciding to partake in an action together rather than as isolated individuals. Often individuals will seek to travel abroad to participate in the field of jihad, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Somalia, or Iraq--only to be redirected to the West to do something for the cause there. Frequently, the group members participate in outdoor activities, like rafting, camping, and paintball, to vet, to bond, and to train. In addition, mental preparation commences as jihadist videos are watched. Last, potential targets are chosen, surveillance and reconnaissance begins, and the group weaponizes with readily available components. It is critical to note that while other stages of radicalization may take place gradually over 2 to 3 years, the jihadization phase--the stage which defines the actual attack-- can occur quickly and with very little warning. In some cases, this stage runs its course in as little as a couple of weeks. So what explains this phenomenon? Well, it begins with alienation of second- and third-generation Muslims, individuals who are torn because of the secular West and their religious heritage. It also encompasses economic stagnation and perceived discrimination--issues that are far more concerning in Europe than in the United States. In addition, there is a search for identity. This exposes individuals to the Salafi-Wahhabi interpretation, and this can be through a variety of different conduits: Muslim student associations at universities, NGOs, mosques, and probably most importantly, the Internet. There is also the prevalence of jihadi subculture in most cities in the West; if individuals are looking for tapes or books they can find in a local mosque bookstore or via a student group. In addition, this is a vulnerable demographic. These individuals are at a very action-oriented age. And, finally, there are the current military clashes in the Islamic world that highlight the fault lines between the West and Islam. These are portrayed by some as a clash of civilizations or a war on Islam, and they are portrayed as crises that necessitate mobilization. The list of grievances is long, and it includes issues like Spanish participation in Iraq, U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, Canadian or Australian participation in Afghanistan, U.S. support for Israel, British presence in Iraq or Afghanistan, and India's presence in Kashmir. However, it is important to note that the removal of any one or two of these issues would not eliminate the threat, and I call attention to the Madrid 2004 train bombings. Clearly, the grievance that drove these individuals was to punish Spain for its participation in the coalition war in Iraq. However, the second rationale is not as well known. The individuals who conducted the attack cited the Spanish occupation, and this is the Spanish occupation of al- Andalus going back to 1492 and the expulsion of the Moors by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella--clearly a grievance that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. In conclusion, since September 11, 2001, U.S. authorities have uncovered homegrown jihadists in such varied locations as Lackawanna, New York; Northern Virginia; Portland, Oregon; Fort Dix; and New York City. These arrests, along with trends observed at the street level in New York City indicate that radicalization is taking place in the United States. Our fear is that even small conspiracies with limited capabilities could carry out attacks equivalent to the London subway bombings, the Madrid train bombings, or even a jihadist version of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Mr. Silber. That was very thoughtful and informative, and I appreciate that work very much. Let's do 7-minute opening rounds since there are three of us here. Let me go back to something I said in my opening statement, which is the previous testimony of Secretary Chertoff and Director Mueller, that there is a very real threat from homegrown violent Islamist extremism. A National Intelligence Estimate that came out in July said the same thing as your report, just to establish a basis of fact here. In your report, there is a section titled ``The New York City Experience,'' and you write, ``Radicalization continues permeating New York City, especially in Muslim communities.'' I wonder if you would take a moment to just add a little bit and explain what that statement means, not just to New York but in terms of the real or potential threat from homegrown Islamist extremism in the United States. Mr. Sanchez. Well, I think, Senator, you can look at it from several different angles. One is that New York is not immune, just as any other city, and the amount of extremism available on the Internet has been growing logarithmically. It is available. It is easy to get. You do not have to go far to find an Internet cafe even if you do not have a computer. You can always be subjected to the extremism provided in the Internet and the virtual world. In the 34th Street case, we found this extremism in a bookstore that would sell extremist material. And not uncommonly, you will find other places of business where they do sell jihadist tapes, jihadist literature. So the availability of material that is extremist continues to grow, and it is made available in the regular business abodes that you would see in any city. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Would you say that the Internet today is the most significant factor in the radicalization that is occurring in America? Mr. Sanchez. I would, because I believe the Internet is usually the stepping stone where people go to look first. If you look across these phases of radicalization, there is an identity phase where people are really looking for an answer. When you look for an answer, people nowadays, especially in Western societies, go to the Internet. And, unfortunately, because the extremist message is the most popular, when you Google something like ``Islam,'' you are going to get the first 15 sites all going to be extremist sites. So you get an immediate exposure to that. Then the Internet plays another role. When you move on to another phase, which is one of looking for other like-minded people so you can come out of the virtual world and meet real people, it has chat rooms. It talks about places. It talks about things you could do together. It talks about events that you can go and join and become part of it. So now it gives you indicators for the real world where you can meet real people rather than living in this virtual world. And then as you progress down these stages, the Internet then becomes a research tool for maybe things you want to do. If you want to research information on bomb-making material, the Internet, again, becomes a resource for that. So it really covers the breadth of a radicalization process and becomes a useful tool in each of its phases. Chairman Lieberman. One of the things in response to your report and a hearing earlier in the year as a result of an investigation on the role of the Internet that I have been thinking about is whether we should make a request of the Internet service providers to take some of the extremist Web sites off. They have got that capacity. They do it in some cases where there is dangerous material. None of us likes censorship, but insofar as this is a real threat to security, I wonder if you have thought about that as one response to what you found in your investigation. Mr. Sanchez. It would be, I think, a very important step if we were able to curb the amount of extremist sites available on the Web. But I am skeptical that we would, again, have a lot of traction in doing that because we have seen so many sites go down and we have seen so many sites go up. I mean, even in the world where there is a lot of law enforcement putting a lot of effort on cases of child pornography, they have not been able to curb it much. It stops and comes up. I think it is almost a futile attempt. Chairman Lieberman. Yes, I hear you, and that is a question I have asked myself, something we are exploring. Obviously, you would not knock off a Web site on Islam. You would have to find evidence on the site that it was quite literally fomenting, insurrection, violence, and that it was providing a chat room in which some things were happening which were going to lead potentially to radical action. Going beyond the Internet, I was struck by the NYPD report concluding that potential violent Islamist extremists, including those who go on to the Internet, still need what the report calls a ``spiritual sanctioner'' and an ``operational leader,'' which suggests that the Internet alone cannot complete--or even initiate in some cases the radicalization process. I wonder if you would talk about that a bit and also whether the Internet in some cases itself becomes the spiritual sanctioner. Mr. Sanchez. Let me give that one to Mr. Silber. I think he can do a good job on that. Mr. Silber. Right. One of the cases that we discussed was the Toronto 18 case from the summer of 2006, and that was really a demonstration of where a group of individuals met on the Internet and interacted on the Internet. But at the end of the day, before they could actually commit an act, they had to leave the virtual world and meet in the real world, and to some degree, that is maybe an intervention point for law enforcement. But more specifically in terms of these two archetypes that we highlighted, the spiritual sanctioner, I will talk about that one first, and that is really an important individual, and it is interesting that the individual is more often than not the imam in the mosque. This is really a self-appointed expert on Islam and may know just a little bit more than everybody else. But this person's role really cannot be underestimated because it is this individual who is giving this minority extremist view of Islam and making it legitimate to these individuals who do not have much knowledge of Islam to begin with. And in almost every one of the cases that we looked at, that individual played a key role in guiding the radicalization of the individuals and telling them what was a legitimate response, what was approved by Islam or not. And this really drove these groups' radicalization, and we really see that person as key for bringing people from stage two, self- identification, where it is simply just a religious awakening and can be very benign, to step three, which is indoctrination, where clearly someone has adopted the fact that violence is a legitimate means to an end. And as far as the operational planner goes, that person has also a critical role, and often the difference between a group of individuals that is simply an aggrieved bunch of guys and a group that actually goes operational. And one could look at Mohammed Siddique Khan on July 7, 2005, in London, or even really Mohamed Atta from the Hamburg group as being the individual who took these disparate individuals who really did not have the backing in terrorism and made them an operational group. Chairman Lieberman. Excellent. Thank you. My time is up. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As usual, you and I focused on exactly the same issues, so I am going to continue along that same line of questioning. In your report, you found that the individuals who go through this process are not on law enforcement's radar, that they are largely, your term was, ``unremarkable individuals.'' But in all 11 cases, there was, as the Chairman indicated, a spiritual sanctioner and an operational leader. There is no profile for the individual who may be recruited to go through this process, but is there a profile for the spiritual sanctioner and the operational leader? Mr. Silber. Mr. Silber. In terms of the spiritual sanctioner, really the only profile in terms of commonality was this was an individual who believed that they knew more about Islam and knew a little bit more than the rest of the group. So they had some claim to legitimacy. In the European cases, a few of these individuals actually had experience fighting in what they believed was a legitimate jihad overseas, so they had this veteran status. Specifically, in the Hamburg group of September 11, 2001, there was an individual named Mohammed Haydar Zammar, and this was a person who had experience fighting in jihad in Bosnia. So when he claimed to know what the true Islam was, that carried more weight with this group of neophytes. And as far as the operational planner, it is really somebody with the mentality, discipline, and intellect to be able to lead the group. And, again, Mohammed Siddique Khan in the July 7, 2005, attack, this was a Leeds Metropolitan University graduate. Again, with September 11, 2001, with the Hamburg group, Mohamed Atta was an individual who was an engineering and architectural student. So these were people who were well educated, well informed, and had the knowledge to be that leader. Senator Collins. What your findings suggest to me is that it is almost impossible to try to figure out who is going to go through this process because they are average citizens or average residents, but that if we can figure out who is likely to be the spiritual sanctioner or the operational planner, that could lead us to the entire network, because it is really telling that in every one of the case studies that you looked at, you had those two roles. Is that a fair assessment of how we should target the efforts? Mr. Silber. I think certainly having those individuals is a necessary condition for a group to go forward, and actually one group that we profiled, the Hofstad group in Amsterdam, was a group where it was unclear who the operational leader was. And as a result, this group never actually went forward to fulfill their greater plans. One individual acted ahead of everybody else and assassinated Theo van Gogh. But that group did not have an operational planner and could not go forward. But certainly those two individuals are critical for the group to go through the whole process, and it may be worthwhile to try and identify those individuals as a first step. Senator Collins. Commissioner Sanchez, I was struck in reading about the department that you have an enormous number of individuals with foreign language capabilities that allows you to more easily do outreach to specific communities, and it really is in stark contrast to the lack of that capability at the Federal level. I am wondering whether it is because you have made an effort to recruit from those communities, or are you investing in significant language training for your police officers? Mr. Sanchez. Having spent over 20 years at the CIA before coming to the New York Police Department, I was overwhelmed by the resources they had as far as language and culture. I think being that New York City is 40-percent foreign born, the NYPD mimics that demographic breakdown. There are probably in the area of being between 25- to 40-percent foreign born, just by the typical average recruiting would have classes that would include quite a bit of both first- and second- generation people from various countries. So it was not something--there was not a program we instilled. It was resources we found. And what we have done with it is rather than allowing it to just be part of the fabric of the NYPD, we sort of corralled it to be able to use it as best we can on this issue. Senator Collins. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. Senator Voinovich, thanks for being here this morning. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH Senator Voinovich. Thank you, and thank you for following up on the hearings that Senator Collins started on this issue of radicalization. I think it is one of the most important issues that we need to be concerned about, and I congratulate you for the outstanding work that you have done in this report. As a former mayor, one of the things that I always was troubled about is too often the interface with the community is always through the police department. And I wonder, do you have any other vehicle where you are reaching out to the Muslim community besides the police department? Do you have a community relations board, for example, that has outreach into the neighborhoods where people live to develop an understanding and dialogue and a communications network? Mr. Sanchez. The department does have a community--whole community policing unit. The department is very big. The department is 53,000--37,000 in uniform, the people we have. Community outreach is a very important part of what we do. Yes, it is mainly a police-run community effort, but it is usually run from our little home stations called precincts that are within each of these communities. These are the actual first faces and the common faces that the people in those neighborhoods, be it if it is the Hassidics on two blocks and the Pakistanis three blocks over, see on a daily basis. So we do most of our work through the police and an outreach that includes civilians within that police department, but it is done through the police department. Senator Voinovich. We call them ``police-community relations.'' Mr. Sanchez. Correct. Senator Voinovich. I had them out in the district, and they got the local people together with the department. Mr. Sanchez. Correct. Senator Voinovich. And beat cops to talk and dialogue with each other and get to understand each other. Mr. Sanchez. And they have picnics, and they do all kinds of events with them. It is very important that we always preserve that as a function without ever tainting it with any preconceived notions of anything that we know about terrorism, because they are dealing with people on a daily basis and the most important thing they do is to secure and develop confidence within those communities across every ethnicity that lives there. Senator Voinovich. What efforts are being made by the Muslim community? I recently met with Imam Rauf in my office, and if you are familiar with him, he is trying both, in the United States and internationally, to get Muslims to understand that you can be a good Muslim and you can believe in the Declaration of Independence and all of the things that we hold dear to us, and that they are not inconsistent. But is there any effort in the Muslim community to try and counteract the more radical elements who try to get people to do things that are inconsistent with the Koran. Because unfortunately, and I believe incorrectly, it casts a bad shadow over the entire Muslim community. Mr. Sanchez. It is a very tough issue, Senator, for various reasons. One is that, unfortunately, Islam is not a religion that has tenets, doctrines, and hierarchy. So you cannot have one spokesman to try to set a standard. Even when we looked across al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri, and al-Zarqawi, they all emulated a different cleric. That said, the other problem we have is that it is not always about the religion, we have seen. It is a political ideology that cuts and pastes religion to fulfill conviction. And what I mean by that is the spiritual sanctions that we get in Western democracies, they are not like learned scholars with 35 or 40 years of studying at al-Azhar University and others, and really studying the religion and becoming experts on this. These are 22- and 23-year-old kids that are coming out of some of the Muslim student associations who are very charismatic and become spiritual sanctioners. So, again, it just continues to justify that this is not so much about the religion, but they are skilled enough to provide this religion justification for a political conviction. We see many times where the moderate church is trying to influence the more extremist mosques. A moderate mosque influencing a more extremist mosque can actually polarize them. They do not want to listen to them. It is almost as if you had a charismatic Catholic Church trying to influence a conservative one, and we have that dynamic going on. So I do not know if the answer is going to be through the religion at the end of the day. Senator Voinovich. We talked about the Internet. What do European countries do? Are radical Web sites as available in France or Britain as in the United States? I mean, the Internet has become a dangerous source of propaganda and an even more dangerous source of terrorist training. Mr. Sanchez. It is a global phenomenon, but I will let Mr. Silber talk to you about that because he has actually sat with these people from the other countries and talked about that. Mr. Silber. Yes, Senator, they are as frustrated as we are in the fact that it is so difficult to regulate, and even if some attempt were to bring down a site, these people are very resilient, and individuals find other ways to bring these Web sites back in some type of other formula. The only thing that we have seen--and, really, I do not know if there is enough data to measure success or not--at least in the U.K. they raised the threshold in terms of what they can do a prosecution for in terms of the Internet, and probably within about the last month or so, they convicted an individual up in Scotland for incitement to violence, an individual who had downloaded significant data from the Internet about how to conduct attacks. And this was an individual who himself had not gone through a conspiracy stage, but at least the fact that he had downloaded this information, had spent an amount of time on the Web at these different Web sites, was ultimately convicted and received a sentence of 8 years. So that is what the Brits are experimenting with, in a sense raising the threshold in terms of what you can do or not do on the Internet, and it still remains to be seen if that is going to be successful and discourage people from going to these Web sites. Senator Voinovich. Mr. Chairman, I know you talked about it, but Internet use in inciting violence may be something that we really ought to look into. The Internet has become a weapon that is being used to incite individuals to conduct that which they ordinarily would not be involved with or would be incapable of in the first place. I remember when I was a State legislator, and the police department came to me, and we had a lot of fire bombing going on in the late 1960s. Individuals would meet in the street at 3 o'clock in the morning with a bottle of kerosene and a wick and they would have matches or some other device to ignite it. But they could not arrest them until they put it together and they were ready to go with it. We got a piece of legislation passed that said that under those circumstances law enforcement could act and not wait until it was too late. And, frankly, they did not use it very often, but the fact it was there and available to them meant a great deal in terms of dealing with some of the stuff they were confronted with on the street. So I think we have got to maybe look at some of these things differently than we would traditionally because of technology. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. I agree with you, and I appreciate your statement. We should work together to see if there is something we can do. I know there are some others on the Hill that are interested in this with the Internet service providers to try to bring down some of these violent Web sites, understanding that they can bounce up again somewhere else, but at least we will make it harder for them to do business, which is, I think, by extension, exactly what you were trying to do in the case that you described. Because this is so interesting, I am going to ask that we do another round, a shorter round, maybe 4 minutes each, just to subject you to a continuing cross-examination. I want to stress something Mr. Silber said, because for a long time I think we have felt that because America is such an open society, Muslim Americans, like every other wave of immigrants that have come to the country, have had opportunity unmatched elsewhere, including in Europe, that we would not face this problem. And it is, first, reassuring, based on your investigation on both sides of the Atlantic, that you agree that the problem is significantly less severe here than in Europe for exactly that reason, that the Muslim Americans who have come here from the various places they have worked their way up, and obviously the overwhelming majority are very loyal and proud American citizens. But you had a sentence that is worth remembering, which is that American Muslims are more resistant but not immune--and that is the point--to what you call the jihadi-Salafi ideology. Second, Commissioner Sanchez, I am paraphrasing, but I think you said that the aim of this investigation and of the NYPD was not just to prevent terrorist attacks, obviously, post-September 11, 2001, in New York City, but to try to understand and then prevent the radicalization that leads to terrorist attacks. So in the end, what are the steps that you come away with that you feel in this very unusual area, unremarkable people, not on the screen of law enforcement, how do you begin to try to prevent the radicalization that leads to terrorism? Mr. Sanchez. Let me try to answer it this way. The key to it was first to understand it and to start appreciating what most people would say would be non-criminal, would be innocuous, looking at behaviors that could easily be argued in a Western democracy, especially in the United States, to be protected by First and Fourth Amendment rights, but not to look at them in a vacuum, but to look across to them as potential precursors to terrorism. New York City, of course, has created its own methods to be able to understand them better, to be able to identify them, and to be able to make judgment calls if these are things that we need to worry about. In a closed forum, I could go into a lot more detail, Senator, as you have been briefed in the past on how we do business. But the understanding and appreciation and the acknowledgment of the dynamics of the issue are the first steps. Chairman Lieberman. I appreciate that and I thank you for it. This investigation by the Committee is ongoing, but I will tell you what I said at the outset, that your department obviously has done real pioneering work here. There is great work being done by the three other departments we will hear from in a minute. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. And, quite surprisingly, in some communities with significant Muslim-American populations, there is very little of the organized outreach that these four departments are involved in. I wanted to ask you whether you or anyone else is doing anything--your responsibilities are large enough in New York, but what has been the reaction of law enforcement around the country to this report that you have done and some of the law enforcement that you are working with? Mr. Sanchez. Mixed, Senator, at best, and for various reasons--and various reasons that are very understandable. The reality is that crime has dropped in New York City for the past 15 to 16 years in a row. It is an unbelievable trend. Homicides this year might even come under 500, which would be unheard of. Because we have been attacked twice, we have been given tolerance by the public and the luxury to be very aggressive on this topic. The City of New York might be a No. 1 target, but as you point out, Senator, it is not unique to this phenomenon of radicalization, which worries us every single day, because at one point we have the Federal Government on the front lines for those attacks that are generated where people are radicalized from overseas and come to New York. We are hoping we have a handle on things that are incubating in the streets of Queens. But what we do not have confidence in is that things are incubating in the United States in another city which is not doing anything, and can come to New York City as a target city. That said, the motivations and incentives in many of the cities that have high crime--terrorism is not going to be the first issue, especially if the calculus at the end of the day is that the terrorist act by those potential extremists is not going to be in that city. So it makes it difficult to be able to create some kind of a comprehensive approach to this in the United States. That said, the New York Police Department has launched an Operation Sentry where we have started an outreach program to all the departments around us, as small as they might be, from Poughkeepsie to Newburgh to Suffolk County. And we are creating training, we are showing them how we do business in New York City, and basically trying to proliferate the way we do business and understand this phenomenon. Chairman Lieberman. Good. Thank you. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Commissioner, what has been the reaction of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to your report? Mr. Sanchez. I guess that has sort of been mixed, too. Our relationship with the FBI has actually--and as you probably heard in a lot of different settings, become stronger and a lot closer. I will honestly tell you, when the NYPD got into this business, it was horrible. There were a lot of turf issues, as one might expect. There was a lot of hostility. But I guess the size of our department kept this alive, and our commitment that we are not going to go away kept this alive. Now, that said, I think we continue to depend on the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), and we continue providing over 125 detectives to the JTTF to protect us from that threat that is coming from overseas where we cannot collect on it, we do not know when these people got radicalized, and we do not know where they are going. So we really depend on that, and we take direction from them there, and they know that. The reception, I think, on our paper has been mixed in that a lot of organizations would have rather put something out on this before we did. It was important for us to get this out quickly because every day we are fighting the war of civil liberties, one we are trying to protect, but one we are also trying to inform. And we could not be too politically correct on all of this and still preserve the program that we continue to be very aggressive on in New York City. So the short non-answer: It has been a mixed response. Sometimes it is just quiet. But it has not been volatile or hostile. Senator Collins. That is my assessment as well, based on our discussions with the FBI in particular. We held a hearing earlier this year that the Chairman referred to looking at the use of the Internet as a radicalization tool, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps some of the Federal agencies involved in this fight were not taking the threat of domestic radicalization through the Internet seriously enough. What is your assessment? Do you think the Federal response to the threat of homegrown terrorism is at the level it should be? Mr. Sanchez. Senator, it is tough to say because one of the problems I see that the Federal officials have--I said before that part of our mission drives the way we do business, and part of our mission is to protect New York City citizens from becoming the terrorists. The Federal Government does not have that mission, so automatically, by definition, their threshold is higher. So they are going to have a lot harder time having to deal with behaviors that run the gamut on First and Fourth Amendment rights and to be able to even look and scrutinize them without having even reached a standard of criminality that you need if your prime objective is you are going to lock them up. So it is difficult. Even though the will might be there, I think the limitations actually hinder the ability. And, of course, resources, think about New York City. The Intelligence Division is 600 strong, and we are only doing five boroughs. Senator Collins. Mr. Silber, my time is almost expired, but I want to bring up very quickly an issue that this Committee looked at a few years ago, and that was the financing of the spread of an extremist ideology by the Saudis through the financing of radical mosques and madrassas in this country. Are you seeing that in New York City as well? We looked at Northern Virginia in particular, which is where we saw it. Mr. Silber. Right. I think probably the biggest challenge that we see is probably the proliferation of the ideology that originates from Saudi Arabia. To date, NYPD has not pursued any terrorist financing cases. What we do see is the ideology. One of the things that we cite in our report were Noble Korans that were produced by al-Haramain Institute that ended up in the New York State prison system, and these were particular Korans that on the English side of the page had special footnotes and appendices that did not appear in the Arabic. And this, again, is a Koran that originated in Saudi Arabia. Much of the literature that we see being read by some of these student university groups is books that originate from Saudi Arabia about Muhammed ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. So we do see the ideological influence right now more so even than a financial role in proliferating the ideology. Senator Collins. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. I have met on a couple of occasions with our Joint Terrorism Task Force, about 3 years ago and then more recently in Cleveland, and I was impressed with the fact that they felt that information was really being moved around from Federal agencies to local agencies and they had a really good network there that would never have existed when I was mayor because of all the turf business, even among the Federal agencies. Do you share that observation, that the communication between these agencies is a lot better than it was before? Or do you think it needs to be improved? Mr. Sanchez. Senator, I can tell you that in New York City, our relationship with the JTTF and as far as whatever information we need--and, believe me, in New York we have progressed way past being enamored with threat information. We have been more seized with a lot more deep, strategic thought pieces that the intelligence community has had. And I can tell you that we have access to any and all of those at our request. Senator Voinovich. And do they have the same thing? In other words, are you responding and sharing with them information that you pick up? Mr. Sanchez. Right, and the beauty of it is that the people who have the clearances can guide those that may not have clearances that are doing the work. You can always protect sources and methods and still guide direction and operations. And I think we have found a way to actually make that work. Senator Voinovich. In some areas around the world, we are seeing a rise of anti-Semitism. Do you see any of that in New York? Mr. Sanchez. We have started to, as you have seen from some of the events we had at the tail end of the U.N. General Assembly, where we had the swastikas being painted--something that has not happened in New York City for years. We moved very quickly on the hate crimes to try to stem it before it got any traction. We are hoping we have stemmed it, but we are hoping it is not a trend that is going to take any hold. But you do have instances of that. You just have to move quickly to nip it in the bud. Senator Voinovich. In Ohio, we are trying in certain places--I am particularly familiar with what we have done in Cleveland--to bring the Jewish and the Muslim community together. Is there any effort under way in New York City to do the same thing? Mr. Sanchez. I do not know if there is a strategic effort. There have been instances where on occasion there have been meetings set up where it involves Jewish leaders speaking to Muslims. But I am not aware of any strategic effort to do this on a consistent basis at this point. Senator Voinovich. In our 9/11 legislation, we included a Sense of the Senate in regards to the prevention of radicalization leading to ideologically based violence. And at the end of it, we talked about the Department of Homeland Security educating State, local, and community leaders in regard to radicalization. Do you think that the Department of Homeland Security has been aggressive enough in this area? Or have you pretty well taken it over because you are on the street and you are able to do it? Mr. Sanchez. A little of both, Senator, in that I think the Department of Homeland Security has a much larger job, which, of course, then dilutes what we really need. I mean, they have to look at the entire country. They are trying to get their hands around radicalization State by State. And at this point, because of where we are in this, they are going to be limited by the information that has already been gathered through investigations, and not by starting at the ground up and figuring out what the real source of radicalization or the significance of it is in each. So as we do our work in New York, we have become very specific to New York City, so our information has become a lot more detailed in what we need. So the DHS studies are still probably less detailed than we need at this time, but they have been supportive in everything else that we have wanted them to do, including creating ways of getting information easier, actually detailing people to help us on certain projects. So it is a mixed bag. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Commissioner Sanchez and Mr. Silber, thanks for your testimony. Thanks for the investigation and research that led to your report. Thanks for your service in general. This Committee looks forward to continuing to work with you on this problem. We appreciate it very much. Mr. Sanchez. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Silber. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. We will now call our second panel to the table. That will be Deputy Chief Michael Downing, Counterterrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department; Major Michael Ronczkowski, Homeland Security Bureau, Miami-Dade Police Department; and Major Thomas Dailey, Homeland Security Division of the Kansas City Police Department. We thank you very much. You have traveled some distance to be here. But in each of your cases, based on the investigation our Committee has done, your departments are doing very important work that we both wanted to give some national attention to but, frankly, we also wanted to learn from. So we will begin now with Chief Downing. Thank you, Chief. TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL P. DOWNING,\1\ DEPUTY CHIEF, COUNTERTERRORISM AND CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE BUREAU, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT Mr. Downing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senators, and guests. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here to speak to you today. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Downing appears in the Appendix on page 627. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I come from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), which is a department of nearly 10,000 people, of which we have approximately 300 dedicated to this counterterrorism effort. But the real challenge is that while we may be No. 2 or No. 3 in size, the 17,000 or 18,000 local law enforcement agencies spread throughout the United States probably have as an average less than a hundred people. And so while our initiatives and projects and themes may appear grand and best practices, the real goal is to try to instill this level of focus and strategy to these smaller agencies throughout the United States. I had the pleasure to work in England with the New Scotland Yard for 2 months last year, and the stories that were told when I got there--just a year and a half prior they believed the IRA threat was over, that there was no terrorism issue there, and that they were focusing too much attention on it. Days later, as you know, explosions rang out throughout London, 52 British citizens were killed, and people were asking what happened. In November, the day I got on the plane to leave for England, the head of MI5 publicly stated that there were 1,600 people under surveillance for counterterrorism-related activity. There were 200 cells and 16 active operations, and people asked, how could this be? How could this be happening right under our noses? So today I bring you lessons from both sides of the Atlantic that I learned and share with you. Unlike Federal agencies, local law enforcement is part of the community. Knowing the community is what we do, and the close relationship that we have is the key to prevention. No agency knows their landscape better than the local law enforcement, and we were built and designed to be the eyes and ears of communities or the first preventers of terrorism. And not only us, but we tried to instill that idea of being the first preventers of terrorism to private security, the private sector, the faith communities, the communities that we work with every day, the businesses, and the corporations. Everybody has a responsibility. But it is also our position that legitimacy and intelligence are equally important tools for U.S. law enforcement in this counterterrorism effort. Legitimacy starts with the organizational knowledge and pride in operating constitutionally and within the law. And we want to be recognized as sincerely honoring this principle in intelligence and counterterrorism activities and respect this community so that they can respect us. In the LAPD, we believe that no amount of enforcement or intelligence can ultimately prevent extremism if the communities are not committed to working with law enforcement to prevent it. My testimony is based on the following four principles: That American-Muslim neighborhoods and communities have a genuine responsibility in preventing any form of extremism and terrorism. If the broader communities are intolerant of such things, these ideologies cannot take root. We need to show our belief in human dignity, the family, and the value of the individual, and that community policing initiatives in Muslim communities should aim to create a shared sense of threat. Society as a whole fears the indiscriminate mass violence we are seeing around the world, and only when the community leaders support this effort will there be a flow of credible intelligence. We have tried to align our people, our purpose, and our strategy around the mission of building capacity to both hunt and disrupt operational capability, the recruiting, the funding, the planning, the surveillance, and the execution of operations; but just as important, equally important--maybe more important--we have aligned our resources to focus on the motivational side of the terrorist equation; great efforts at organizing and mobilizing in partnership, raising the moderate Muslim voice to prevent extremists from making inroads into this faith community. We have gone to great lengths to extend ourselves and extend an olive branch to that community so that we can stand with them, that they feel confident to resist the extremists from taking over mosques or taking over their youth. Local law enforcement can play a vital role in the fight against violent ideological extremism as the educator. We talk about this balance between soldier and educator. Teaching all communities about the dangers of extreme ideologies can dispel harmful rumors and myths that alienate already pressured communities. We have learned that Muslim communities in the United States are mistrustful of the mainstream media. Therefore, they may turn to other sources which they have for news and socialization, such as the Internet. We have learned from the European experience how these alienated communities become a breeding ground for violent extremism and also become safe havens for potential terrorists to hide among the population. We do not have the same kinds of problems as England, France, Israel, and Germany. The underlying motivations are unique to the host country. And we also do not have the same kind of response--the Building Identity and Resisting Radicalization (BIRR) Project in Australia, the Channel Project in northern England, the Jail Deradicalization Project in Malaysia. But we have pioneered outreach efforts in the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. For the past 18 months, LAPD has been involved in outreach and grassroots dialogue with the Muslim communities, bringing the entire command staff to observe, learn, engage, and, most importantly, listen. This has helped to build more robust trust networks at the divisional level of police service. And our outreach to the non-Muslim community has combined education and prevention. We now have terrorism liaison officers in all of our divisions, in all of our fire stations. We have public health involved, code enforcement involved, parking enforcement involved, and L.A. Unified School Police involved. We are trying to institutionalize this idea and create more awareness, orientation, and also public data collectors. LAPD has learned the hard way. Southern California was the birthplace of gang culture, and in Los Angeles, we are all too familiar with the threat of violent crime by street gangs. You mentioned homicides. As of today, we have had 335 year- to-date. Last year-to-date at this time we had 399, and we hope to finish the year under 400. Normally, 65 to 70 percent of our homicides are gang related. But regardless of how many officers we deploy, we can only suppress specific incidents. Prevention is the lesson learned from the gang experience. And while more police are part of the answer, the real solution lies in the community, with the strengthening of family structure, economic base, the weakening of political power bases built on victimization, and a cultural tolerance of violence. Congress should ensure that DHS provides to local law enforcement the tools needed to establish this relationship and enlist the entire Muslim community in public safety. One of the biggest challenges for law enforcement in this environment is separating political jihadists, those who intentionally plant seeds of division in an effort to alienate and isolate Muslim citizens from the rest of society, from legitimate actors. The LAPD must also have the capability to hunt for signs of radicalization and terrorism activities on the Internet, and we have recently started a cyber investigations unit to do just that. The Internet is the virtual hangout for radicals and terrorists. In order to give our officers increased awareness of our local Muslim communities, the LAPD recently launched an initiative to conduct an extensive Community Mapping Project. We are also soliciting the input of local Muslim groups so the process can be transparent and inclusive. But this is not just a data set. It is the start of a longer conversation. We will identify with communities and the community identifying with its families, neighborhoods, city, State, country, and police. We probably have over 700,000 American Muslims throughout the Los Angeles region, but we do not really know where they live or what they do or how they are structured. We have great outreach, and we have got great relationships, but the idea here is to actually map out, to find out where the Pakistani Muslims live, the Somalians, the Chechnyans, the Jordanians, and then identify risk factors, exposure to Wahhabi-Salafi preaching, socioeconomic conditions, age and gender demographics, and look at those, and on one side be the catalyst to infuse social services and governmental resources, and then on the other side possibly be involved in intelligence approaches so that we know what is going on in those communities. For the past 18 months, LAPD's outreach and grassroots dialogue with Muslim communities has helped the entire command staff to observe, learn, engage, and listen. This has helped to build more robust trust in the area. We need to show that behind the badges of American law enforcement are caring Americans doing law enforcement. But we also need to help them develop the counter narrative, to inspire the American-Muslim community to responsibly partner with law enforcement, to help us with our purpose, and that is, to protect American values. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Chief, thanks very much. Very impressive and helpful testimony. I have some questions I want to ask you, but will wait until the end of the testimony. Major--not Mayor. I did not want to declare your candidacy today. Mr. Ronczkowski. I would rather be a Major. [Laughter.] Chairman Lieberman. Yes. You are a smart man. Major Ronczkowski, thanks for coming up representing the Homeland Security Bureau of the Miami-Dade Police Department. TESTIMONY OF MAJOR MICHAEL R. RONCZKOWSKI,\1\ HOMELAND SECURITY BUREAU, MIAMI-DADE POLICE DEPARTMENT Mr. Ronczkowski. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and other distinguished Members, I appreciate the opportunity to come forth today to give you some insight to what the Miami- Dade Police Department is doing in the realm of Islamist extremism as well as homeland security and the threat that may exist. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ronczkowski appears in the Appendix on page 635. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- We work with the simple premise of Merriam-Webster's definition of ``extremism'' as the advocacy of extreme measures or views. Nowhere in that definition does it point to any one particular group or segment of society that may exist. We are concerned with not only those of Islamist extremism but those which may exist in the homeland that will cause others to join them. It may be a white supremacist group. It may be other groups. There are many extremists that are out there. We are looking for the melding of them coming together. But we are going to focus on the Islamist extremist side of the house, and the role of local law enforcement is key, it is critical. What we are looking at--at the local law enforcement level--is a proactive posture. The Miami-Dade Police Department does not take a reactive--we want to be proactive. And in order to do that, we must get out there, work with the community, be aware of what is going on, and I am going to highlight some of those efforts. As you have noted, as well as other folks have noted, the Internet is a huge dilemma for us. We cannot police at the local level the Internet. Just go onto a very popular location, MySpace, that many teenagers are on. Type in the word ``jihad,'' and you will get 45,600 results back. Type in ``Islamist extremism,'' you are getting between 500 to 800 results back. Why is that key? Are every one of those violent extremists? No. But the discussions are there. They are posting pictures. We are aware of a lot of what is going on. And there are many other forums. I do not want to single out any one. But we do have to look at all of them, from YouTube to MySpace, what Google will bring back. It is amazing what you can come up with. Miami-Dade County is a large area, larger than two States and about 17 countries, where more than half of our citizens are foreign born. Nearly two-thirds speak another language. That diversity is exemplified in the religious bodies that we have. We have over 900 congregations and 70 different theologies represented. It is in the past 10 years that the Muslim component has come into play. We have got about 70,000 folks that follow Islam within our region. Nothing near what New York and L.A. are encountering, but we have them from far different reaches. We have them from Iran, we have them from Pakistan, we have a small Somali component. We have varying degrees. And as noted in New York's study, as well as other studies that have been done, such as the one in the Netherlands, there are many factors that come into play, and we are seeing some of them down in our area. I will provide you some insight into what we have been doing with the Federal partners, some of which has been exemplary. We are fortunate to have an exceptional relationship with not only the FBI but also with DHS down in our area. As I noted before, we are taking a proactive posture. We do not look at counterterrorism. We look at it as antiterrorism, one that should be taken by all law enforcement. What we have been approaching is getting the local law enforcement officer on the street to be the eyes and ears. Federal law enforcement does a great job, but they are not out there 24/7/365, as the local law enforcement is. We have reached out to our local law enforcement and been giving them a fundamental understanding of not only what to look for but different cultures, different keys, different patterns of behavior that may exist that they should be aware of. But something is missing. We need to teach them about Sayyid Qutb, who had a presence here in the United States prior to going over to lead the Muslim Brotherhood, and Abdul Azam-- these are ideologues of al-Qaeda--as well as others that may exist. Few have hardly even heard of them. We have gone ahead, and we have put out classes that have reached out to our local law enforcement partners, not just in our department but the 109 different ones in our region. Yes, there are 109 law enforcement agencies, many small, many large. The traffic stop is a component that is experienced by every single law enforcement agency at the local level. Federal law enforcement does not do many. Local law enforcement may do 50 to 100 within a week within an agency. That is key, because if you look at some of the main players that have been stopped since 1988 with the Japanese Red Army bomb maker in New Jersey, Timothy McVeigh, and most recently the individuals in South Carolina, they have not been stopped by Federal agents. They have been stopped by local law enforcement for traffic infractions. We keep talking about the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is key. However, these are folks that are going under the radar screen, and something that in this country we rely upon heavily is not mass transit, it is local transportation, and that is the vehicle. That vehicle gets stopped, gets ticketed, has traffic crashes. Those are opportunities to uncover different pieces of the puzzle. It is time that local law enforcement starts acting locally and thinking globally. We have taken an approach that it is nice to know that you can go ahead and do things within a certain jurisdiction, but we are not an extension of necessarily the local government. We are an extension of the national effort, national law enforcement. We understand in South Florida what is going on in Cuba. We understand the tri- border region. We understand what is going on in the Middle East. These are representations of our communities, so we have a need to understand what is taking place out there. The terrorist organizations that we are facing today are no longer hierarchical, top-down chain of command. They are very flat organizations as, through the Internet and through other means, the radicalization piece is huge. What we are going to find in the local law enforcement is material support. That is the financing and weapons that may be necessary to carry out a plot, as well as the recruitment. These are the three main pieces. We are not going to catch Osama bin Laden at the local level. Efforts that we have been working with Major Cities Chiefs Association and Federal partners have helped us reach out to Los Angeles, Kansas City, and New York on a continual basis, but those efforts need to continue to go forth. What we are starting to see is diffusing of the information. While diffusing of the information is great on a national level, it has got to start at the local level. As you pointed out, many agencies at the local level have a huge presence, have had radicalization, from Hancock, New York, to Bridgeview, Illinois, to Lodi, California. Nobody has been immune. South Florida has not. As you pointed out, Senator, the traffic stop, in South Florida, next county up--we have had many Islamist extremists that have come through the South Florida region. In November 2005, the Miami-Dade Police Department went to address some of the issues, and that was the identification of skills, knowledge, resource, accessibility, and motive--what I call ``SKRAM''--what we are trying to locate within these terrorist organizations. We started that by developing a Homeland Security Bureau in 2005. We are not as large as New York or L.A., but we have committed 65 dedicated, experienced investigators, as well as analysts, to go ahead and address this problem. Our mission is simple: We put together a component that addresses what the community represents. We have everything from Spanish-speaking officers to Polish, to Tagalog, to Arabic. We have covered everything that we can possibly think of. We have moved into a partnership with the HIDTA, the High- Intensity Drug-Trafficking Area, with our own resources, $500,000, a $7 million general fund budget. Our department has taken this commitment. This commitment is from the top down, from Director Robert Parker, Chief Ricky Smith, Mayor Carlos Alvarez. It is a buy-in that has to go across all avenues. We are divided into three functional areas. That is our intelligence area, our operations area, as well as our infrastructure protection. There are many good programs that come about, but if we do not look at it as a whole, we are not doing much service. Our Intelligence Operations Center is the piece that fuses the information and, if you will, we are the fusion component for South Florida. We have started to have partnerships with our corrections folks as well as our partners in the fire department, and we are developing those relationships as we speak. As I said, most of what we have is done through the general fund, so we are limited in what we do and our approach. But the commitment was there. Our endeavor to pursue all avenues of homeland security were there. Our commitment is 100 percent homeland security and the threat not only from Islamist extremists but white supremacists, motorcycles, whatever the case may be. We have gone ahead, and we have become the model at the national level Department of Homeland Security by outfitting not only the National Operations Center (NOC) with a detective, we took a unique approach. We took the approach of the Regional Domestic Security Task Force. We have partnered with the Broward County sheriff and the Palm Beach County sheriff's office to put a rotational officer at the NOC to get situational awareness down so we can put it down to the road officers. Our Federal partners have been exemplary. We have been part of the JTTF from the early beginning. We have been part of the field intelligence group, the Department of Homeland Security, and ATF, some of which has helped us in the most recent case, what has been known as the Liberty City Seven case, where we had radicalized youth trying to go ahead and blow up the Sears Tower. We have worked with the Major Cities Chiefs Association, with Director Parker on the homeland security effort, and many other initiatives that have taken place. We have enlisted the public's help because this is not just a problem of law enforcement, it is not just a problem of the Miami-Dade Police Department. It is a problem for this Nation, and everyone has a responsibility to take an effort. We have come up with different programs. Programs are nice, but they do not address the overall issue, whether it is an 866-58-ALERT number that they can call in tip lines, seven signs of terrorism, which I will provide your staff, we took a unique approach. We did it in black and white without faces because terrorism is faceless. We do not want people looking for colors. We do not want them looking for certain types of folks. And we put that out there, and we have had a huge response, not only from the local community, if you will, the Hispanic community, but we had a huge buy-in from the Muslim community when some of them did see it. We have gone ahead and we have worked with security, schools, shopping malls, many different folks. But the most important folks that we have reached out to in the past year, probably more than ever, has been the Muslim community. We only have 70,000 in the region, 50,000 in our area. They come from Guyana, Southeast Asia, Trinidad, Africa. We have Hispanics, we have Anglos, we have many converts. But we cannot overlook anybody. All you have to do is look at Jose Padilla as an example of that. We have worked with various organizations, from the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA) to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and to many of the student organizations. We have 12 fully functional mosques in our area. There are another five that work in concert to these schools and universities. We have put on regional training. We have brought in the imams, the clerics, the instructors, and the teachers. They have shared their food with us. We have brought them in to the road officers as well as the investigators. These are things that have to be understood. There are many cultures out there. We are probably the greatest example of that in a small, tight-knit area. And even though this is a small component, we have had great success and great buy-in from publications to our awareness campaigns to our overall training where we have invited them as well as them talking to us, showing up at their trainings and their different meetings that they have. There are 750,000 local law enforcement officers. Please do not overlook one of them. They are far more powerful than anything possibly at the Federal level. Why? Because they are out there 24/7/365. But it is the small ones we cannot overlook. We are reaching out to our region. I know my partners are reaching out to theirs. I thank you and I look forward to answering your questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Major. I appreciate the testimony. Again, I appreciate all you are doing. Major Dailey, I appreciate your coming from Kansas City to tell us what the Homeland Security Division there is doing about the problem of homegrown Islamist terrorism. TESTIMONY OF MAJOR THOMAS DAILEY,\1\ HOMELAND SECURITY DIVISION, KANSAS CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Mr. Dailey. Thank you, Senators. Good to be here. Good to see a familiar face, Senator McCaskill. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dailey with an attachment appears in the Appendix on page 645. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Senator McCaskill. Great to see you. Chairman Lieberman. Did she prosecute you or did you prosecute her? [Laughter.] Mr. Dailey. Actually, she was a great ally. Chairman Lieberman. I am sure she was. I know. She is a great addition to the Senate. Mr. Dailey. I have been accused of not being able to introduce myself in 10 minutes, so let me just try to hit the highlights of our concerns, our counterterrorism efforts. I will talk about and demonstrate the need for a national model for police agencies. We find violent Islamist extremism to be a fluid and ever evolving threat, and terrorist operations have become more subtle and sophisticated, and it necessitates a constant adaptation by police agencies and law enforcement, and there is no section of this country that is immune from the influence of Islamist extremism. We are centered in the middle of the Nation. We have a metropolitan area of about 1.7 million people, and our adversary is a silent, careful group disguised as legitimate Islamic organizations and charities. There is a high geographic concentration of refugees from East African countries who are predominantly Muslim. Within this group may be individuals who have stolen the identity of refugees to gain entry into this country. There is a possibility that exists that members of terrorist organizations and those posing as their family members are now residing in our community. And this issue is certainly complicated by the fact that deportation of a refugee is very difficult due to the refugee status. We have had more of a concentration of Middle Eastern immigrants and some refugees that are based around the Islamic religious centers. Many of them are intensely loyal to their homeland and their religious beliefs. They have established businesses and immersed themselves into the community, but they still may have sympathies with terrorist organizations as it relates to conflicts in their homeland. Some individuals have been identified that have ties back to terrorist organizations and may be conduits for fundraising, recruitment, or terrorist acts. One of the areas of concern in Kansas City includes an environment created for the support of terrorism through fundraising. It involves criminal predicates of acquiring money and material through activities such as fraud, forgery, money structuring and laundering. The Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department Intelligence Unit incorporates detectives trained in financial investigations, which adds an important component to our investigative capabilities. Our Counterterrorism Patrol Strategy that I will describe in a little bit incorporates the importance of recognizing and noting financial transaction records by patrol officers. Important also in this process is a very close working relationship with the U.S. Attorney's Office, which includes regular consultation with them. Another concern is the criminals that we know whose parole stipulations prohibit them from associating with each other are using freedom of religion to gather and may use this opportunity to further criminal endeavors and may offer a route to the radicalization process. We have talked at length already about the Internet, and I am going to skip over some of that. It certainly is the new recruitment and training camp and makes it a lot easier for this radicalization process to take place. But I would also add that the Internet and the media I believe provide a shortcut to the radicalization process, that was outlined for you, through imitation. I would just offer the recent campus shootings, school shootings, and I could spend an hour on the relationship of the gangs and what may evolve in the imitation process. We have worked very hard to develop counterterrorism strategies and to build bridges and enhance partnerships with the legitimate Muslim-American community. Many of the ideas and the initiatives for our strategy were a result of exposure to the successes, the failures, and the gaps in the counterterrorism efforts and strategies at the national level that I studied while attending the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which is an outstanding program and it is a DHS-funded program. The prevention of terrorism is a result of a working intelligence cycle, and it is our goal to engage all our officers and citizens in this effort as a force multiplier, if you will. The foundation of our strategy is centered around the Kansas City Police Department Counterterrorism Patrol Strategy; the Kansas City Regional Terrorism Early Warning Center (TEW); the Kansas City Police Department Intelligence Unit; and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. And I think it is important to just highlight how this patrol strategy came about as it relates to the need for a national model. In 2002, the National Strategy for Homeland Security outlined three strategic objectives, and two of the three had to do with prevention of terrorism and the deterrence of terrorism. In 2003, when we started looking at this, it was found that most local law enforcement efforts and funding were directed towards the response to terrorist attacks, and most prevention efforts were aimed at developing intelligence analysis centers. To my knowledge, there were no known prevention or deterrence models for law enforcement agencies to implement that standardized training or strategy for the detection, identification, reporting, or interdiction of potential terrorists. I developed this proposal and met with the chief and our Kansas City Police Department Executive Command staff, and they supported it wholeheartedly. And I think that it is an absolute key point that was brought out earlier, that any of these initiatives will fail without the continued support and encouragement of the chief and key decisionmakers. And that commitment to counterterrorism was further demonstrated when Chief Jim Corwin, who was my deputy chief when I brought this proposal to him, became chief. He initiated and created the Homeland Security Division in 2004. This project was initiated with the goal of translating current successful policing and investigative techniques into terrorism prevention tactics rather than try to reinvent the wheel. The basis of the strategy was a great document, ``The Office for Domestic Preparedness Guidelines for Homeland Security 2003,'' and it consisted of a booklet of key actions and tasks representing a framework for prevention. But it was written from a perspective for all agencies, all jurisdictions. And it is our belief that terrorism and the activities, by their nature, are a criminal act. Local police departments should look to the tactics and strategies that have proven effective in fighting crime as the basis for combating terrorism. We extracted the tasks out of this document that would apply to local law enforcement, and we had a whole wall full of sticky notes of tasks and activities, and we clustered them and framed them into general components. There were five areas we identified as components for the strategy. One was the prevention and deterrence activities and tactics. The second was community-oriented policing activities. The third was training for the officers and the community. The fourth was data collection and information sharing, and a fifth was a component for project evaluation. In those five component areas, we found traditional policing methods, skills, and tactics that we were already using that would carry out these project objectives. We are defining suspicious behaviors and activities; identifying and targeting possible suspects, associates, and organizations; consensual stops and specific questioning; collecting and analyzing intelligence information; deploying resources and hardening areas of vulnerability; using counter surveillance and the screening of people entering large public events; educating and enlisting the public's help in gathering suspect information; and using financial analysis techniques to investigate suspect organizations. In order to identify and incorporate the most successful policing tactics and take advantage of the collective expertise that already exists in most agencies, we identified various units within the police department, and representatives were designated, and we gave them the challenge to assist in developing these concepts; applying research results and translating their experience into the prevention and detection activities. And I will not go through all of them, but some of the people we incorporated were from the Border Patrol, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Gang Unit, Career Criminal Unit, Narcotics Interdiction, our Community-Oriented Policing units, Training Division, Computer Unit, Planning and Research, and numerous others. Upon completion of this project, the information was put into training modules for pre-service, or the academy, and in- service training for Kansas City Police Department officers and community groups. An understanding on how terrorists operate through pre- incident indicators and characteristics we think are a key to preventing terrorism, and I have included a description of the module, and I certainly will not go through that. But the idea was to use case studies, and I was interested in the New York report because they did the same thing. We used that during the training as a means to understand terrorism acts that have occurred, what could have been done to prevent those acts at an earlier stage, in the identification stage, or case studies where terrorism was prevented and what they did. We incorporated those and culled patrol tactics from them. The patrol strategy establishes a clear structure for reporting, which was missing and is missing in most agencies. And, again, I will not go through the modules. A very important piece of this strategy is an outreach and applied community-oriented policing. Most police departments pooh-poohed community policing when it was introduced over a decade ago. It has been demonstrated since then that when the community and the police regularly join in problem solving that it does result in specific crime problem reduction, the fear of crime is reduced, and we believe this same philosophy can be implemented to counter the threat of radical Islamist terrorism and domestic terrorism. It is recognized that it is important to have members of the Muslim community and all communities as part of our efforts. We have had specific open forum meetings with members of the Muslim community. For example, after September 11, 2001, we had a city-wide forum to discuss the repercussions from the September 11, 2001, attacks, and how we can assist them and the whole community in coming together to prevent any repercussions. In areas where there is a high concentration of Muslim immigrants, especially most recently from East Africa, officers are in regular contact and conduct neighborhood meetings. We train the officers to build partnerships and trust, which has already been mentioned as a key, as well as methods for cultivating resources within those communities. And again, the community policing module is included in the information. One piece of it is worth mentioning. We have developed community presentations for community groups, business groups, security companies, and landlords. We have yet to have a community meeting where we did not have somebody come up afterwards with some kind of suspicious activity they wanted to relate to us. The culmination of this effort is the information gathering, analysis, and sharing process, and, of course, the single objective of this is to give advance warning of those who may be involved in the process leading up to committing acts of terror, what may happen, indications and warnings, and what may be done to prevent them. And for this to take place, it is critical for possible terrorism information gathered from all the sources to be routed to the regional information sharing or analysis agency, but also the State and the Federal Government. And right now, for example, currently when information is received through the Kansas City Police Department communications or from department personnel that requires immediate investigation, it is routed to our Intelligence Unit, who responds to where the call came from for investigation. Suspicious activity reports are routed to the Intelligence Unit and the Kansas City Regional Terrorism Early Warning (TEW) Center for analysis. Any information that is linked to an open case or that may be a credible threat is routed to the JTTF for follow-up. The Terrorism Early Warning is not an operational arm. We use the JTTF as the operational component. We operate in concert with the FBI, and we have personnel assigned to the JTTF, which includes the DHS agencies as part of the intelligence cycle. And the FBI in turn will, in the near future, have personnel assigned to our TEW. We belong to a nine-county Regional Homeland Security Coordinating Committee, and the TEW, which is partially funded through DHS, was established as a multi-agency, multi- jurisdictional analysis center. The analysis center ensures a coordinated flow of intelligence to and from all sectors and levels of government. Of course, the desired end of this effort is the ability to view raw data from all sectors of the community and the provide analytical insights with specific and actionable informational products. The TEW distributes intelligence bulletins and training bulletins several times a week, or sooner if needed. The TEW Executive Committee, that establishes the policy is comprised of local and county first responders, Federal agencies, and private sector. This was done to reach as many segments of the community as possible and create an information conduit. Chairman Lieberman. Excuse me for interrupting. If you can bring it to a close pretty soon, because we are going to have votes later this morning, and I want to give everybody a chance to ask some questions. Mr. Dailey. I am almost done. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Mr. Dailey. The bottom line is this: It is critical to close these gaps between those who are gathering the information, those who connect the dots, and those who are on the street and are most likely to encounter terrorism. To date, this has resulted in numerous leads and contributed to the cases leading to indictments and furthered the effort of identifying those who constitute a terrorism threat. This Counterterrorism Patrol Strategy was very labor intensive. It took us over a year to complete. The Bureau of Justice states there are over 15,000 local, county, and State police agencies, and the smaller agencies do not have the resources to develop a comprehensive strategy, and it would be our recommendation that DHS collaborate with the FBI and police agencies to design a law enforcement counterterrorism patrol strategy model consisting of best practices. And this model could be tailored by existing regional training academies and made part--consideration could be given to making it part of the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) requirements that most States have. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Major, for that testimony. Your final point is actually the point that I wanted to begin my questioning on. You have each described thoughtful, progressive, practical outreach prevention programs to try to counter Islamist terrorist radicalization, obviously terrorist acts. I am going to ask you for a short answer at the outset. Were these programs self-initiated totally, or to any extent, were they encouraged by the Federal Government, particularly the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI? Mr. Downing. Well, in local law enforcement, we have been in this community policing mode for a long time and moving into this intelligence-led policing mode, so we are used to reaching out and creating partnerships and developing those partnerships. So this just focused the problem on another area, and especially as the counterterrorism expanded from 30 people to 300 people, we had more resources to do it, and that became a priority for us. So this was self-initiated. Chairman Lieberman. Self-initiated. Is there any Federal funding in the work you are doing? Mr. Downing. Not for the outreach. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Major Ronczkowski, how about Miami- Dade? Mr. Ronczkowski. Yes, sir. Self-initiated. It is from the aspect of they were a different part of the community. It was a newly emerging component of the community. We took them on, just as we take on any other piece of the community. We were aware of what the FBI was doing as far as their outreach, their mosque outreach programs and things that they have. But we also understand they have a fundamentally different mission than we do. We are looking to work within the community. They have a different mission within the community on how they address issues. Our issues start at the ground level and work up. Theirs come from the top down sometimes. As far as Federal funding, absolutely not. Completely generally funded. Chairman Lieberman. OK. And, Major Dailey, how about Kansas City? Mr. Dailey. Yes, sir. Self-initiated, and the funding, the TEW is partially funded through DHS. Chairman Lieberman. It is. Do they have a specific program or is it just you applied and were able to get some funding? Mr. Dailey. It is through our Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) region. Chairman Lieberman. Right. You made some suggestions at the end. Let me ask, generally speaking--Major Dailey, about this. Let me ask Chief Downing and Major Ronczkowski, if you had your druthers, what kind of assistance, apart from, obviously, some money--but that is OK to ask for, too--what kind of assistance would you hope for from DHS or the FBI? The points you are making and I am making here, too, is that you have self- initiated this because you have seen it as part of your expanded responsibility to maintain public safety post- September 11, 2001. But in doing so, as Commissioner Sanchez made clear in his testimony, you are performing a national function. He is making the point from the perspective of New York City, which is that people are going to be radicalized elsewhere in America, but they are going to come to New York to carry out plans because New York is New York. So let me ask you what thoughts you have about what we could do to ensure that State and local law enforcements have the direction that you need and the support to be full members of this national counterterrorism strategy. Mr. Downing. Well, I do think it is crucial to recognize that local law enforcement has been invited to this table, and only recently. We are still trying to fine-tune and make some adjustments so that the information sharing environment is truly authentic and that we are truly trusted partners and there is value in that. Chairman Lieberman. But you are not sure you are there yet? Mr. Downing. We are not quite there yet. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Downing. We have great relationships, no doubt, 100 percent better than they were a few years ago. But we still have some low-hanging fruit to pick, and we still need to show that the 750,000 law enforcement officers who are out there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, have a different perspective than what Federal agencies have, which I know New York is criticized for having their people out in foreign lands. But I think it is a good idea because it gives a local perspective that the Federal Government does not have here. If they are in Jordan, what is the intelligence in Jordan telling them about the local community in New York? And that is what is so crucial to us. So if we had assistance in the area of outreach, this Community Mapping Project I am hoping could possibly be a pilot project for what the rest of the Nation could look like, because if we identify these communities and show where the communities are at risk, we could do a lot of prevention by infusing social services and governmental resources, and also it will help us with our intelligence-led strategy to prevent radicalization and prevent terrorism. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Thanks, Chief Downing and Major Ronczkowski. Mr. Ronczkowski. Well, seeing you said it, I will not be bashful. We could use more funding. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Ronczkowski. We actually have a very good relationship. We are working with major city chiefs, as well as my colleagues here, with a few different initiatives, and they have been working and bringing DHS to the table. It is a relationship that is continuing to grow. I will tell you, 2 or 3 years ago we had a decent relationship. South Florida is unique. We have had a very good Federal relationship. The FBI supervisor in charge down there has come to the table full boat with law enforcement welcomed at every angle. His staff has been meeting with our staff on a regular basis. The Department of Homeland Security has been helping us with everything from getting us a classification of a secure room facility to obtaining secure systems. As the chief has pointed out, it has to be a trusted partnership. I have a lot of information I would love to share with them, but if I do not know what it is that they need and they do not tell me what they need and why they need it, I cannot get it to them. We have an interest overseas. We are just not the local folks that only know about our neighborhoods. We know about other countries. We know other jurisdictions. The reason we do, we have a huge influx of people living within our communities that travel back and forth. They bring us the information. So as they pointed out, we need to know not only what is over there, but how it is impacting our communities. The only way we are going to do this is starting down at the bottom. What is being dictated from our communities is based on 20-, 25-, 30- year investigators, officers that are on the street. Many of the Federal agents, they come down 2, 3, to 4 years. They are there, they are gone, they move on to another city. We are there for 20 to 30 years. We know what is going on, and we need to know what is also going on at other levels. But the partnership has been tremendous. Chairman Lieberman. Good. My time is up. I am going to yield to Senator Collins. I do want to point out that the second phase of legislation implementing the 9/11 Commission's recommendations that we adopted a few months ago, signed by the President, does for the first time specifically enable and encourage the Department of Homeland Security to use some of the State Homeland Security Grant money and the Urban Area Security Initiatives to fund local law enforcement counterterrorism programs. So hopefully there will be a flow of money beginning in this fiscal year, which, of course, has already begun, but we have not funded. But that is something you should be asking us questions about, instead of us asking you. [Laughter.] Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As usual, the Chairman has given me the useful transition to my first question. The homeland security legislation which the Chairman mentioned, the Senate version also would have created within the Department of Homeland Security a new Office for the Prevention of Terrorism (OPT). We had already given it its acronym. And the whole purpose of this office, which was suggested to us by State and local law enforcements, was to have a single point of contact within the Department that would be tasked with working with State and local law enforcements. Now, unfortunately, from my perspective, that has been scaled down to just a coordinator. I would like to hear from each of you an assessment of the degree of cooperation you have with DHS and whether you think it would be helpful to create a specific office dedicated to the prevention of terrorism. We have FEMA to work on preparedness response, but prevention really is the key. We will start with you, Chief. Mr. Downing. I think so. We have a unique and productive relationship with DHS. We have a DHS representative in our Fusion Center, Joel Cohen, who is a tremendous asset to our whole intelligence-gathering operation. And we have had pretty good luck in the whole UASI process. In the last three UASI cycles, I think our police department received approximately $40 million to build infrastructure to help prevent terrorism from the Los Angeles Regional Common Operating Picture (LARCOP), to the regional video command centers and license plate recognition, and things that really detect that. But I think we are going a little bit deeper now. Now we are talking more about what we can do on the motivational side of the terrorist equation, and what DHS could assist us with in developing programs and funding to make our outreach really meaningful and bring value to that so that we not only identify--are able to identify this radicalization process that was so well discussed in the New York report, but also look for communities at risk and see what we can do to assist and support those communities. Senator Collins. Thank you. Major Ronczkowski. Mr. Ronczkowski. Yes, thank you. We have had a very good relationship with DHS, particularly in the past year. We, too, have a reports officer that has just been assigned down to the region, and he will be working out of our office--James Davies. We have been in discussion with Charles Allen with regards to getting an intelligence analyst down in our shop. My gap is not with the City of Miami or Hialeah Police Department. My gap is at the Federal level, and that is what I am trying to bridge. Some of the funding that has come in, whether it is UASI-- which we are part of. We have seen a decrease in funding in South Florida. When it comes to South Florida, it is rather unique. You take out and you impact South Florida, most people think you are impacting tourism. You are impacting the entire Caribbean Basin. What happens in South Florida will impact the entire Caribbean Basin because they are very dependent on us, from our shallow draft ports, our cruises, whatever the case may be. What comes from South Florida generally goes down there. Most of the equipment and the monies that have been out there have been going towards responding, reacting, and recovery. I agree there needs to be an office to prevent, work on the intelligence aspect, the interdiction, and the information flow. Those are key. Many people are trying, but there is no focal point that is out there. A lot of the money that is coming in is being absorbed in management and administration, going to the State level. We are the largest law enforcement agency in the Southeast, and our money has to go through the State. There should be opportunities to have some of that funding go directly to us where efforts of what we are already doing could be expanded. We will be inclusive of other agencies, including the State. However, you are talking millions of dollars that are being absorbed that could be used toward prevention. Senator Collins. Thank you. Major Dailey. Mr. Dailey. Yes, ma'am. The funding mechanism is getting very cumbersome because it has to go through a UASI region. It does not go from an individual police department. It has to go through the region and then through the State and then through DHS. One of the big issues that I think has got to be resolved before we can really truly attack this prevention problem as one is we have three streams of information: We have DHS, we have the FBI, and we have DOD. In our region, we have local FBI. The Joint Terrorism Task Force is represented by DHS agencies, Federal Protective Service, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But it does not solve the problem of the information streams going both ways. I think there are some good programs in place now. DHS is placing analysts in State Fusion Centers. We hope that will trickle down to where they will place analysts in regional Fusion Centers. Outside of the critical infrastructure protection guy in Kansas City, we do not have a DHS representative, a liaison, an Office of Terrorism Prevention, an officer who could help implement programs. There are numerous programs that come out of DHS on a regular basis. So I would say more of a presence from DHS, especially in the Fusion Centers, Regional Fusion Centers as opposed to State Fusion Centers--or in addition to State Fusion Centers. And the funding right now--and I will just give you one example of an interdiction project we had at terminals, hubs of people who were in this country illegally, their visas expired from countries that have origins of terrorist organizations. We are doing that with our interdiction folks that are working narcotics. When we tried to put this program in place for funding through the Federal Government, it was turned down, and it was the one thing that we have had measurable results in stopping people that had ties. Senator Collins. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. First of all, I would like to say thank God for local government and what you are doing, because a lot of what you are doing, I think, should have been inspired by the Department of Homeland Security, but they have other things that they are doing. I am interested about the funding issue. I met yesterday with the head of the Ohio Department of Public Safety and his Office of Multicultural Affairs at the Ohio Division of Homeland Security, and they claim that there is not any money for the kind of thing that we are talking about here today. Apparently, you have found money or interpreted programs in such a way that you can get money. Mr. Downing. Well, in the UASI process, with our UASI partners, we are one of the six Tier 1 cities that developed investment justifications and projects which were preventative in nature, mostly protecting critical infrastructure, detecting surveillance and terrorist acts, and making sure that we had communication interoperability. And those are the kinds of projects that have run in our region. Senator Voinovich. Those are infrastructure projects primarily. Mr. Downing. Yes. Senator Voinovich. But in terms of the manpower that you would need to adequately maintain police-community relations; is there any pot of money that you can reach into that would help you get that job done? Mr. Downing. No, none of the UASI or State Homeland Security Grant Assistance Program money paid for personnel with the exception of intelligence analysts. Senator Voinovich. Do any of you do community relations other than through your police departments? Mr. Ronczkowski. Yes. Our department works in concert with the county's Community Relations Board. We do have one at the county level that we do work with. Senator Voinovich. How about in L.A.? Mr. Downing. We do. We have a Human Relations Commission, an organization that reaches out to the faith and non-faith communities. Senator Voinovich. Is that working out in terms of your Muslim community? Mr. Downing. It has an impact. It does play the table. We have faith forums that they help us coordinate and facilitate. It plays a role, I believe. Senator Voinovich. Is that the vehicle you are using in your public relations campaign to reach-out to the community? I was very impressed with some of the things that you are trying to do to create an infrastructure of better human understandings. Is that coming out primarily through the police department or through your community relations? Mr. Downing. That is the police department. That is the outreach efforts through the police department. Trying to really institutionalize, not making it the priority but a priority with the boots on the ground, so to speak, so that there is an orientation toward what we are trying to accomplish. Senator Voinovich. One of the things that I have picked up from meeting with some of the leaders in Ohio is that it seems like the only people that we are interfacing with are police personnel. There is a feeling that they would like to meet folks from the community, and there is an assumption that the reason we are reaching out to you, is that we have a problem with you; that we are getting to know you better because we want to use you to get better information. Mr. Downing. Right, when we began the dialogue, we were right up front. We said we are not out here to knock on your door and have you tell us about terrorism or who wants to do bad things to good people. We are here, we want to talk to you about what community problems can we solve in your neighborhood, getting the trees trimmed, the potholes filled, and the lighting good. We want to integrate you into some of our advisory boards, our Neighborhood Watch programs, the Business Chambers of Commerce. That is the kind of dialogue we are having. Senator Voinovich. An empowerment kind of effort on your part to get people involved in the community to kind of realize that they are not separate and apart, that they are part of the community and you would like them to be part of it. Mr. Downing. Absolutely. Mr. Ronczkowski. We did something similar where, prior to September 11, 2001, last year, we went out to meet with them, as the chief said, some agencies do go out there and try to solicit them to provide information. Our whole intention was you can be targeted because the September 11, 2001, anniversary is coming up. There are people that are in the community that are against you, and so what can we do to help you on that angle? So they were part of it. We were part of their issues, that they address on a regular basis. But we were not out there soliciting from them. We just wanted to be inclusive of them. Senator Voinovich. Have all of you started another dimension of your diversity training for your police officers that deal with this specifically in terms of the Muslim community? Mr. Ronczkowski. We have done a small version at the academy level. We do not have a huge Muslim community. We have reached out to the police academy that is under our direction, and we pointed out to them what to look for, what to encounter when somebody does not know something. There might be a reason for it. They may be elusive. It may be a cultural perception. You are not seeing the whole picture. And we tried to expand upon them the whole picture of what is out there. Senator Voinovich. How about Los Angeles? Mr. Downing. Yes, we have, and an expanded effort, as you may have heard, Chief Bill Bratton has expressed desire and thinks there is a big need to have a national counterterrorism academy directed at local law enforcement to train the mid- level practitioners--this is going to be a generational problem, and local law enforcement needs to kind of shift into this area of intelligence-led policing. Senator Voinovich. I have not asked you this, but in terms of diversity training, you get the new cadets, and then, hopefully, you have an ongoing program of diversity training? Mr. Downing. Yes. Senator Voinovich Have you created a new element that deals with Muslims and the Muslim religion? Mr. Downing. We have. In the recruit training, the supervisor training, the watch commander training. And as I sit here today, the new command development training for our new command officers, and they are going through it as we speak. Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Perfect timing. A vote has gone off. While we have some time, Senator McCaskill gets the last round of questions. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I have got to welcome Major Dailey, and I remember when you were not a major. Mr. Dailey. You do. Senator McCaskill. It makes me feel old when I look at the command staff of the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, and I remember when all of us were not in charge of anything. So please tell everyone there--I say this sincerely--one of the highlights of my life was the working relationship I had with the police department when I was prosecutor. And pardon my parochial bias to both of you, but in terms of a professional, well-trained, dedicated police force, I do not think it gets any better than Kansas City, Missouri. And so please tell them all hello for me and that I am still in uniform withdrawal. Mr. Dailey. I will. Thank you. Senator McCaskill. As I look back on what we have done successfully in Kansas City over the years when we have dealt with crime problems, invariably there has been a component that has become institutionalized in the communities that are impacted by that crime. This is a little more difficult because you do not have a neighborhood-based problem as much as you have a specific kind of deeply hidden problem within a broad community. I think back to the days when the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime was formed, when we had a serious violent crime problem in a certain area of Kansas City, and the police department began something very unusual where the weekly meetings started, where the police were expected to be there, and it was a community-run meeting, where the community was really dictating the agenda of the meeting, and basically kind of taking the police department on in a way where they began to feel more empowered, and as a result, I think our tips got much stronger, our witnesses--and as I look at this issue, we spend so much time talking about the bad-guy radicals and we do not spend as much time talking about the good-guy Muslims that are American citizens, that want just what we want. They are deeply offended by the radical movement and what it implies for their religious beliefs. They are deeply offended at the violence and the loss of life that this radical movement has, in fact, caused. And so I know you all have talked about various things you are doing to reach out, and I know Senator Voinovich talked about recruitment. Have we been successful in Kansas City recruiting any members of the police department that are of the Muslim faith, to your knowledge, Major? Mr. Dailey. I am not aware. I do not know. I know we have some that are of the Muslim faith, but I do not know their heritage. Senator McCaskill. Well, I think that is something. Do you all do any kind of structure reach-out to the community in Kansas City? I know if I look at particularly health care, I have so many friends in Kansas City that are in the health care profession that are Muslim, they are all Americans, but their ancestors came from various countries, many in the Middle East. Have we kind of formalized a partnership with them in Kansas City where they are called upon to help us in terms of where there might be problems in the community? Mr. Dailey. We have a faith-based initiative that reaches out to that component. One of the things that was brought up is an excellent point about using people. We are very careful and sensitive to that, and I think we have to leverage the resources we have. This money is going to dry up. Homeland security money cannot last forever. So we are trying to leverage the resources we have that are already in place, and we have an extremely strong community policing outreach. And it is targeted towards neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods, but it can also be used for this purpose, new immigrants coming to this country. And as you said, there is an awful lot of people out there that are willing to share our concern and help in this effort, and we do reach out and form the neighborhood groups, the community groups, and stay in constant contact with them. Senator McCaskill. I think it is one of those things that the more that you all can do in that regard, I think that there are--I have talked to many American Muslims that are afraid to participate now because they are feeling so targeted. They are worried that if they begin to speak out and try to do more to help, that somehow they are going to bring attention to themselves, to their families, in a way that people in the community, as you mentioned, Major, that mistakenly believe that these loyal, patriotic Americans are somehow not good guys. And so, protecting the wonderful American-Muslim community that wants to help us in this regard seems to me--and whatever strategies you guys can focus on that would help do that I think would be really important, because that is where we are going to get our best info. Always, we get it from inside. I do not think ever in law enforcement you get your best information from people who do not have access to potentially information that would be helpful to preventing some of this horrible crime that we have to prevent. Mr. Dailey. And one of the things, going back to the question asked earlier, is in this training for this patrol strategy, we spend a great deal of time on cultural differences and learning how to build trust and relationships. And I think a key component is understanding Muslim culture from a policing perspective, how they have seen the police in the past and how not to offend them and these types of things. Senator McCaskill. Do all of you feel confident that the police that work for your departments know that the vast majority of Muslims in this country have the same view of America and law and order as they do? Do you feel comfortable that your police officers know that? Mr. Ronczkowski. I think in our community they do. We are such a diverse community, a lot of cultures are widely accepted. I do not think anybody singles out any one. Senator McCaskill. Right. Mr. Ronczkowski. I think one thing we do have to watch for--and I mentioned this earlier--is the commingling. There are many people that do not like this country, and they come from all walks of life, and there are many that are here in this country, and that is where that homegrown aspect--and I concur with the second- and third-generation--we have seen that in crime, second- and third-generation terrorists are going to probably be no different. But I think we have to watch out for what we are looking for is not always what we see. Senator McCaskill. Right. Mr. Ronczkowski. And there are a lot of pieces of this puzzle that are out there, that are already here and deep- rooted into these various communities. Our officers are aware of that. As much as I like? No. Are we going to try to get it to them? Yes, but that comes with time, personnel, and money, of course. Senator McCaskill. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me just say that--another bias--I think the best law enforcement work that is done in this country is done by local police departments and not by people that work for the Federal Government. So there it is. It is out on the table. Thank you all very much for being here. Mr. Ronczkowski. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. She is that tradition of plainspoken elected officials from Missouri. Senator McCaskill says it like she means it, and she does. I share her admiration for local law enforcement. What you have done here is really quite impressive, I will start with the New York folks, then Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and Kansas City. This was self-initiated. You took this on yourself at the local level because you felt it was now part of your expanded responsibility to provide for the public safety of the people of your local area. You are carrying out a national function in doing so. My conclusions from the testimony are pretty direct, which is that there is a problem here of homegrown Islamist terrorism. It is increasing. We do not want to overstate it because we want to just emphasize, all of us, what is the reality, that the overwhelming majority of Muslim Americans are law-abiding and patriotic and probably fear more than most anybody else the radicalization process going on, particularly as it may involve their children. But it is a problem. We have to deal with it, and we have to deal with it in exactly the methodical, community-based outreach and prevention approach that these four great law enforcement agencies are doing. I am going to take it on as my responsibility as Chairman of this Committee, working, obviously, with Senator Collins and the others, to push the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to give both those of you who have self-started some more support in doing what you are doing to carry out a national function, but also to set a goal that in every community where there is a Muslim-American community of any size, that there ought to be exactly the kinds of local law enforcement outreach and community-based prevention programs that you four are carrying out. So I thank you very much for what you are doing. You have really set a national standard, and we are going to try to make sure that the rest of the country catches up with you. The normal proceeding here is that the hearing record stays open for 15 days if any of you want to submit additional testimony, and sometimes the Senators have additional questions that they will submit to you for answers for the record. But you have the very sincere gratitude of this Committee and the people of the communities that you serve. With that, I adjourn the hearing. [Whereupon, at 11:53 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] A P P E N D I X ---------- [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]