[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COUNTERING THE VIRTUAL CALIPHATE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 23, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-192
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Seamus Hughes, deputy director, Program on Extremism, Center
for Cyber and Homeland Security, George Washington University.. 5
Aaron Lobel, Ph.D., founder and president, America Abroad Media.. 13
Peter Neumann, Ph.D., director, International Centre for the
Study of Radicalisation, Department of War Studies, King's
College London................................................. 26
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Seamus Hughes: Prepared statement............................ 7
Aaron Lobel, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................... 16
Peter Neumann, Ph.D.: Prepared statement......................... 28
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 42
Hearing minutes.................................................. 43
The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York: Prepared statement...................... 45
COUNTERING THE VIRTUAL CALIPHATE
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THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2016
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock a.m.,
in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. This hearing will come to order and the
subject here is combating what we call the virtual caliphate on
the Internet.
Unfortunately, there is an irony in the effort to combat
ISIS recruitment online and that is that the United States,
which is the world's leader in technological innovation, is
hardly in the game.
To protect Americans at home and abroad, this has to
change. So great has been the explosion of slick and
professional ISIS videos online that, as I indicated, a lot of
people are referring to this as the virtual caliphate. Because
within seconds, ISIS can reach a global audience using popular
social media sites, disseminating hateful propaganda to recruit
new fighters and promote its extreme ideology.
And more and more, the virtual caliphate is calling on its
followers not necessarily to go to Syria or Iraq or Libya now
but to take up arms and attack where they are at home.
``The smallest action you do''--in their words--``the
smallest action you do in their homeland is better and more
enduring to us than what you would if you were with us.'' That
is the refrain. That is the message being pounded into would-be
jihadists and it is a message that is being pounded into many
Americans and we know that terrorists consumed Islamist
propaganda over the Internet. The attacks in Brussels, San
Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, those are tied to ISIS' online
efforts based on the sites visited by those undertaking these
terrorist attacks.
Indeed, ISIS' online dominance is just as critical to that
organization as the large amounts of territory that it controls
in Iraq or Syria or Libya or other training bases that they
have set up.
Unfortunately, the pace of our ``cyber bombs,'' as we
sometimes call them--the counter battery work that we do, that
we are dropping on ISIS' virtual sanctuary to take out these
Web sites--is like our campaign on its physical territory. It
is slow and it is inadequate to this task.
The State Department's efforts to respond to extremist
content online are woefully inadequate. Its Center for
Strategic Counter Terrorism Communications was designed to
identify and respond to extremist content online. Yet because
its communications were ``branded'' with the official State
Department's seal, they fell on deaf ears. It is not effective
to use the State Department seal when you are doing a
counterterrorism narrative.
In March, the President issued an Executive order to revamp
this effort, renaming it the Global Engagement Center and
giving it the mission to lead the government-wide effort to
``diminish the influence of international terrorist
organizations,'' as we said. The committee will soon hear from
the administration how this effort differs from past failures.
But unfortunately, in public diplomacy as we know--and this
is pretty widely the view--our public diplomacy efforts on
electronic media, on social media have really been pretty much
a bust--dysfunctional in the analysis of former State
Department personnel who have taken a good long look at this.
At a basic level, key questions remain, including the type
of message that would be most effective in the face of this
virulent ideology. Some suggest that the voices of disaffected
former jihadists are particularly potent in deterring future
jihadists. These are individuals who quickly discovered that
life under ISIS is not the utopia they were promised. Or the
voices of former radicals--Ed Husain with his book ``The
Jihadist.'' I read that lively account and it is clear that it
is having quite an impact with young people, creating a lot of
second thoughts about where this ideology is leading.
But if this is the message, how should it be delivered?
Should the Federal Government produce and disseminate content?
Is the Federal bureaucracy equipped for such a fast-moving
fight? Does any association with the State Department mean this
message is dead on arrival, as we found with the, you know,
State Department indicia or the State Department title put out
there as part of the narrative?
A more effective approach could have the U.S. Government
issuing grants to outside groups to carry out this mission.
This would have the advantage of allowing the U.S. Government
to set the policy, but put those with the technical expertise
and credible voice in the driver's seat here in delivering the
message. After all, such separation and distance from the U.S.
Government have helped our democracy promotion programs through
the National Endowment for Democracy work in areas of the globe
where official U.S. support just isn't feasible.
We also want to make use of emerging technologies that can
automatically detect and remove extremist content online. I am
aware that the private sector is working quickly to develop
these types of programs, and admittedly, all this isn't easy.
If it was, we'd be much better positioned going forward. But if
we don't come to grips with the virtual caliphate now, this
long struggle against Islamist terrorism will extend even
longer, with great loss of life.
So I now turn to our ranking member, Mr. Brad Sherman from
California, for any statement he may have.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are events
going on the floor yesterday and today. It is not the House at
a high point of bipartisanship and order, and we can argue
about who's to blame.
But when we come into this room, Mr. Chairman, we do see a
high point of bipartisanship and order and the credit, clearly,
goes to you and the ranking member. The ranking member cannot
be here, at least at the beginning of this hearing, and I have
an improvised opening statement. I had nothing prepared walking
in so let us see whether any of these comments are helpful.
First in this issue we face the issue of whether to take
down the terrorist message or leave it up and monitor, and I
want to say almost always take it down.
First, the theory of fast and furious, let them take the
guns and we will monitor what happens with the guns did not
work then and the idea of let them leave the dangerous site up
and let us monitor what happens may not work in the future.
But in addition, the terrorists know we are watching and
they have decided--and they have been pretty good at this--that
putting their message up publically is helpful notwithstanding
the fact that we are monitoring it.
We ought to take it down. That means we need the
coordination and cooperation of the industry. It was just about
a year ago that Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Eliot Engel, Ted
Poe, and I called upon Twitter to update its terms of service
and take the terrorist message off Twitter.
Twitter was reluctant a bit at first but in April 2015
Twitter announced changes to their terms of service, added a
new language to its stance on abusive behavior and adding the
words ``threatening or promoting terrorism'' and they have
substantially improved.
I should note that since Twitter changed its policies the
terrorists have been forced onto other systems. Their tactic
now involves direct messaging. I view that as a step forward.
We closed off an efficient way to reach many people and now
they have to try to use a less efficient system. But we now
have to stop these direct messages.
We also have to focus on their encrypted chat apps--
Telegram, Surespot, Theema--which seemed to have been created
precisely for the market of people who want to evade law
enforcement and I wonder why such products exist.
Next issue, and one that I have talked in this room an
awful lot about, is the need to have people who know the
language of the people we are trying to influence and I don't
just mean studied Arabic in college. I mean a cultural
understanding and an understanding of Islamic theology, Islamic
jurisprudence, and Islamic history. Again and again the State
Department has testified in this room that they don't have
anybody who they have hired specifically because that person
has the expertise in those areas whereas they have dozens of
experts in arcane European diplomatic law as if the Austro-
Hungarian Empire is the greatest concern of American foreign
policy.
I am not saying that we should be issuing fatwas out of the
State Department but we ought to have somebody who has read
1,000 fatwas working in the State Department and someone who
knows the difference between what is accepted as a good hadith
and what is not.
And the reason for this as our target audience is people
who think they might want to kill innocent women and children.
These are people who start from a very bizarre mindset. They
are thinking of becoming terrorists.
They don't necessarily see the world the way we do
translated into Arabic or translated into another language.
These are people for whom evil consists--the word evil may not
include killing a Yazidi family or torturing people or throwing
gay people off of tall buildings.
They may live in a world where they think the Koran says
that is what you're supposed to do. We have to have people that
can go into that world. Not just the cyber world but the
psychological world, and demonstrate to them that this is a
perversion of Islam that has been focused by the terrorists.
For staffing, we need to look at whether it should be
uniform military or civilian or some new status that is in
between. And finally, Mr. Chairman, what happens over there
comes over here. What happens in Raqqa doesn't stay in Raqqa.
An important part of turning back the cyberterrorist threat
is to deal with ISIS on the ground and that will require
changing and the administration is beginning to change the
rules of engagement so that we can hit strategic targets, doing
our best to avoid civilian casualties but not with the view
that a single civilian casualty--the possibility of one stops
any particular attack.
The ranking member has a statement prepared for delivery
and I request that we make it part of the record.
Chairman Royce. Without objection.
Mr. Sherman. I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you very much.
This morning we are pleased to be joined by a distinguished
panel. We have Mr. Seamus Hughes. He is the deputy director of
the George Washington University Program on Extremism. Mr.
Hughes previously served at the National Counter Terrorism
Center.
We have Dr. Aaron Lobel. He is the founder of America
Abroad Media, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the exchange
of ideas to critical thinking and to self-government worldwide.
Prior to founding this organization, Dr. Lobel was a research
fellow and professor at multiple institutions.
Dr. Peter Neumann is professor of security studies at the
Department of War Studies at Kings College London. He served as
director of the International Centre for the Study of
Radicalization since its founding in early 2008.
So without objection, the witnesses' full prepared
statements will be made part of the record and members will
have 5 calendar days to submit statements and questions and any
extraneous material for the record.
Mr. Hughes, we will start with you. If you could please
summarize your remarks in 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. SEAMUS HUGHES, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, PROGRAM ON
EXTREMISM, CENTER FOR CYBER AND HOMELAND SECURITY, GEORGE
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Hughes. Thank you. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
Sherman, distinguished members of the committee, it is a
privilege to be invited to speak here today.
There are at least 900 active ISIS investigations in all 50
States. An estimated 250 Americans have attempted to or have
travelled to Syria and Iraq to join groups like ISIS. The
program in extremism has identified 91 people who have been
charged with ISIS-related offenses in the last 2 years.
Homegrown terrorism is an apt description, as the
overwhelming majority of these individuals are U.S. citizens
born and raised here. There is no typical profile of an ISIS
recruit. They are old. They are young. They are rich. They are
poor. College educated and they are high school dropouts.
The United States, with its notable exceptions, does not
have extremist organizations providing in-person ideological
and logistical support to individuals drawn to the jihadi
narrative.
As a result, American ISIS sympathizers are forced to find
like-minded communities online. ISIS sympathizers use the
online environment in a variety of ways.
First, of course, they use it to push the propaganda.
Second, ISIS recruiters act as spotters to identify and groom
would-be recruits. Third, they provide logistical support for
would-be recruits. Finally, they encourage Americans to commit
attacks here in the homeland.
ISIS supporters are very active and persistent online.
Despite repeated removal from social media sites for violating
terms of service, sympathizers routinely return to these
platforms with new accounts.
A prime example of that is a recently arrested American
woman who operated at least 97 Twitter accounts before her
arrest.
There is a well-used but decentralized system that provides
a level of resiliency to these online social networks. Using
Twitter as an example, there is an ISIS shout-out account that
announces newly created accounts of previously suspended
accounts, allowing a person to essentially build back their
network online.
However, it is important to note that ISIS network on
Twitter has declined substantially since 2014 as a result of
sustained suspensions. An overt English language ISIS-support
network is nearly gone from Facebook but they still use it
occasionally to mount campaigns and for person-to-person
communications.
The English language ISIS echo chamber is now mostly
concentrated on Telegram where they can more easily congregate.
ISIS radicalization is by no means limited to social media. In-
person relationships still matter a great deal.
It is an over simplification to say that Internet
radicalization is the main factor driving American ISIS
supporters. Rather, in most cases online and offline dynamics
complement one another.
In 1998, Osama bin Laden faxed his declaration of war to
the West. It would rightly be seen as naive to contend that fax
machine radicalization was a key driver for al-Qaeda's early
recruitment.
A similar dynamic plays out 18 years later. The State
Department and USAID have released a countering violent
extremism strategy. The State Department has also expanded the
mission of the Bureau of Counter Terrorism to now include
proactive CVE programs.
While a step in the right direction, time will tell whether
this new focus on preventative programming will result in a
tangible shift in resources and personnel.
Recently, the State Department also reorganized to address
the changing nature of ISIS vis-a-vis the Internet. The newly-
formed Global Engagement Center--the GEC--represents a
recognition that previous efforts needed to be adjusted.
However, the bureaucratic and structural issues that hampered
and plagued GEC's predecessor are still present. The GEC may be
limited in its online engagement by legal restrictions on
collecting personal information. Working with civil rights and
civil liberties groups, the committee should consider
legislative fixes that allow the GEC some limited exemptions
from the Privacy Act requirements.
There is also a noticeable push to empower local partners
to provide counter messaging. In conversations with these
partners, many have expressed a concern that engaging with
known or suspected terrorists online may unduly place them
under law enforcement suspicion.
The administration should consider providing the legal
guidance to potential counter messengers, religious leaders
around the country so they can make informed decisions on
whether and how to engage online.
And technology companies have in the past been pushed by
Congress and the public to expand and enforce their terms of
service. That is right.
But the U.S. Government should use its convening authority
to bring together civil society partners who want to perform
counter messaging but don't understand the technology with
social media providers who understand their platform but don't
understand the nuances of counter messaging.
Thank you for an opportunity to testify. I welcome your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hughes follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Hughes.
Dr. Lobel.
STATEMENT OF AARON LOBEL, PH.D., FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, AMERICA
ABROAD MEDIA
Mr. Lobel. Thank you, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
Sherman and distinguished members of the committee for inviting
me to testify today, and thank you for your leadership and the
example of bipartisanship you set on this committee.
It is so critical because in the long run America will only
be successful in countering the ideology of Islamic extremism
if our policies have bipartisan support.
As the founder of America Abroad Media, I have spent almost
a decade and a half developing partnerships with major media
channels in the greater Middle East. Based on my experience, I
would like to summarize my written testimony and underscore two
main points today.
First, the focus of U.S. strategy should be on enabling,
supporting, and amplifying the indigenous voices for progress
in the greater Middle East. This approach will yield far better
results than trying to manage a counter messaging campaign from
Washington.
Second, the best way for the U.S. Government to support
those in the Middle East who share a vision for positive change
is by mobilizing the creative power of America's leading
institutions--Hollywood, Silicon Valley, our philanthropy, our
NGOs, and our universities--so they can collaborate directly
with their counterparts in the region.
From my own experience, I can tell you there are many
people in the Middle East today pushing for greater progress
and pluralism and there is a critical mass of them in the
media.
The most popular TV channels in the region reach tens of
millions of people and have the highest credibility with their
audience. Several of these channels are producing programs that
seek to promote the values of pluralism and counter extremist
narratives.
For example, one of our partners is the largest Pan-Arab
channel--the largest--the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting
Center (MBC). It is currently developing a large scale, 20-plus
episode, anti-ISIS drama series based on real stories of young
men and women who left their homes to join ISIS only to
discover the reality behind their propaganda.
Last year, MBC aired a hit anti-ISIS comedy called
``Selfie'' which used the power of satire to expose ISIS
hypocrisy. It was the number-one Ramadan show in the Gulf and
had an audience exceeding 25 million.
Simply put, no U.S. Government channel or program in the
Middle East, no matter how well intentioned or well produced,
can come close to delivering this kind of reach or impact.
Young people in the Arab world today watch all the
Hollywood movies and Turkish soap operas. But what they really
want are more of these MBC-style shows, original Arabic
language drama and comedy that reflects their own cultural
storylines and meets the highest international standards.
And the creative community there have told me directly they
want Hollywood support and guidance in order to develop more
shows that meet their audiences' expectations.
They are asking for Hollywood writers to help them hone the
storytelling and script writing skills that make American shows
so successful. They want to learn from Hollywood's experience
in order to develop world class Arab television and film.
My organization has already begun to help with this effort.
I recently returned from a trip to Abu Dhabi with three of
Hollywood's best storytellers, the award-winning producers and
writers Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, and Howard Owens. Happy to
tell you more about them.
They led workshops with Arab TV and film writers and met
with more than 100 of their counterparts in the creative
community to share ideas for producing world class Arab drama
and entertainment.
With more collaborations of this kind, we can unleash the
creativity of Hollywood to help the Middle East develop a
transformative entertainment industry that reaches tens of
millions of people--of their people--with stories of hope and
aspiration and advances the values we share.
In fact, the State Department has already taken some
promising initial steps to catalyse greater Hollywood
involvement in the Middle East. Last month, under the
leadership of Under Secretary Rick Stengel and Assistant
Secretary Evan Ryan, the State Department convened a meeting of
high-level Hollywood talent, including our partners Ben
Silverman and Greg Daniels, to discuss these very issues.
In addition to this convening power, catalytic funding from
the U.S. Government could also make a tremendous difference.
Due to low advertising rates, the entertainment market in the
Middle East today is not commercially sustainable.
The U.S. Government could play a vitally important role by
providing significant funding through grants and contracts that
will enable the best creative content to succeed and become
commercially sustainable.
With high-level attention, our Government can also inspire
America's best philanthropic institutions to play a key role.
For example, the John Templeton Foundation is already engaged
in the Middle East through its well-respected Islam Initiative.
Several of our other leading foundations, such as Carnegie
Corporation and the MacArthur Foundation, could all join
together and have an enormous impact.
The vision I am outlining here is not new. In 2002, the
Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim
World, chaired by former U.S. Ambassador Ed Djerejian, wrote,
``An attractive, less costly alternative or supplement
to U.S. Government broadcasting would be the aggressive
development of media programming in partnership with
private firms, nonprofit institutions, and government
agencies both in the United States and the Arab and
Muslim nations.''
This programming can then be distributed through existing
channels in the region. In the aftermath of the horrific
Orlando attack, our country sorely needs a nationwide effort
catalysed by our Government to counter the ideology of
extremism.
But rather than trying to fight this ideology on our own,
we should be empowering and amplifying voices that speak to the
Muslim world more authentically and more directly. These voices
exist and the media of the Middle East are ready to broadcast
them. The United States should reach out to support and
catalyse such programming.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before your
committee today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lobel follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thanks, Dr. Lobel.
STATEMENT OF PETER NEUMANN, PH.D., DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF RADICALISATION, DEPARTMENT OF WAR
STUDIES, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
Mr. Neumann. Thank you, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
Sherman, distinguished members of the committee. I appreciate
the opportunity to talk about countering the propaganda of
groups like I saw on the Internet.
My team and I in London have dedicated the past 4 years to
understanding why young Muslims from Western countries are
fighting with the jihadist groups in Syria and also why some of
them are staying home, becoming inspired by jihadist
propaganda, and end up attacking their own countries.
Based on this research and based on our accumulated
knowledge about these people, some of whom are very dangerous,
let me use this opportunity to make a couple of points each on
the way that ISIL is using the Internet, how to counter their
narrative, and finally what government needs to do to be more
effective in this space.
Let me start by addressing how ISIL is using the Internet.
ISIL has been more successful in exploiting the Internet than
any group I have seen in 17 years of researching terrorism.
As many have pointed out, the sophistication of some of its
products, the range of platforms it uses, the way it segments
according to audiences, and how it has succeeded at times in
dominating the conversation, all of this is unprecedented.
But--and that is my second point--the online ecosystem of
ISIL goes beyond the group itself and includes more than just
the videos that we are always talking about. What gives ISIL so
much punch online are also, for example, individual fighters
who facilitate one-on-one conversations.
It is also what we call the cheerleaders and fan boys and
wannabes--people who aren't actually members of ISIS who are
not based on Syria but are essentially freelance supporters
often based in the West. They are the ones who are giving the
group its online oomph. As far as online is concerned, what we
are taking about is not just a group. It is what one of my
colleagues, Dr. Nico Prucha, described as a swarm.
So how do we counter this swarm? I want to focus on the
question of counter narratives. First point, there isn't one
counter narrative and there isn't one counter narrator. Just
like ISIL is segmenting its message according to audiences, you
need to recognize that people are becoming attracted to ISIL
for different reasons, have different interests, and are
different points along the path of radicalization.
Some will indeed listen to a Salafi sheikh. Others are more
receptive to a former jihadist and yet others are receptive to
a movie star. Credibility, though, ultimately comes from
authenticity and that is why the most credible messengers, in
my view, are young people who are just like the ones whom ISIL
is trying to recruit. We need more of them online.
And that brings me to my next point. To counter a swarm,
you need a swarm. What's needed is scale. Scale, in my view, is
more important than message.
Even if we found the perfect message, the perfect
messenger--even if we managed to produce the perfect video, it
would still be a drop in the ocean. There still wouldn't be
enough oomph.
This is the Internet. People are exposed to thousands of
things every day. To get your message through, you need to be
loud, you need volume and you can't be on your own.
Rather than getting every single thing right, the emphasis
should be on getting stuff out. I want to close with two quick
observations on how government can be more effective in this
space.
First, government alone will never be able to create the
volume that is needed. It is not a credible messenger in this
space and, worst of all, government is by definition risk
averse, which is the opposite of what you need to have--what
you need to be online.
For that reason, I wholeheartedly support the change of
approach that's happened earlier this year--away from
government-centered messaging toward empowering and working
with partners--industry, NGOs, media companies, grassroots
organizations, maybe even philanthropists who, by the way,
haven't been doing enough in this space to sponsor hackathons,
competitions, training, campaigns or setting up an independent
online fund where people can go for small grants and lots of
them.
Facebook recently set up an organization in Germany called
OCCI, the Online Civil Courage Initiative, which has been
designed precisely to counter extremist speech online. We need
more of that and whatever government can do not to run them but
to help them bring about it should do.
My final point--we need more data. It is almost an
embarrassment. It is an embarrassment for everyone who works
and is interested in this area. But we really still do not know
what works. The initiatives that have happened have been so
small scale and few in number they haven't generated enough
data to make meaningful assertions.
This must be a priority for industry, for government, for
NGOs running programs, and for all of them together.
Many thanks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Neumann follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, panel. Thank you very much for
your testimony here and Mr. Neumann, thank you for coming a
long way for that testimony.
So I have a couple of questions just in terms of this
radicalization process. How important is religion as a
motivating force here? Is this a situation where ISIS recruits
are often nonreligious or somewhat religious, moderately so,
and then they are converted and indoctrinated through a process
on the Internet over the course of recruitment?
Or is it more often a case where you have radical young
men? I remember talking to one of the French officials after
the attack, telling me that 30 percent of their people were
French converts, often in prison, that didn't even know Arabic
but get converted and sort of the concept here that they were
people disposed to violence in the first place, simply
susceptible or actively accepting anything that was a
rationalization to carry out violence. What are some of the
perspectives here?
Mr. Hughes. The short answer is it depends. We have seen
cases in the U.S. where an individual essentially converts to
ISIS, not Islamism, and there is a distinct difference between
Islam and Islamism.
I think it is important to say that. But when you look at--
we've also had cases of people that are, you know, Hafiz and
have grown up in the faith and are steeped into it and then
decide to join ISIS. So each case is very different on it.
The U.S. context, we've had 91 individuals arrested for
ISIS-related activities. Of that data set, 38 percent were
converts to the faith, which is a higher percentage than the
general population of American Muslims, which are about 23
percent, depending on how the data shakes out.
So there is a phenomenon there that is worth looking at. We
have seen from our research of the program on extremism a
number of individuals who are recent converts to the faith that
are reaching out on Twitter and asking questions and ISIS
spotters are realizing they are naive and they are answering
those questions in a very innocuous way on religion. And over
the course of a few weeks they are answering that and then they
slowly introduce Islamic ideology into the conversation. So
they have already built in there authenticity in these
conversations.
So there is a dynamic in play there and it also in terms of
de-radicalization or disengagement the role of religion depends
on the individual.
Sometimes it may be, like Peter said, the Salafist imam
who's the most useful there but it also may be the soccer
coach. It really depends on the individual.
Chairman Royce. Well, my other question is, how important
is the existence of the caliphate itself as an example, as a
sort of a vision to their recruiting efforts?
If we were to defeat ISIS on the ground, take out their
terrorist training grounds everywhere from Raqqa in Iraq to
Libya and east Africa where they have set these things up, if
you reclaim those cities, if you occupied with those that were
in deep camps now, if they came back and denied them the safe
havens would they lose their appeal? Dr. Neumann.
Mr. Neumann. Yes. I think it matters, but it matters not on
its own. What happened in the summer of 2014 was, of course,
that ISIS declared a caliphate.
But whilst it was declaring the caliphate, it was basically
running over the Middle East. It was conquering a different
province of Iraq every week.
And so a lot of the people who were sitting in Europe or in
other countries who were receptive to this were thinking wow,
it is actually happening--it is not just a formula--it is not
just a matter of words--it is actually action that meets the
formulation of words.
And so that is what ISIS has always been about. It has been
about the combination of a religious justification, however
hollow we may think it is, in combination with the projection
of strength and power and success. And I would argue the reason
why so many people went in the summer of 2014 is because during
that period ISIS really was projecting strength, power, and
success and all these young people who were sitting in the
suburbs of Paris or in disenfranchised parts of Brussels they
were thinking, I can go from zero to hero in nothing if I join
that group.
I do think that if the U.S. and the coalition managed to
retake Mosul and Raqqa it would be a big blow for ISIS. I don't
think it will be that easy to just transfer everything over to
Libya or to another place.
Chairman Royce. I know, but they have--we were up there in
Tunisia talking to the Libyan Ambassador and our Ambassador in
Libya. They've got 6,500 or 6,700 fighters that are training
there now and then there are other training centers they are
setting up.
So they have sort of branched out in the interim. But if we
could attack the training centers or some coalition could take
out those training camps, my thought or my argument has always
been we should have done this at the outset with air power to
deny them the opportunity to message that they were on the
march and unstoppable.
Let me ask you about emerging technologies out there that
could be used to weed out extremist content online, if that
offers some hope and maybe throw in for Mr. Hughes here--he
made one statement here that seemed contradictory.
You noted in your testimony that State Department employees
should have greater interaction with ISIS supporters online.
Yet we've--our past experience with that was one that was a
disappointing outcome because they didn't have credibility
among would-be jihadists. So if I could throw those two
questions out to the panel.
Why would that model work now? What should they do
differently to make it work?
Mr. Hughes. A couple reasons why I think that model didn't
work before. One was that it wasn't interactive, meaning it was
one-off kind of events.
So if you actually want to introduce, you know, some seeds
of doubt, what you're doing on that is building a relationship
or a rapport back and forth. That takes time.
The reason why that wasn't successful before is because it
had to go through six, seven, eight layers of bureaucracy to
say, can I tweet this 140 characters to this individual, right?
That's just not how the online environment works.
There's two reasons why I think that the U.S. Government
shouldn't completely get out of the game when it comes to
interactive back and forth.
One is, again, you need to essentially not cede the space,
and two, is there is some benefit when you're talking about
hardened ISIS supporters spending their time focussing on the
State Department as opposed to focussing on creating content,
videos, and things like that. It muddies their time up a little
bit and we do see that dynamic play out.
So I would focus the State Department's overt messaging on
the guys that raise their hands and say they are ISIS
supporters and then there is a whole spectrum of other options
between, you know, white overt, State Department to gray,
delayed attribution that DoD can do and then the black that CI
can do to counter messaging. And we need to make sure those are
coordinated a little bit better than they had in the past.
Chairman Royce. Quick question to you of the assessment of
Dr. Lobel's thesis there because they--what he's doing is
televising cinema that challenges extremist ideology and
Pakistan--they are doing that, I guess, now in the Middle East
trying to promote religious tolerance, trying to hit on this
theme of political moderation and pluralism, I guess, and
disseminate democratic culture, basically. Your assessment on
that?
Mr. Hughes. I have seen Aaron's work. It is phenomenal.
There's a spectrum in terms of communication. You have the
targeted messaging just on this issue, right. But there is also
broad based messaging that is more in tune and more useful to
come from partners that Aaron works with, right, because
governments by their very nature are very hesitant to get into
this idea of religion, establishment clause, things like that.
It makes everyone very uncomfortable. That's where civil
society and partners can play a role. Let's address the mood
music that causes people to want to be drawn to the ideology
itself and then let us slowly move down the spectrum.
Chairman Royce. I am going to ask the panel in writing just
for emerging technologies. You can give that to us later. I am
out of time and I need to go to Dr. Ami Bera of California.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Chairman Royce.
You know, fascinating testimony and something that we've
talked about in this committee quite a bit. You know, we are--
we do feel like we are losing the counter propaganda war. We're
losing that battle on social media and on the Internet.
You know, I think--Mr. Hughes and Dr. Neumann, you both
touched on how, you know, ISIL and other radical jihadists are
able to create this conversation in an ongoing, almost organic
way.
Dr. Neumann, you used the term creating the swarm, and the
way to counteract that swarm is to have a swarm that is putting
a counter narrative out there--that is, dispelling some of
these myths, using technology.
Now, Mr. Hughes, you talked about the importance of this--
you know, fostering the environment for this to happen but some
of it being organic, coming out of the community and, you know,
partnering that with--you know, the community members may not
know how best to use technology but partnering that with the
technology support so they can get that counter narrative out.
You know, I think a fundamental thing that is breaking down
is--I talked to, you know, in Sacramento our homeland security
folks, our local law enforcement--is there has to be a
partnership between, you know, the Muslim community locally and
the folks that are charged with trying to identify folks that
may be on a path to getting radicalization but so you can
intervene quickly and that seems to be breaking down right now
and, you know, some of the rhetoric that we hear out there does
not help the Muslim community reach out to others.
You know, perhaps some thoughts on how best we can start to
repair that because, again, in my sense if we want to
counteract this narrative it is going to take the community
that understands our culture, that understands the word and so
forth.
Partnering with, you know, whether it is technology
support, whether it is local law enforcement, whether it is our
homeland security folks, you know, Mr. Hughes, your thoughts.
Mr. Hughes. Sure. I would just--my previous job was to
community engagement with Muslim-Americans around the country.
So for about 3 years I would go to mosque community centers and
have very difficult but important questions and conversations
about radicalization. Sacramento is an interesting case. I have
been to Sacramento a number of times working with your local
Muslim-American communities and a telling example of that was
last year I was there and we were talking about the need to
counter ISIS' propaganda.
An imam of a local mosque raised his hand and said, you
know, Seamus, I would like to do counter messaging and I would
like to do that. And I said well, that is great, sir--what are
you going to do. I am going to hold my phone up and I am going
to record a lecture of me saying it and I am going to post it
online.
Sir, no one's going to watch that. It is going to be 6
minutes long and it is not very interactive. But I tell you
what, maybe I can connect you with the guys at Twitter or the
individuals at Facebook and let us figure out a way where you
have the message, it is very timely, and let us tie your video
so it tags next to an ISIS video and things like that.
You have this groundswell of people that want to do counter
messaging but don't know how to work the system in a way that I
think Congress and DC policymakers can help traverse that.
And then the larger question about community engagement--
that is a difficult thing. You know, you don't build
relationships 1 day at a time. It takes a very long process and
I think the way that the administration is moving on this is
that this idea of one-on-one interventions for individuals so
instead of just arresting an individual because that is the
only choice you have right now. I think if we bring in a third
option in interventions you're going to see levels of trust
built in between governments and communities.
Mr. Bera. What is that third option of interventions?
Mr. Hughes. And I would defer to Peter to talk a little bit
about the European experience because they have had years of
this. But this idea of an intervention space.
So in the U.K. they have a channel program that has been
revamped a number of times but it essentially connects the kid
they are worried about with a mentor and Germany Hayat with
social workers who help kind of train parents on how to talk to
their kids.
What we're essentially looking for is a non-law-enforcement
approach, right. You bring a social worker, a mental health
professional, a religious leader, any number of things--you
bring them to the table and say this is a kid we are worried
about--I don't have enough to arrest him or I don't want to
arrest him because he's under the age of 18--you know, what are
other options and everyone kind of gets around the table and
figures it out.
Mr. Bera. So we have actually had some of that conversation
in Sacramento both with homeland security folks as well as
our--the Muslim community locally because it is not just law
enforcement approaching them.
It could be that parent who is noticing changes in behavior
in their child and, you know, doesn't want to go to law
enforcement because they are worried, but they need someplace
where they can go and someone who is trusted in the community
who can intervene or it could be, you know, an imam. Dr.
Neumann, if you want.
Mr. Neumann. If I can just add one thing from the European
experience because these intervention programs have run in
different European countries with mixed successes. I think one
lesson you can draw is that it is very important that it is not
principally law enforcement and that is because parents will
not call that hotline if they think that it is the police that
is answering the phone and arresting their kid.
They will call but they will leave it to the very last
minute when it is usually too late. If you want them to call
early when something can still be done you need to give them
the confidence that their kid is not going to be immediately
arrested and that is why it is important that in this early
phase law enforcement is not involved, as hard as it is for law
enforcement to let go.
Mr. Bera. So it has to be someone who's trusted in the
community that has that confidence because, you know, it could
be a mental health issue that you have to intervene quite early
on which, you know, could lead to some consequences down the
road.
Mr. Lobel. Congressman, let me go to a broader point, if I
may. You know, when they looked at the radicalization process
of one of the San Bernardino killers, her friends said, you
know, when she was in college she wouldn't socialize. She spent
all her time watching extremist television channels--24-hour
television channels. I just want to echo some of the points
made here that we should not focus exclusively on the online,
and just two factors there.
One, I just want to quote from the Crown Prince of Bahrain
who was referring to both Sunni and Shi'a channels. He says,
extremists spread their ideological message through a multitude
of channels old and new.
Satellite channels unseen by Western audiences and free of
either its restrictions or regulations broadcast with far
greater impact than the Internet, an almost continuous message
of intolerance and venom to the ignorant and the susceptible.
Some of the biggest social media successes--sustainable
successes are television stars in the region who are on these
channels.
So I just wanted to make the point that I think there is a
complementarity here between the different types of media and
we need to be looking at all of it together.
Mr. Bera. Fantastic. Thank you, and I am out of my time.
Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Dr. Bera.
We now go to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher from California.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
have watched your career for a number of years and you seem
always to have gravitated toward fighting the intellectual
battle and making sure that the United States was fighting that
part of the battle of ideas and concepts rather than just the
battle of who can shoot and kill the enemy.
We have experienced--this is fascinating. Thank you for
your testimony from each of you today. We have lived through
this before. I mean, it seems that fanaticism and which then
accepts violence as a means to achieving fanatic goals is not
new to this era of human history and we have--during the French
Revolution we had people, you know, all of a sudden things went
haywire and the struggle for liberty became the, let us say,
guillotine anybody who speaks against the revolution, which
then meant anybody who was just in some way opposing some of
the concepts that were being discussed. Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot,
you name it--we have had these people who for some reason were
able to mobilize large numbers of people to slaughter people
who were basically innocent people.
This is--not to mention Hitler and his ilk, and how do we
deter that in this modern age. I will tell you that, being a
writer myself I especially--is it Lobel?
Mr. Lobel's concepts were very--I had not heard your
presentation before. Who actually is paying for these things
that you are doing already with this, sending groups of writers
and things like that? Who's financing that?
Mr. Lobel. Over the years our organization has had a range
of funders, largely private foundation supporters and we have
also received some U.S. Government funding as well.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So that's--well, that is to be
commended, I will have to say. But either we are going to
change--what we are up against is, as I say, another type of
fanaticism that has emerged and where you have fanatics who are
willing to commit violence in order to achieve their ends what
you end up with is terrorism and it takes a real fanatic to be
able to murder someone who doesn't have a gun and someone who
is just there and just a human being who happens to be in the
middle of a situation, especially if the ideas you're going to
promote what you believe is the truth--the ultimate truth--by
terrorizing populations into submission to that truth.
And it seems to me that's what we have here. So I thank you
very much, Mr. Chairman, for this. You have been very
provocative today. I don't really have any specific questions.
That one question is who financed it--can we count on private
financing to fight this battle?
Mr. Lobel. Well, I think the government can play an
important role by catalysing that, by--it can mobilize the
private sector. It can mobilize patriotic individuals in this
country who I think recognize the danger and are willing to
step up and I think there are some who feel like they haven't
been asked.
So that's why I think there is an important role that can
be played here in Washington by our Government in helping. So I
think the short answer to that is yes.
But sometimes you need that initial start, that venture
capital funding, if you will, particularly because of some of
the commercial challenges in the region.
Mr. Rohrabacher. You know, at times when the government
takes over jobs like this they have to reach so many
compromises within an editorial concept that everything comes
out mush and they are not able to really hit the points that
need to be hit.
So I would think that we should be encouraging, Mr.
Chairman, as many people in our private sector and throughout
academia and elsewhere to actually get directly involved in
this effort to reach out to those fanatical elements in the
world today that threaten the rest of us and perhaps reach out
to them in a variety of different ways. So I sure appreciate
your testimony and----
Mr. Lobel. I would just say quickly, Congressman, that if
you look--it is striking when you read the history of the Cold
War is how often projects were launched that really directly
involved the best of America's private sector and civil
society.
That is striking. I don't think we have achieved that
equivalent in the 15 years since 9/11.
Mr. Rohrabacher. One last thought on that.
I remember very well when I thought that we were going to
at that point win the Cold War. I mean, at one point in my life
I thought--I was sure that Communism would end up dominating
this planet including the United States.
But at that moment, Mr. Chairman, when I realized that we
were going to win is when they started doing commercials making
fun of Russia--of the Soviet Union.
And remember the babushkas were coming out in their
swimming suits and then it was their dress suits and it was all
the same suit, right? And what we need to do is perhaps reach
that point with the fanatics--with religious fanatics--whatever
they are, but Islamic in particular because it's there and
engaged with that violence as making sure that violent
fanaticism is ridiculed--that we ridicule it rather than try to
confront it intellectually. Maybe both.
Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Ridicule took down the KKK, or helped take
it down.
Mr. Brad Sherman of California.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you. A couple of points I would want to
make from the ranking member's opening statements.
The administration has created the Center for Strategic
Counter Terrorism Communications. In assessing its success, we
have to turn to experts and your guesses because there is no
way to count the number of people who might have joined a
terrorist organization but for the fact that they were
persuaded not to do so.
The CSCC is--the administration now is turning that into
the Global Engagement Center. The counter messaging provisions
of Speaker Ryan's new national security action plan echo the
administration's efforts and I think demonstrate
bipartisanship.
The budget is policy. Since 2013, the budget of this effort
has grown from $5 million to a 2017 request for $21.5 million.
Is that enough money, realizing that this is just one part of
our antiterrorism effort?
So I will ask all three witnesses. Is $21.5 million enough?
Anybody think it is too much?
Mr. Hughes. It depends on how they spend the money.
Mr. Sherman. Obviously.
Mr. Hughes. Yes, I----
Mr. Sherman. Give me a quantitative answer. We have to move
on to another question. Anybody have a quantitative?
Mr. Lobel. We should be spending a lot more money on all of
these efforts. I think when we look at the ideological
challenge and the importance of quote, you know, ``soft power''
in addressing it, I think it would be clear that there is a
great mismatch between the challenge and the resources being
allocated overall.
Mr. Sherman. Okay. I am going to go back to this theme that
we need to understand Islam at the State Department and the
organizations that it funds. Just as one example, I was
teaching my young daughter the Gettysburg Address, four score
and seven.
Now, you can translate that. Any Chinese scholar could
translate four score and seven as meaning 87. But only someone
who understood Christianity and as it was practiced in the
United States at that time and the King James Bible would hear
the echoes of religious thought in calling it four score and
seven rather than 87.
Are there people engaged in this effort, funded by the
State Department, that can really hear the allusions to the
similar echoed cadence of Islamic theology in the message
that's going out? Or are these people who, when they hear four
score and seven, translate that as 87 and figure that's the
number between 86 and 88? Dr. Lobel.
Mr. Lobel. I agree wholeheartedly that not only our
Government but our country as a whole has not invested nearly
enough in the kind of regional knowledge and expertise required
to address this challenge. That includes an understanding of
Islam.
So that, to me, is the State Department and the rest of us.
So, you know, when we look back at what was invested in Soviet
studies probably in the first 15 or 20 years of the Cold War
and compare it to where we are today we are failing and that is
an important cause of the fail.
Mr. Sherman. I want to go--I think both Dr. Neumann and Dr.
Lobel have alluded to the idea that we need to get individuals
involved and I would say even volunteers involved.
The State Department needs 14 levels of review to send out
a tweet. If you're an officially funded by the State Department
grantee you only need six levels of review before you can send
out a tweet.
If you're a volunteer, you do a tweet. There are many
millions of Muslims and people from Muslim countries--
Christians, Yazidis and others--who understand the culture who
would like to be engaging.
We need to give them the tools and the encouragement. I am
not aware of any effort that said, you know, not just if you
see something say something but dedicate 5 hours a week of your
time.
The other thing that's missing here is if you look at my
Web browser and you see that I visited Islamic terrorist chat
rooms, I probably don't go on the no-fly list. I am a member of
this committee.
My Muslim friends, their browser history has all--so we
need a system by which people can register the fact that they
are on our side, that they are trying to engage the terrorists,
even provide a copy of what they are doing to some agency of
government so that they feel free.
Because I assume that any Muslim-American who engaged
creatively one on one in a chat room would say some things that
a prosecutor could put him in jail for.
You've got to start with the idea of saying well, gee,
maybe--I understand that maybe you're thinking of going to
Syria and killing lots of people.
Well, I know where you're coming from but have you thought
about this? That might be an effective argument. It might also
get you in front of a jury saying why did you tell somebody it
is reasonable to even consider going to----
So is--I assume our witnesses will confirm there is no
organized way for someone who wants to volunteer in this cyber
war to make sure they don't go to jail. Dr. Neumann.
Mr. Neumann. No, there isn't, and one thing I wanted to
highlight is the contrast between what I think needs to be done
and what happened in the past with CSCC.
So when CSCC said let us counter ISIL online propaganda
they would produce a film, it would take a long time, a lot of
people would have to approve and then eventually there would be
a film coming out.
Now imagine that instead YouTube was launching a
competition and was saying, what's wrong with ISIS? You have 1
week. The prize is an internship with Google. I can guarantee
you there would be 5,000 student projects, volunteers, classes
from across the country and beyond producing little videos.
Now, of these 5,000, 80 percent would be really awful.
Twenty percent would be okay and maybe 2 percent would go
viral. That would still be a multiple of the output that CSCC
has ever produced.
It would not say State Department and it would be a lot
more authentic and it would cost nothing. That's why $21
million is an abstract figure. If those $21 million are being
used to foster----
Mr. Sherman. Google could just do this on their own because
I will tell you right now whoever wins that contest is somebody
Google wants as an intern.
So maybe a few of us--maybe you could draft a letter for a
few of us to endorse not only to Google but 10 others and let
us try to get some internships.
Mr. Lobel. I would just add very briefly that the 14 layers
of review is exactly when you think about yes, there needs to
be more money but how that money is spent, you wouldn't want to
be spending it on 14 layers of review.
You want it to be going to entities around the country that
can really make a difference and are not as risk averse.
Chairman Royce. We need to go to Daniel Donovan of New
York.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It has not been credited to anyone yet but as we sat here
within the last hour when the chairman gavelled in there has
been a mass shooting in a movie theater in Germany where at
least 25 people have been injured. No one has taken credit for
that but it is remarkable that we are speaking about this issue
now and this occurred during our hearing.
I want to talk a little bit--my friend Brad Sherman spoke
about prosecutors. I was a prosecutor for 20 years before I
came to Congress and I remember in the days when gangs--street
gangs used to recruit prospects for their gangs. And they could
visualize--they could see the loner in the school yard. They
could see the young person who had low self-esteem. They knew
their target.
How do the recruiters for ISIS and other violent extremists
find these individuals on the Internet? Because you can't
visually see this person in their basement who is on their
computer and doesn't have any friends and is a loner, unlike
the street gangs.
How does this actually occur? How are they finding these
individuals who are susceptible to being recruited? And I leave
that to anyone.
Mr. Hughes. Sure. The same way they do recruitment of gangs
online actually nowadays, which is they are looking for
individuals who have raised their hand only slightly so much,
saying oh, well, what's going on in Syria or what about the
Assad atrocities?--things like that.
They realize they have--there is a well-established system
of essentially spotting individuals to be drawn into it and
once they are drawn in they are in essentially an ISIS echo
chamber where they don't hear dissenting voices.
So and deg.the conversation runs from the
boringly benign banter of everyday life to the violent images
that we see on the nightly news.
So they get a sense of community on there and so they talk
on mainstream sites, on Twitter and places like that and then
they move onto this one-on-one communication whether it be on
Telegram or other platforms where they can have a more discreet
conversation, figure out how that person's day was.
It is a grooming process online, and a lot of these
individuals are also asking for help, right. They are coming to
known or suspected terrorists--people on the ground in Syria
and Iraq--and saying, I am thinking about joining--what do you
think about this?--what do I need to do when I get to Turkey?--
what are the four numbers I need to call?--what do I put in my
backpack?--what do I not put in my backpack?--how do I cross
Customs?
It is essentially allowing a level of interactivity that we
hadn't had in the past where if you're three girls from Denver
like we had last year, three girls under the age of 18, and you
want to figure out how to go to Syria, you're going on to
Tumbler, you're reading about it and then you're connecting
with a facilitator online who's working that process for you.
Mr. Donovan. So the individual has to kind of let the
recruiters know that I am a person who has curiosity?
Mr. Hughes. It depends. So like I said before, we saw a
case where a young woman was naive about her faith and was
asking questions online and ISIS supporters realized she was
naive and answered those questions in an innocuous way.
So each case is particularly different. But there is a
concerted recruitment effort online. Now, that has shifted in
recent months away from the so-called caliphate and more toward
maybe go to Libya or maybe do what you can where you are
because of various reasons.
Mr. Donovan. I understand it is a romance and it takes time
to nurture these individuals. You hit on something I wanted to
speak about in my remaining few minutes--the dark space, when
they find someone who may be susceptible, who feels they want
to belong to something that is greater than they, to have a
purpose in life where they never had a purpose before.
And once that recruiter realizes they have someone of that
mindset they go into these dark spaces where we can't even
follow them. Do you have any insight or any opinion of what
government could do about that? I am on Homeland Security too
and we struggle with that on a daily basis.
Mr. Hughes. The issue of encryption and going dark is
something that the FBI Directors talked about in numerous
occasions. We do see that dynamic play out online and
increasingly so.
So think of the evolution of Internet recruitment
radicalization this way. We used to have the good old days 5 or
6 years ago where you had password-protected forums, about 12
of them, and everyone raised their hand, you knew who they were
and then went in there.
That was--we could collect against that. Then they moved to
Twitter and Facebook and places like that, more mainstream
sites where you're able to get the fence sitters who--and able
to push out the propaganda a little bit more.
Now they have almost reversed course back over to more
discreet platforms like Telegram, which allows for end-to-end
encryption and other places like that and doesn't give law
enforcement that view of it. It is a difficult dynamic.
I don't have policy recommendations on an approach port. I
would say that any approach that you did develop needs to be
mindful of the technology evolving, meaning that if you asked
me 2 years ago about Telegram I would have said don't worry
about it right now--let us focus on Twitter and now here we are
with Telegram.
Mr. Donovan. Anyone else have a comment? Thank you very
much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the time that I no longer
have.
Chairman Royce. Well, let me just thank our witnesses here.
We are going to be contacting you. There are some additional
questions that we want to ask that we'd like your answers to.
But I--returning to the observation made by Mr. Brad
Sherman in terms of the necessity of the collaborative endeavor
here I am sure that dialogue will continue and so you've got a
second for your motion.
But thank you all and we thank the members. We stand
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:07 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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