[Senate Hearing 115-309]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-309
IDEOLOGY AND TERROR: UNDERSTANDING
THE TOOLS, TACTICS, AND TECHNIQUES OF VIOLENT EXTREMISM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 14, 2017
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
STEVE DAINES, Montana KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
Christopher R. Hixon, Staff Director
Gabrielle D'Adamo Singer, Chief Counsel
Daniel P. Lips, Policy Director
Margaret E. Daum, Minority Staff Director
Julie G. Klein, Minority Professional Staff Member
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Bonni E. Dinerstein, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Johnson.............................................. 1
Senator McCaskill............................................ 3
Senator Hassan............................................... 17
Senator Harris............................................... 18
Senator Heitkamp............................................. 21
Senator Peters............................................... 24
Senator Daines............................................... 30
Prepared statements:
Senator Johnson.............................................. 35
Senator McCaskill............................................ 36
WITNESSES
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford
University..................................................... 5
Asra Q. Nomani, Co-Founder, Muslim Reform Movement............... 6
John Lenczowski, Ph.D., Founder and President, The Institute of
World Politics................................................. 8
Hon. Michael E. Leiter, Former Director, National
Counterterrorism Center........................................ 9
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Hirsi Ali, Ayaan:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Leiter, Hon. Michael E.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Lenczowski, John Ph.D.:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 110
Nomani, Asra Q.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 65
APPENDIX
Sikh Coalition statement submitted for the Record................ 127
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
Ms. Hirsi Ali................................................ 130
Ms. Nomani................................................... 130
Mr. Lenczonwski.............................................. 151
Mr. Leiter................................................... 155
IDEOLOGY AND TERROR: UNDERSTANDING.
THE TOOLS, TACTICS, AND TECHNIQUES OF VIOLENT EXTREMISM
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Daines, McCaskill,
Tester, Heitkamp, Peters, Hassan, and Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON
Chairman Johnson. Before we start this hearing, let me just
ask everybody in the audience to be respectful, no
disturbances. This will be the warning. If there are further
disturbances, if the witnesses are interrupted, if the
questions are interrupted, we will remove you. The Capitol
Police will be instructed to do so, so I might as well--before
we even start the hearing, let me lay that warning out. No
disturbances. You can sit here, and you can listen to the
hearing. We are trying to lay out a reality here, and if you
are not willing to listen, you can go elsewhere. So, that is
the only warning. The next disturbance and you will be ushered
outside of here.
Good morning. This hearing is called to order.
I want to thank the witnesses for your testimony, for
taking the time, and for your courage.
The mission of this Committee is pretty straightforward: to
enhance the economic and national security of America, and to
promote more efficient, effective, and accountable government.
The Committee really is in many respects two committees in one
from the House side. We have homeland security and we have
governmental affairs. This hearing is really focusing on the
homeland security side of the Committee structure, and within
that structure, we have four priorities: border security;
cybersecurity; protecting our critical infrastructure; and
countering extremism and violence in any form, including
Islamist terrorism.
What we try and do in this Committee is through this
hearing process lay out a reality. I come from a manufacturing
background, solved a lot of problems. The only way you solve a
problem is to first admit you have one: properly define it,
properly describe it, gather the information, and admit to the
reality. There is no way anybody can deny we have a problem
worldwide in terms of extremism and violence.
We witnessed it just a few hours ago on a practice field
for a charity baseball event. And, let me acknowledge first of
all, our prayers are with those victims: Congressman Scalise,
the staff member, and the two members of the Capitol Hill
security detail that were wounded, and even having been
wounded, they continued to return fire and prevented a far
greater tragedy.
The appreciation we owe to the men and women in public
safety, that every day that they step out of the threshold of
their door, they are literally putting their lives on the line,
that was demonstrated again this morning.
So, I appreciate anybody who is willing to step up to the
plate, defend us, defend our freedom, protect public safety,
but also stand up and tell the truth and describe reality in a
world that is very dangerous, in a world that does not want to
hear the truth and reality.
Now, previous hearings on this subject have talked about
the way radical Islamist terrorists are using social media.
Particularly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has
become incredibly effective at poisoning the minds of young
people around the world to engage in these acts of terror and
depravity.
We have held hearings on trying to understand what are the
motives. What motivates this? What are they trying to
accomplish?
We have learned that in America what has been incredibly
important throughout our history: we are a Nation of
immigrants. We have welcomed them. They have made this Nation
great. But, what has made this Nation great is people that have
come to this country have come embracing the idea and promise
of America, to become American, not rejecting their past
culture. We never asked that. But, we do ask them to come and
accept constitutional law to be able to take advantage of this
wonder and marvel we call America and the American economy.
We have certainly learned how important it is for us in
government and our public safety officials to positively engage
in communities, every community, to make sure that people are
welcome, they will assimilate.
It is not perfect. It has not completely worked. I think we
have probably done a better job, as we have witnessed recently,
whether it is in Brussels, Paris, or places in Europe where the
assimilation has not been as effective. But, it is far from
perfect here in America, and we will be talking about that.
So, again, I just want to say again I appreciate the
courage of our witnesses, their willingness to step up to the
plate, and I just implore everybody to have an open mind. We
need to understand the truth, we need to understand the reality
if we have any hope of solving this problem. We are in a
generational struggle at least. We have to get to a point where
people can feel free and safe to go practice in the morning on
a baseball field or walk a street or raise their family. That
is what we are trying to accomplish. It is not going to be
easy, but the only way we do it is if we are willing to have
the courage to face these truths and have the courage to
actually tell them.
So, again, thank you for having that courage, and with
that, I will turn it over to Senator McCaskill after I do ask
unanimous consent to enter my written statement in the
record.\1\
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the
Appendix on page 35.
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OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL\2\
Senator McCaskill. I think all of us are waiting to exhale
until we learn more details about our colleagues and our staff
members and our police officers. But, make no mistake about it:
What we saw this morning was evil. And, I hope that this
hearing does not stray from the fact that we should be focusing
on the evil; we should be focusing on violence; we should be
focusing on enforcing our criminal laws against evil and
violence; we should be focusing on those people who twist and
distort any religion. Be it Muslim, Christianity, or Buddhism,
anyone who twists and distorts that religion to a place of evil
is an exception to the rule. It is not the rule.
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\2\ The prepared statement of Senator McCaskill appears in the
Appendix on page 36.
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We should not focus on religion and the freedoms our
country embraces. Our country was founded on many important
premises, but perhaps paramount among those premises was the
freedom of religion. The earliest Americans, aside from our
Native Americans, came here because they were fleeing from
persecution based on their religion. Our freedoms, like freedom
of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, define us
as a Nation, and no evil should ever be allowed to distort
those premises. Ever. And, I am hoping, although I am worried,
honestly, that this hearing will underline that.
I am concerned that the President's budget proposal has
taken its eye off the ball in terms of our fight against this
evil extremism and the violence that it foments. I am worried
that it has slashed homeland counterterrorism measures like the
Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams that
have provided an extra layer of security at our airports. It
also calls for the complete elimination of the Law Enforcement
Reimbursement Program, which provides financial assistance to
local law enforcement agencies that help secure our airports.
It would reduce the Port Security Grant Program and the Transit
Security Grant Program by more than 50 percent--all soft
targets for these criminals, these evil criminals.
The Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Grant, which
helps prepare high-density urban areas on how to respond, would
be cut by $150 million. The President's proposal would zero out
the Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks Grant Program, which
is so essential as we face violent, evil criminals.
While it is critical that we enhance our physical security
and provide law enforcement with the resources they need to
keep us safe, we also have to improve our efforts to stop
Americans from being radicalized. Our danger, at least to date,
has not been from those who try to slip into this country
unnoticed or who try to illegally cross our borders or who are
seeking refuge in a crisis, a humanitarian crisis. That is not
where the danger has come from. It has come from people who are
Americans or people who are legally in this country who have
been radicalized.
We face a threat from a variety of sources on
radicalization, including white supremacists, ecoterrorists,
and ISIS and al-Qaeda sympathizers. There is a long list. In
the context of Sunni-inspired violent extremism, which is where
this hearing appears to be focused based on the witnesses, it
is absolutely vital that any effort our government undertakes
to counter violent extremism is done in partnership and in full
engagement of the peace-loving Muslim community.
In order to combat ISIS and other extremists' propaganda,
we must have a healthy dialogue with Muslim and other community
leaders to ensure that resources are available to families and
friends that may have concerns about loved ones who have become
attracted to extremist rhetoric.
Unfortunately, some of the rhetoric we hear, including some
from of the witnesses here today, is at odds with this
approach. It is also in complete conflict with American
principles and values. And, most importantly, it would actually
make the United States of America less safe. We need to spend
less time stirring up anti-Muslim rhetoric and more time
working on these issues and working with the majority of
Muslims, both in this country and around the world, who are
peaceful and law abiding.
We are lucky to have Michael Leiter testifying with us
today. As the former Director of the National Counterterrorism
Center (NCTC) during the Bush Administration, Mr. Leither.
Mr. Leiter understands the threats our country faces and
has extensive knowledge and expertise crafting strategies to go
after the people who are trying to do us harm. I am eager to
hear Mr. Leiter's analysis and the lessons we can learn from
the recent attacks in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and elsewhere.
I would appreciate his thoughts on the President's budget, and
I am interested in recommendations to bolster the Nation's
safety and resilience, without compromising our constitutional
principles. We can do better to combat and prevent radicalism
and extremism as long as we work together under the umbrella of
those important protections.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator McCaskill.
It is the tradition of this Committee to swear in
witnesses, so if you will all stand and raise your right hand.
Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Committee
will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you, God?
Ms. Hirsi Ali. I do.
Ms. Nomani. I do.
Mr. Lenczowski. I do.
Mr. Leiter. I do.
Chairman Johnson. Be seated.
Our first witness is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ms. Ali was born in
Somalia and migrated to the Netherlands to avoid a forced
marriage. She served on the Dutch Parliament and in 2004 wrote
the script of a short film, ``Submission,'' critical of Islam's
treatment of women. After the film was released, the director
of the film, Theo van Gogh, was assassinated. Hirsi Ali is the
author of several books, most recently, ``The Challenge of
Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to
Counter It.'' She currently is a research fellow at the Hoover
Institution and founder of the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation. Ms.
Hirsi Ali.
TESTIMONY OF AYAAN HIRSI ALI,\1\ RESEARCH FELLOW, HOOVER
INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Ms. Hirsi Ali. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member McCaskill,
Senators, ladies and gentlemen, I want to join you both in
condemning the violence of this morning, and I wish the
Congressman a swift recovery.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Hirsi Ali appears in the Appendix
on page 41.
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Thank you for this opportunity to talk to you about the
threat that is endangering our Constitution, our freedoms, and
our way of life. Clearly, not all Muslims pose a threat, but
some do. How can we tell the difference? We can by
understanding the nature of Islam. Islam is part religion and
part a political-military doctrine. The part that is a
political doctrine consists of a world view, a system of laws,
and a moral code that is totally incompatible with our
Constitution, our laws, and our way of life.
In 2017, there are two major governments that apply Islamic
law, or Sharia: Saudi Arabia and Iran. As we sit here, we are
also fighting a rogue entity that goes by the name of ISIS.
ISIS implements Sharia in its most extreme or most pure form.
Islamic law, as practiced in these places, negates secular law
and demands submission to the ruler without question.
Women are subordinate to men and are denied such basic
rights as owning their own bodies and sexuality. They face
discrimination in marriage, inheritance, and custody. Victims
of rape must produce four witnesses, and if they do not, many
are flogged or stoned to death.
Religious minorities are subject to a second-class citizen
existence. There is the death penalty for homosexuals and
apostates. There are no checks and balances and no free and
impartial courts. There is no rule of law. Dissent is brutally
suppressed.
Not all Muslims, not even those who live in these
theocracies, support Sharia. I call those who do ``Medina
Muslims'' because they invoke Muhammad, the founder of Islam in
Medina. I believe that the vast majority of Muslims accentuate
the spiritual aspects of Islam. I call them ``Mecca Muslims''
because they cite Muhammad and his legacy from Mecca.
There is a third subset of Muslims, like Asra, who reject
the military and political aspects of Islam. I call them the
``reformers.'' They are different from the Mecca Muslims
because they stand up to the Medina Muslims by openly rejecting
Sharia.
Most Muslims live in secular States or States with some
forms of Sharia. There are also millions of Muslims today who
live as considerable minorities in non-Muslim societies like
ours. The Medina Muslims are not satisfied with this status
quo. Their goal is to transform all Muslim majority countries
into Islamic theocracies and to use Muslim immigrant minorities
as a beachhead to transform non-Muslim societies, even free
ones, such as the United States. They have a long time horizon
and already have a foothold.
Medina Muslims use a combination of force or jihad, along
with the dissemination of the ideology through a mechanism
known as ``dawa.'' In theory, dawa is the call to Islam and
consists of proselytizing. In practice, it is a process of
radical indoctrination. Dawa advocates use the cover of
missionary efforts, relief works, education, and cultural
activities. They target the individual, the family, the
education system, the workplace, the broader economic society
as a whole. It is totalitarian like communism and fascism, but
different because it is shrouded in religion.
This quest by the Medina Muslims to establish Sharia across
the globe by all means has led to weak and failed States, to
repression, to civil wars, to the exodus of people from their
homes and in free societies to divisiveness and the breakdown
of social cohesion. We must stop not only the violent entities,
like ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and others, but also dismantle
the networks of dawa. Above all, we need to challenge the
principles of Sharia law.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Ms. Hirsi Ali.
Our next witness is Asra Nomani. Ms. Nomani is the co-
founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. She is the author of
``Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of
Islam.'' She also has led the Pearl Project, a student-faculty
investigation into the murder of her friend, Danny Pearl, who
was executed by members of al-Qaeda. Ms. Nomani.
TESTIMONY OF ASRA Q. NOMANI,\1\ CO-FOUNDER, MUSLIM REFORM
MOVEMENT
Ms. Nomani. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chairman Johnson,
thank you, Ranking Member McCaskill, and thank you, Senators,
for this invitation to be here today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Nomani appears in the Appendix on
page 65.
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Our hearts are indeed gripped with the horror of this
morning's shooting. I feel empathy and compassion for you
because this day takes me back to a day 15 years ago when I
felt the same gripping of my heart. I learned that day that my
colleague and friend, Danny Pearl, from the Wall Street
Journal, had been kidnapped. We learned in the weeks that
followed that he had been kidnapped by militants, and it was 15
years ago almost to this day that we learned that he was buried
in a plot outside of Karachi, his body cut into pieces by the
men who believed that their interpretation of my faith
justified this brutal murder.
I sit before you because on that day I developed a passion
that I would expect you all will also feel committed to after
you learn the intentions, motivations of the shooter this
morning. Ayaan lost a friend. I lost a friend. On that day, I
made it my duty as a Muslim to stand up against the ideology of
extremist Islam that motivated the men that took my friend from
this Earth.
There was one value that connected the 27 men that were
involved in Danny's kidnapping and murder, and that was that
they had all absorbed the dawa or the evangelism of an
ideological interpretation of Islam that is of the nature that
Ayaan is speaking about.
I want us to be really clear. This is not the Islam that my
parents taught me. The Islam that my parents taught me led me
this morning to stand shoulder to shoulder with my father and
open my hands and pray for peace of mind for everyone in this
world.
What Senator McCaskill talks about is really important. We
must make this distinction. And, I think at the same time that
means that we are clear, as Senator Johnson is talking about,
related to the enemy that we face.
The ideology of Islamism or political Islam contradicts the
constitutional values of this country. The elements of Islamism
or political Islam are very clear. It demands that we have
political governance according to the laws of Sharia, or
Islamic law. Those standards are in complete contradiction with
the laws of our country.
I want to tell you from the trenches that this is a reality
that we face in our country. In Northern California, Facebook
promotes the page of Hizbut Tahrir, an organization whose
meeting I attended in Northern Virginia last summer. Behind the
speakers was a flag for the Islamic State.
In Michigan, a man is preaching to advocate for child
marriages in the name of Islam.
In Northern Virginia, an imam just preached that it is OK
to cut the clitoris of girls because it leads to then the
ability to keep hypersexuality from expressing itself in the
world.
What is it that we must do? We must be clear, as Chairman
Johnson is saying. We must have moral courage and intellectual
courage. We must absolutely separate the many Muslims who do
not practice Islamism from those who do. And, in that way, the
objective that we have to protect Muslims and to be able to
differentiate extremism from the large swath of the faith that
my family and others practice will be realized. We will, in
fact, protect Muslims if we take this strategy of marginalizing
the extremists.
We as a Nation must be committed to shut down the ideology
of Islamism, just as we defeated fascism, just as we defeated
communism. The ideology of Islamism denies us the right as men
and women to sit in a room together as we are sitting today. It
denies young girls the right to go to a concert and calls them
``dangerous women.'' It denies a woman like myself the right to
sit in a bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, without being separated
and then killed. We have to understand that the future of our
world depends on our clear thinking and our wisdom.
I came here with fear in my heart because we also face a
network that I call the ``Honor Brigade'' that wants to silence
this conversation. Ayaan and I are under attack constantly.
Between us, I do not know how many death threats we have faced,
but we sit before you with our backs to both our friends and
our enemies because it is our duty to stand up for the humanity
in which we believe.
When I had fear last night and my mother was beside me, she
took my hand, and she said, ``Do this for humanity. Step
forward for humanity.'' And, I urge all of you to remain
committed to all the values in which we believe and the freedom
and the beauty of this world that we want to see the next
generation inherit.
Thank you so much.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Ms. Nomani.
Our next witness is Dr. John Lenczowski. Dr. Lenczowski is
the founder and president of the Institute of World Politics, a
graduate school on national security and international affairs.
Dr. Lenczowski served at the State Department from 1981 to 1983
and then with the National Security Council from 1983 to 1987,
where he was the Director of European and Soviet Affairs and
President Reagan's Principal Soviet Affairs Adviser. Dr.
Lenczowski.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN LENCZOWSKI, PH.D.,\1\ FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT,
THE INSTITUTE OF WORLD POLITICS
Mr. Lenczowski. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Minority Member and Members of the Committee. I am honored to
have the chance to discuss how to protect ourselves against
radical jihadism.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Lenczowski appears in the
Appendix on page 110.
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We have spent trillions in this country fighting Islamist
terrorism as if it is a military problem. This is like trying
to eradicate mosquitoes by inviting your friends for a garden
party, arming them with shotguns, and shooting mosquitoes all
afternoon. You will get a few. The problem is the garden has a
puddle which is spawning new mosquitoes--not just terrorists
but jihadists dedicated to establishing a totalitarian
caliphate worldwide. This is not a military problem. It is a
political, propaganda, ideological, cultural, and religious
doctrine problem. To solve it necessitates fighting a war of
ideas, and the problem is that we have virtually no ideological
warriors in this war.
We have a precedent in the Cold War. Eliminating the
sources of Cold War tension required changing the Marxist-
Leninist core of the Soviet system. So, we conducted an
ideological war episodically for some four decades. This
consisted of the use of the truth to counter Soviet propaganda,
undermining the ideology as the basis of Soviet legitimacy,
anathematizing the inhumanity of communist rule, offering the
peoples of the Soviet empire a positive alternative--freedom,
democracy, and hope for a better life--and supporting
resistance forces within the empire.
Victory entailed the collapse of the Communist Party and
the entire Soviet system. A key indicator of that victory was
the concession by the chief party ideologist, Alexander
Yakovlev, that the ideology and the system it produced were
``evil.''
We must also fight jihadism by targeting its ideological
core. Jihadism differs from politically moderate Islam insofar
as it seeks to expedite ordinary missionary activity by
conducting jihad of the sword and resettlement jihad, migration
to non-Muslim lands, establishing separatist enclaves that run
according to Sharia, and culminating in political demographic
conquest.
Modern totalitarian Islamism, which incorporates Marxist-
Leninist political strategy, forms the basis of the recruitment
of new jihadists, both terrorists and resettlement jihadists.
It depends on generating hatred against the infidel,
principally through a moral attack against colonialism,
Zionism, and U.S. hegemony, and against the West's moral
degradation.
Defeating this ideology requires an ideological counter
attack based on superior moral precepts. Above all, this
requires telling the truth and ending self-censorship about
radical Islamism and an information campaign exposing the
ideology, exposing jihadist strategy, Sharia, and the crimes of
radical Islamist regimes.
It then requires an attack on the ideology and its
manipulation by jihadists, and I can discuss later on a number
of different elements of what that would look like.
Finally, it requires offering a positive alternative,
including an appeal to conscience and the promotion of human
rights. Regrettably, our government is intellectually and
organizationally unprepared to do all this. We no longer have
centers within our government that promote excellence in public
diplomacy, strategic influence, and ideological warfare. So, we
should resurrect a new version of the U.S. Information Agency.
I would call it the ``U.S. Public Diplomacy Agency.'' Located
within the State Department, it should contain all the offices
addressing influence over public opinion. They would include
the Human Rights Bureau; a strengthened version of the current
Global Engagement Center (GEC) to counter jihadist propaganda;
an Office of Foreign Opinion Research; a Bureau of Education,
Culture, and Ideas with a special office of ideological and
religious affairs; the Voice of America (VOA), which should be
transferred to this agency from the BBG; and an office for the
counterintelligence protection of U.S. public diplomacy
programs.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must resurrect
serious covert political influence capabilities, including the
funding and running of all forms of media and the ability to
support voices of politically moderate Islam in their efforts
to discredit jihadism.
Our Defense Department needs to strengthen its military
information support operations, and the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), the State Department, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), and local law enforcement need
significantly improved capabilities to distinguish between
ordinary Muslims who want their religion to be a religion and
not a radical secular ideological program, to distinguish those
people from jihadists, and when it comes to whom to admit to
the United States or with whom to cooperate in the struggle
against jihadism.
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Doctor.
Our final witness is Michael Leiter. Mr. Leiter most
recently served as president of Leidos Defense. Mr. Leiter
previously served as the Director of the National
Counterterrorism Center from 2007 to 2011 for both President
George W. Bush and President Obama. Mr. Leiter.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. LEITER, FORMER DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER
Mr. Leiter. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member McCaskill, and
Members of the Committee, thank you very much for having me,
and I would simply add my thoughts and prayers to those who
were injured and the families that are affected this morning.
Before directly addressing today's topic, I do want to
offer two critical opening points. And, first, it is that I am
not going to address all forms of terrorism today because that
is not what the Committee asked for. But, I do not want that to
be read as that Sunni-inspired terrorism is the only terrorist
threat we face. We face Shia terrorism, right-wing nationalist
terrorism, other political terrorism, all of that throughout
the global, and some of the solutions to address Sunni-inspired
terrorism are the same, but there are also distinctions.
The second caveat is that although I am going to focus and
we are focusing on the ideological aspects of this struggle, I
am extremely supportive of what is a balanced approach to
terrorism. From my perspective, that includes overseas kinetic
actions to take people off the battlefield, intelligence
partnerships with our close allies, aggressive law enforcement,
and an ideological component. But, if we just do one of those,
we have pretty much guaranteed ourselves failure in the larger
battle.
Now, as this Committee knows well, countering violent
extremism (CVE), are those non-coercive preventative activities
that aim to reduce radicalization and ultimately recruitment to
violence. These are inherently broad activities, including all
parts of the community, rehabilitation, many pieces. And, in my
view, any of these activities must be based on a very rigorous
and, as you said, Mr. Chairman, a factual and truthful analysis
of radicalization. And, thankfully, unlike in 2001, this is
something which in my view is widely available within the U.S.
Intelligence Community (IC), from credible partners overseas,
and academic institutions.
Now, when implemented properly, there is no doubt in my
mind that CVE programming reduces radicalization and violence,
and we should not be surprised by that. It works in anti-drug
activity. It works in anti-gang activity. And, it can work in
this context as well. And, studies from Duke, the University of
Massachusetts, Mercy Corps, the Netherlands, Kenya, Germany,
U.K. all back this up.
Now, in my view--and I take significant blame for this,
having been the Director of the National Counterterrorism
Center in President Bush and President Obama--since 9/11 the
U.S. CVE programs have been of marginal effectiveness. And, I
hope we have more agreement. I agree with much of what Dr.
Lenczowski said about the poor resourcing and lack of focus on
many of these programs, both domestically and internationally
for the United States.
Again, I think we have some very good programs. I would
highlight George Selim, the Office for Community Partnerships
at DHS. There are good people doing good work. But, we have not
resourced these programs and done so in a strategic way. Let me
give you a very small example of this inadequacy, and I will
compare it to a drug problem.
The 2016 Federal Drug Demand Reduction Program received $15
billion; $1.5 billion of that was for prevention activities.
The CVE elements of DHS' Office for Community Partnerships has
all of $10 million in 2016 grant funding. So, if we think this
is a serious problem, we need a serious solution. Right now we
do not have that.
Now, in designing CVE programs, we have to be very careful,
in my view, not to alienate the very same communities on which
we rely. The ideology of Sunni violent extremism is, of course,
part of the problem, and it must be both addressed and
consistent with the First Amendment. At the same time, we must
not--I cannot stress this enough--conflate a violent ideology
with mainstream Muslim beliefs. To do so is not only factually
wrong, but it is deeply counterproductive, and it will feed
directly into the extremist narrative of us versus them. And,
it directly undercuts the most forceful message we have of ``e
pluribus unum.''
In this regard, I think it is deeply mistaken and harmful
to equate core Islamic concepts that are not inherently violent
with extremist interpretations of these principles. For
example, the Muslim tradition of dawa, or proselytization,
which is not dissimilar to similar traditions in Christianity
and elsewhere, is not--I repeat, is not--equivalent with the
Islamist violent and forceful interpretation of this term.
Similarly, Muslims' honoring of Sharia is not inherently
intentioned with living in constitutional democracies any more
than it would be for Christians or Jews who also seek to honor
their religious traditions while still complying with civil
authority.
So, what would a successful counterterrorism program with a
robust CVE program look like?
One, as I have said, act aggressively overseas, disrupting
both physical and, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, cyber safe
havens.
Second, Federal law enforcement must work with local
officials to share the heavy burden of investigation, and in
doing so, those officials must understand Islam and all its
diversity so that they may distinguish between peaceful
adherents and violent extremists.
Defensive measures must be in place, and we must have a
robust CVE strategy for a country of almost 300 million. And,
that would include education programs for State and local
officials on Islam, done in conjunction with local Muslim
communities; engagement with Muslim organizations, recognizing
the massive diversity like every other religion we have here in
the United States with those Muslim communities; fostering
engagement with the technology community and Muslim
organizations to enable effective nongovernmental organizations
(NGO) ideological engagement where the U.S. Government cannot
and should not engage; diversion programs modeled on anti-gang
and anti-drug programs to help channel youth away from
extremism and violence; leveraging all elements of United
States and local governments to ensure CVE leadership is far
beyond law enforcement officials; and just like in
manufacturing, fully develop metrics to make sure where we are
putting our money, they are dollars well spent.
There are a number of programs, as Ranking Member McCaskill
said, that I think are at risk, both domestically and overseas,
from the President's budget. I look forward to answering those.
I look forward to working with this Committee on this and other
issues which face us on violent extremism of all stripes.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Leiter.
I did want to in my opening statement--and I did not have
the piece of paper with me--quote Karl Popper from 1945. Let me
read the full quote into the record. Again, this was written in
1945. ``Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of
tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who
are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant
society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the
tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.''
Mr. Leiter, in your testimony you said if we think this is
a serious problem, we need a serious solution. That is the
point of this hearing. Do you think this is a serious problem?
I mean, the reason I called this hearing, by the way, was a
Wall Street Journal article written by Ms. Hirsi Ali describing
dawa versus jihad. I had not heard of that, quite honestly. You
described dawa as pretty benign, and I think it could be.
Certainly, as you know, whether it is Christian missionaries--
you are trying to promote, evangelize a religion, but what are
you evangelizing about? Are you evangelizing the moderate, the
non-violent form? Or are you evangelizing the Islamist
terrorist form?
Do you deny the reality that there are elements, that there
are potentially charitable organizations raising money and
funneling those dollars into potentially Islamic terrorist
groups?
Mr. Leiter. Mr. Chairman, I spent 4\1/2\ years of my life
working for a Democratic and a Republican President trying to
keep the American people safe from violent Islamic extremism.
So, any suggestion, even in your question, that I somehow deny
that.
Chairman Johnson. Well, good. Just say you do not--OK,
great. I appreciate that. I honestly was not trying to
challenge you.
Mr. Leiter. Mr. Chairman, there are undoubtedly
organizations who clothe themselves, who wrap themselves in the
cloth of religion who are pursuing violent means, and we have
to stop that, and we have to see through that. And, I think one
of the greatest challenges is educating U.S. Government
officials and other officials to make that distinction, to draw
that distinction between those organizations which are pursuing
legitimate charitable means in the name of any religion versus
those that are pursuing illegal and dangerous violence or
funding of other organizations.
Chairman Johnson. OK, my point--and truthfully, I was not
trying to challenge you in any way, shape, or form. I truly
respect what you have done and the testimony you have provided
this Committee in the past. I think what I am hearing is not
areas of disagreement here between the witnesses, although it
might be set up like there may be. So, is there anything that
you heard in the testimony from our two female witnesses that
you would disagree with?
Mr. Leiter. Well, first of all, I want to say much of their
work I greatly respect, and rather than try to give an overview
or characterize all of their statements today, there are things
that the witnesses have written with which I disagree. What I
heard mostly today I would largely agree with. I do not agree
with a few small things.
Contrary to the good doctor, I do not think that there has
been, at least in my experience, significant self-censorship
within the U.S. Government talking about this. I, in fact,
tripled the resources at NCTC to study the ideological aspects
of this so we could train State and local officials on Islam.
So, there was no issue about saying this is not Islamic. We
knew that there were ideological drivers of this, and people
had to understand that. We started a program to go out and
train community groups on understanding Islam. We started a
program that helped train Muslim communities on understanding
what was available to their sons and daughters that might be
radicalizing material on the Internet. So, we did not at all
ignore it.
Now, I do agree with the good doctor, as I said, the U.S.
Government's policy and budgetary priorities have not always
aligned with that. But, I do not think that that was political
censorship and trying to bury our head in the sand about what
some of the roots of the problem were.
Chairman Johnson. Ms. Nomani, can you just kind of respond?
Ms. Nomani. Yes, I would like to say that I have been
waiting for this hearing for 15 years because we have been
unable to have a conversation about ideology and terrorism when
it comes to Islam.
I remember a moment when I went to the State Department
several years ago, and there was a meeting of a public
diplomacy official, Farah Pandith, and it was to talk about
what strategies we could put into place. And, I said to her
very simply, ``It is about the ideology.'' It is about the
ideology that you know very well is put out into the world by
governments like Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia and their
proxies, like the Muslim Brotherhood. But, I was told at that
meeting that we cannot have this conversation about ideology.
Our freedom of religion will not allow us to have that
conversation in a public space.
But, what I push back on and what I am so happy to see us
discuss today is the fact that the ideology that is a problem
is one that violates U.S. constitutional law. It is one that
wants to see the overthrow of this democracy and wants to see
us as women put into separate and segregated spaces with rights
that are not equal to men. And so, this is a reality.
I have with me a book that I bought at the Medina Market in
Herndon, Virginia, just off of Route 7, a road that is called
``Wahhabi Corridor'' because off of Route 7 are the mosques,
the think tanks, the book stores that put this ideology out to
our community. And, in this book of law, Islamic law, the
Sharia that is a problem, here on the anniversary of the
Orlando attack, it tells us that homosexuals should be killed.
It tells us the reasons why we should wage jihad in America and
the rest of the world. This is not the Islam that my parents
taught me, but this is a reality. And, I am so happy that we
are finally confronting the ideological problem.
Chairman Johnson. Ms. Hirsi Ali, would you just like to
respond?
Ms. Hirsi Ali. Yes. I think it is not so much a question of
disagreement, but maybe it is a question of perspective. And, I
think what I would like to do is start with where we agree on,
all of us here on the panel, and I hope all of you, and where
we all agree on is that Muslims are not synonymous with
terrorism or repression or misogyny or any of that. So, I would
like to start by making this distinction between Islam as a set
of beliefs, as a doctrine, as a tradition, as a civilization on
the one hand and the human beings as Muslims. And, if you take
Islam and you study--there are libraries full of books on Islam
and studies on Islam, and what it boils down to is that Islam
is part religion and it is spiritual, and it has that
spiritual--and a very rich history of spirituality. But, it
also has a military-political component.
Now, there are some Muslims who accentuate the spiritual
and the religious, like your mother holding your hand today and
the way your parents raised you, Asra Nomani, who tells you
that the way they see the spiritual component of their religion
is peaceful, and they wish no one else any harm. And, if they
engage in evangelization or if they engage in dawa, that dawa
is only about spreading that peace, goodness, and wellness.
But, there are other groups, and that is why we are having
this conversation. What we are dealing with is this other group
who are taking out of the historical and civilizational context
of Islam and accentuating the political and the military.
Now, both groups invoke the Prophet Muhammad, who is the
founder of Islam, they invoke the Qur'an, they invoke
scripture. And, the question is: Does the Prophet Muhammad
support the Medina Muslims, those who accentuate the politics,
or does he support those who accentuate the spirituality? He
does both. When he first founded the religion in Mecca, the
first 10 years, it was all about religion and spirituality.
Later on, in Mecca, after emigration, it is all about politics,
it is about military. He has militias. He wages wars. He
develops a new law. And, these men in the 21st Century who are
organizing themselves as nongovernmental organizations like the
wider Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim Brotherhood is just
one entity, or a theocracy like Saudi Arabia, another theocracy
like Iran, they invoke the Prophet Muhammad's legacy in Medina.
So, that is why I think it is extremely important that we make
this distinction.
Now, we have problems with those Muslims and only those
Muslims who accentuate the political and military doctrine of
Islam. We have been focusing a great deal, as we should--and I
agree with you, Mr. Leiter. As we have been focusing on those
who use violence and use jihad, terrorism, we have not paid as
much attention to what you call, Dr. Lenczowski, the puddles,
the mosquito puddles, the breeding places, those people who get
into the hearts and minds of vulnerable people and turn them
toward the idea that it is OK to run your car over people, that
it is OK to kill homosexuals, that it is OK to kill apostates,
that it is OK to pursue a world view of a society that is based
on a 7th Century law. That is, I think--to begin with, we
should have that clarification. And, I want to say I came and I
accepted your invitation to talk about only that group, not to
vilify or stigmatize those Muslims who accentuate their
spirituality.
Chairman Johnson. OK. And, I appreciate that, and I
appreciate the attempt here--and this is an attempt. What do we
agree on? And, really what is the truth? What is the reality?
Again, truly, I was not challenging. I am just trying to find
out, where are the areas of agreement? What we do not disagree
on so we can try and at least probe that to figure out, what
really is truth, what is reality. Because the only way we are
going to try and address what you have been working so
tirelessly to address, to prevent, is in acknowledging those
realities.
Mr. Leiter. Much appreciated, and I completely understand.
Chairman Johnson. Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. I think we all agree that extreme
ideology used as a recruitment for violence is important and
that we must focus on it and we must fight it. But, we have to
do that within our constitutional parameters. For example, we
cannot ban that book. As repugnant as that book is, we cannot
ban it in the United States of America. That is not how we
roll. And, we have to fight it with the appropriate tools of
our government and our civil laws. And, as we fight it, I think
the facts really matter, and I think it is important that we
remain factual.
Dr. Lenczowski, in your prepared testimony, you discussed
European ``no-go zones'' and Muslim enclaves. Mr. Leiter, you
have broad experience working with our international allies and
partners, and I know you have traveled extensively and worked
arm in arm with both your counterparts in these European
countries and the police in these European countries. Is that
factual? Are there no-go zones in Europe?
Mr. Leiter. In my experience, in Denmark, Brussels, the
United Kingdom, Germany, France, having worked with the
counterterrorism law enforcement officials, I never saw
anything remotely resembling a no-go zone.
Senator McCaskill. And, in the written testimony--and, by
the way, Dr. Lenczowski, I would love to see the citations of
the 140 cases, because the one that you cite specifically--I
believe, Mr. Leiter, you are a former U.S. Attorney; you have
looked at this case. You say specifically that a man was
acquitted for serially raping his wife on the grounds that he
is a Muslim and, therefore, subject to Sharia law. I do not
believe that is true. I think that is just patently false.
Mr. Leiter, are you familiar with that case?
Mr. Leiter. I am. The case arose, an individual was
seeking--or a wife was seeking a restraining order against a
husband for sexual abuse, and the New Jersey State trial court
refused to find mens real criminal intent based on the
husband's belief that the Sharia marriage contract could not
have--allowed him to do what he did. And, the first round of
appeals in the New Jersey next level of court--I was also a
clerk at the Supreme Court for Justice Breyer, and I believe it
would be what was called proverbially a ``smackdown'' for the
trial court, saying that the trial court deeply misunderstood
U.S. constitutional law and New Jersey law and that there was
no way in which this husband would be permitted under any
interpretation of U.S. law to go forward.
Senator McCaskill. And, the case you cited in Missouri, Dr.
Lenczowski, I know the prosecutor in that case. This was a case
where a family member abused a child over what they were
wearing. In this instance, it was a head covering. But, it
could have been a short skirt. It could have been a bare
midriff. This family member pulled this child out of the school
and physically assaulted the child and was arrested on the
felony of child abuse.
Now, I fail to see how that is an encroachment--and the
case is still pending, by the way.
Mr. Lenczowski. I am not completely familiar with that
case. I read something about it, but I did not write about it.
And, I acknowledge, by the way, Senator, that that particular
case in New Jersey was reversed on appeal. But, the fact that
it got as far----
Senator McCaskill. You say he was acquitted. He was never
even charged.
Mr. Lenczowski. No, no----
Senator McCaskill. Facts matter, sir. He was never
acquitted of anything.
Mr. Lenczowski. Then perhaps I used the wrong language
there.
Senator McCaskill. Language matters.
Mr. Lenczowski. I understand, but the judge made a judgment
based on Sharia that it should never have gotten as far as it
did.
Senator McCaskill. Well, I can tell you that having done
domestic violence cases for many years and having fought in the
Missouri Legislature, believe it or not, in this country--me as
a State legislator, I fought to make sure that men could not
rape their wives in Missouri. That law was just overturned in
1995. Up until 1995, men could rape their wives in the State
where I live.
So, I mean, I think that this notion, Mr. Leiter, do you
believe that Sharia law is slowly becoming the law of the land
in this country?
Mr. Leiter. I think it is a deeply mistaken factual belief
that Sharia is making any inroads. Religious laws can be the
basis for contracts between people if they choose to, but,
ultimately, the U.S. court system has very well developed
theories, judicial theories of when those religious agreements,
those religious contracts between two individuals can or cannot
be honored in Federal courts. That is well established. And, I
see no signs, no credible signs that Sharia law poses even the
most minute risk to U.S. constitutional principles and U.S.
law.
Senator McCaskill. And, Mr. Leiter, could you briefly
address the resource issue as it relates to the President's
budget and what that will do to our CVE efforts in this country
as we try to do exactly what these witnesses want us to do, and
that is, combat this ideology that is recruiting people to
violence? Talk about what we can do, what we can actually do to
counter this important problem.
Mr. Leiter. Senator, let me start by making this as
bipartisan in my criticism as I can. Both Democrats and
Republicans before this President have failed to adequately
resource these issues. So, it is not just the President's
budget on this front.
I do believe that in terms of what the main threats are we
are facing today, largely low-technology attacks in scattered
ways through Internet radicalization a la London, Paris, and
the like, I believe the President's budget does real violence
to some of those pieces, especially for this Committee. The
potential cuts in funding to the VIPR teams, to the Coast Guard
for port security, for rail transit, these are real issues.
These are places that need to be defended. They have not been
adequately defended, and they must be.
To the President's benefit, I would say some of the funding
of the FBI on counterterrorism is a good thing, so there is not
all bad. I think some of the funding--and Commissioner James
O'Neill in New York has been very vocal, as is Las Vegas. There
are some real cuts in UASI funding and other programs that have
been critical in situations like Orlando and Boston for
preparing people to respond when the tragedy occurs. That
cannot be cut.
Last, but not least, I know this is not directly in this
Committee's purview, but it is interconnected, which is the
international aspect of this. And, I am deeply troubled by the
proposed cuts to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), which are critical to the
international CVE programs that we have that the doctor noted.
I think we have to seriously regard those--as Secretary Mattis
has so eloquently said, it just means he has to buy more
bullets. And, you cannot buy enough bullets. So, in those
regards, I think the President's budget is deeply problematic.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
McCaskill.
I want to start this morning, too, by adding my thoughts
and prayers with those who were injured following this
morning's horrific shooting. And, I want to thank the men and
women of the Capitol Police for the service they provide. They
keep us safe every day and all the time and, as we saw today,
are willing to risk their lives for the mission of keeping us
all safe. So, I am very grateful to them, as I am to all law
enforcement and first responders today.
And, with that said, I want to turn to broaden the
discussion a little bit, Mr. Leiter, with you about the issue
of homegrown extremism and terrorism. In your view, how can the
Department of Homeland Security work to prevent Americans from
being radicalized, whatever their ideology or whatever the
ideology is that inspires them to be radicalized to the point
where they are willing to carry out violence? Are we going to
be able to arrest our way out of the threat of homegrown
terrorism? Or, are we going to have to build partnerships? And,
again, you have addressed some of the issues about resources,
but what kind of resources do we need to be able to do that?
Mr. Leiter. Well, there is no doubt that we cannot arrest
our way out of it, and no bigger a softie than Donald Rumsfeld
noted that in the famous ``snowflake'' where he said, ``The
question is not how many we are killing. Are we producing more
than we are killing?'' And, it is a slightly different
situation with arresting, but it is the same challenge.
So, arresting those who have already gone beyond a certain
level of extremism toward violence is a critical part of that.
But, the best way that, A, we are going to be able to find the
people who need to be arrested and, B, reduce the number who
are arrested is those deep partnerships, are those deep
partnerships with communities.
Now, the FBI is good at that and has a global and national
presence which is probably unmatched. But, the Department of
Homeland Security plays a key role because they are not all in
law enforcement. And, partnerships cannot just come from people
with badges and guns. So, from my perspective, the Department
of Homeland Security can play several roles.
First, of course, you have the protective element. They are
most responsible for our critical infrastructure. Whether it is
oil and gas pipelines, ports, borders, they have to do that,
and they have to be funded to do that. Programs like VIPR help
do that.
Second, they have to be on the front lines of that
engagement, and it is not just DHS people walking around the
country saying, ``Hi. I am from DHS. I am here to help.'' It is
engaging with those communities so that communities understand
how they are under threat and what sort of partnerships they
have to engage with. It is helping them understand what
ideological radicalization is occurring online, and also
building those relationships--I am looking over at Senator
Harris because so many of these companies are in the Valley.
But, building those relationships between government and NGO's
and technology communities, because there are things that the
U.S. Government, A, cannot say as a matter of constitutional
law and, B, does not have any credibility anyway. And, the DHS
can play a key role in building those partnerships.
Last, but not least, DHS along with the FBI have to remain
at the center of the sharing of information, and not just
sharing information but sharing investigative leads with State
and local law enforcement so we never have a situation like
Boston where something falls below the threshold for the FBI,
but the Cambridge Police Department and the Boston Police
Department (BPD) might choose to pursue it. And, when they do
that, they have to make sure that the police to whom they are
handing that understand both constitutional limitations and,
again, understand the ideological aspects of this so they can
make those same difficult distinctions at times between people
who are peaceful adherents to Islam and those who have become
politically charged violent actors.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much.
I yield the remainder of my time.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRIS
Senator Harris. Thank you. And, I join with Senator Hassan
in expressing my prayers and best wishes for our colleagues and
the folks that were attacked this morning, and also thank you
to the first responders and the Capitol Police who are so
incredibly courageous and are sacrificing so much to protect
other people. So, my prayers go to their families as well.
Actually this morning Senator Hassan and I were both at a
prayer breakfast, at the Senate prayer breakfast, and it is a
wonderful time when we get together in a bipartisan way, only
Senators in the room, to share our faith, and our faith not
only in the Gods we worship but in each other. And, it was
poignant this morning, and there was actually a presentation by
Senator Cassidy, our colleague from across the aisle from me,
from Louisiana. And, what I took away from what he shared this
morning was something I think we all agree on, which is there
are certain universal truths. There are certain things that, in
spite of what might appear to be differences among men and
women, certain things, and most of the things that we share
that bind us, that we have in common. We have so much more in
common than what separates us. And, I think that when we are
facing challenges, it is important for leaders to emphasize
those things we share in common and unify us, understanding
that they are just universal truths.
So, with that spirit, I have several questions, but I would
like to talk with you, Mr. Leiter, in particular about your
thoughts, which you have touched on this morning, about what
can be done to improve the situation where work needs to be
done. And, if we can talk about it also in a context of the DHS
budget, and we are obviously a Committee that has oversight on
that issue.
So, you mentioned the George Selim program as being a good
one at DHS. Can you tell us what makes it good?
Mr. Leiter. Well, I think what makes it good are probably
three things.
One, you have someone who, in running it, is deeply
experienced in U.S. Government and understands Islam. Now, I am
sure there are many people who understand Islam more. There are
many people who disagree with some of his views of Islam. But,
he happens to be Muslim, and he is thoughtful about that. I
have to tell you, that is very hard to find in the U.S.
Government. The number of senior officials who understand Islam
is painfully low. So, that is the first thing.
The second thing is I think he understands that there is
only so much government can do and that the U.S. Government
tends to lack credibility in speaking about any sort of
religion, but especially in Islam. Again, going back to my
first point that there is simply a lack of understanding. And,
in doing that, the office has sought not to make official DHS
pronouncements, but instead use funding and grant money to
enable those people who are doing good work away from
Washington, D.C.
I think those are probably--the third piece, I would say,
is they are innovative in focusing on areas which are non-
traditional counterterrorism drivers. Who normally does
counterterrorism? Intelligence, law enforcement, border people.
They have focused more on educational institutions. They have
worked on something called the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Program,
which partners with educational institutions. They have worked
closely with a variety of organizations--immigrants' rights
organization--again, who do not show up with the badge and the
gun as investigators. And, I think what we have generally seen
overseas in places like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands,
their counter-radicalization programs have tended to work the
best when they have a little bit of arm's length--not working
independently but a bit of arm's length from the attorney
generals of the world, because it will otherwise become an
adversarial relationship with the people with whom you are
trying to partner.
Senator Harris. And, is VIPR the same as that? I am not
clear on that.
Mr. Leiter. No, Senator. VIPR is a rapid response team
which shows up for transit programs when there is a threat. So,
I believe previously there had been roughly 31 VIPR teams
around the country. The President's budget cuts that to eight.
I will tell you that when we saw threats in the United
States, if we had something like the attack on London, we would
immediately activate those VIPR teams because then they would
show up around the BART stations with long guns and heavy
weapons.
Senator Harris. Or like the incident we had in California
in San Bernardino.
Mr. Leiter. Absolutely. These are critical response teams.
Another element, which is separate from VIPR but I think
equally important, many of these interagency programs for
training before an attack, I would love to stop every attack.
We are not going to stop every attack. So, the question is: How
do we optimize the response? And, we have done that generally
in joint programs between the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), the FBI, and the National Counterterrorism
Center. And, they have included hospitals in the area,
telecommunications providers, often Muslim organizations, so
you can both respond, you save the people who are injured, and
immediately start engaging the community. And, that was
effective in Orlando. It was effective in Boston. And, cutting
those funds I think would just be tragic.
Senator Harris. So, you have said it, but as an expert in
this area, I take it that you are recommending to our Committee
that we fully fund those programs in the effort to combat
terrorism in our country.
Mr. Leiter. I think those programs, in light of the threat
we face from ISIS, are only more important than they have been.
Senator Harris. Can you unpack a little bit for me the
possibility for collaboration with Silicon Valley and the
technology industry?
Mr. Leiter. I can and----
Senator Harris. And, I will carry that back to California
with me.
Mr. Leiter. And, in full disclosure, I spent 3 years
working in Silicon Valley as well, so I now have no economic
interest in this, but what we started doing in 2009, 2010, and
2011 was this idea of the government cannot speak
authoritatively on this, but there were many important Muslim
NGO's who wanted to understand how they could help stop
radicalization and help fight violent forces. But, they did not
really know how to get out that message, and it turned out that
people like Anwar al-Awlaki were vastly more effective at using
the Internet than those organizations were. And, it was
bringing together companies like Google and the like to sit
down with those NGO's and help them. How do you optimize search
so if you type in ``jihad'' you do not get an al-Awlaki video,
you get a more peaceful message? So, I think that is critical.
I do think that technology companies, obviously, between
2009 and 2011 when I left and today, we are in an even more
problematic posture. And, I say that for at least two reasons.
One, the threat, because of terrorists' use of the
Internet, has become vastly more effective. As the Chairman
said, ISIS knows how to get the message out using music and
communications in a way that al-Qaeda never did. So, the threat
is greater.
Second, the tension between the U.S. Government and the
Valley, technology companies writ broad, is higher than it was
in 2010 and 2011 because of a variety of issues beginning with
Edward Snowden. So, finding that partnership I fear will be
more difficult, but it is critical. And, I think Prime Minister
May, at the G-7 she raised these issues. But, fundamentally, it
is issues of reporting extremist content online, actively
taking it down, using algorithms to do it more automatically
and reporting that to the FBI and law enforcement, and then
even a harder-to crack, in my view, is the issue of end-to-end
encryption, which has not always arisen, but will increasingly
prohibit or keep U.S. law enforcement officials, not just
working on terrorism, from accessing communications in a way
that they have become very accustomed over the past six
decades.
Senator Harris. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. At this moment, just to quickly
interject, I know Senator McCaskill was talking about First
Amendment rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, which
we all value, but within those rights, we do ban things like
child pornography. It is illegal to incite violence. And, I
think that is what we are trying to come to. Where is that
line?
But, with that, Senator Heitkamp.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, again, we
are so grateful. We have two Capitol policemen right near us
today, and we are so grateful for everything that you do, not
only defending us personally but the institution of this
government. And, after an attack like today, we understand and
it brings into sharp focus our gratitude. So, I want to thank
the two who are present today. But, I also want to say my heart
and prayers go out to all of those who were wounded and
injured. An attack against them is an attack against our entire
country. I do not think there is any doubt about it.
Mr. Leiter, I have spent a lot of time with the
counterterrorism folks because I think this is one of the
toughest nuts to crack, which is, How do we participate in
communities in ways that build community, build relationships,
and prevent radicalization? I do not think anyone here would
disagree that we kind of know the formula. But, we need
resources to do it, and we need education and training to do
it.
You already for Senator Harris, I think, drew on some of
your experiences on how things have changed. I need to
understand your experience between 2007 and then coming out of
it in 2011, but even going forward. How do you see the threat
is changing? And, where have we seen best practices in
attacking that threat?
Mr. Leiter. The threat has changed, and I am still on the
Advisory Board for NCTC, and I am always happy that at the end
of my briefings I can walk out and go home and not stick around
and have to address them all.
The threat is significantly more challenging, I think, than
I saw between 2007 and 2011 with possibly one exception. We
still were worried about large-scale attacks in a way that we
do not face in the same manner today. We were worried about 10
planes blowing up over the Atlantic and really big attacks.
That is the good news.
The bad news is the scale of the radicalization that is
occurring, the pace at which it is occurring, the independence
with which it is occurring, so you do not necessarily see the
same communications between domestic elements and international
elements, which were so important for us detecting them--in all
those ways the threat is significantly worse even if the
likelihood of a large-scale attack is lower than it was in
2011.
Now, where have I seen success in combating this? First of
all, I have seen a lot of success in the United States
combating this. Let us pat ourselves on the back just a little
bit. We have done remarkably well. Now, any moment you say
that, you have to in the same breath recognize the tragedies we
have experienced in the United States, whether it is Orlando or
San Bernardino. And, I never mean to make light of that. But,
we have generally been pretty effective at disrupting attacks
before they occur and, compared to most of our Western allies,
we have been very successful at reducing radicalization rates
in the United States.
If you look at radicalization in the United Kingdom, per
capita they have a significantly higher, larger problem than we
do. Same in Belgium, same in the Netherlands, same in France.
And, I think we have largely done that for four reasons.
One, our Muslim communities are vastly more integrated than
their Muslim communities are.
Our Muslim communities are vastly better off economically
than theirs are.
Our Muslim traditions tend to come from more moderate
strains than some of the more extreme strains of Wahhabism that
are more central.
And, our Muslims, when they come to America--and this is
obviously a gross generalization, but they have tended to be
focused on being Americans, not overseas fights, as opposed to
many in the South Asian community in the U.K. and the like who
have stayed very focused on those issues.
Now, we have had exceptions to that, but overall, we have
done a pretty good job because we are Americans, not because we
had great programs to stop it, at reducing that.
So, where have I seen good programs? I think we have lots
to learn still from the U.K. Prevent Program. It is deeply
problematic in some ways, but some of the engagement with
communities in much more aggressive ways was very important.
I think the Dutch as well have thought about this deeply
and have a number of social programs.
I am hesitant to look very far at de-radicalization
programs because those have generally been in States which have
a set of tools and a lack of constitutional protections that we
do not have. It is not to say that some of the Saudi programs
on de-radicalization have not been good, but we cannot
implement programs the way they have.
Senator Heitkamp. So, where in the United States, what
communities and cities?
Mr. Leiter. I think the example of Minneapolis-St. Paul and
the Somali community has been excellent. That community faced a
real crisis with second-generation Somali Americans going to
fight in a nationalistic war under the banner of Al-Shabaab.
And, the Federal, State, local community, in part led by the
U.S. Attorney, in part led by the mayor in Minneapolis, did an
outstanding job. I think some of the counter-gang work which
has been implemented and pulled into the counter-radicalization
work in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
has been quite good.
One small example. Right after 9/11, the Police Athletic
League in New York added cricket to its list of sports. That is
a good example. It is a way of making sure that communities
that come from different traditions are not separated from
their governments and feel like they are partners and not
adversaries.
Senator Heitkamp. I do not think there is any doubt that
one of the first steps in radicalization is isolation, and the
need to better understand--we have done a lot of work since the
1990s on concepts called ``community policing,'' and community
policing became the model of surge mentality in the military as
we are looking at not fighting nation-states as much as
fighting rogue groups.
I think it is really interesting to think about community
policing and those dynamics, and I am very concerned about the
reduction in resources to local law enforcement where this has
to happen on the ground with real resources and real commitment
and real training to address not only the concerns that you
would have keeping a community safe, but then the critical,
important role that local law enforcement plays in
counterterrorism. And so, I am deeply concerned about the cuts
to community policing and the cuts to the anti-terrorism
program at DHS.
Mr. Leiter. Senator, I could not agree with you more. State
and local police and medical and fire, all these people are on
the front lanes. They have to understand it, and if they are
not funded to learn it, they will not recognize it, and we will
end up with violence after the fact.
Let me make it a step harder, which is so much of this is
now occurring on the Internet. As a general matter, it is not
occurring in mosques. It is not occurring in public spaces. It
is occurring on the Internet for individuals. And, helping
local officials also understand that piece and then address
that piece is something that they are not accustomed to. It is
not regular community policing, and it is critically important.
Senator Heitkamp. But, those are the kinds of things--we
have seen, just for a second, when you look at what we have
been able to do in child pornography, which has been an
incredible model that we could adopt in this fight the child
pornography work that is being done by the Department of
Justice (DOJ) is, I think, a great model for the work that can
be done here in terms of images and messages that could be
shared broadly with all of law enforcement.
Mr. Leiter. Absolutely. I think the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is widely hailed as a
real success story. I would note that there have been
bipartisan bills in the past, as recently as 2015, coming out
of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by Chairman Burr
and Vice Chairman Feinstein, and requiring a similar approach,
and those have been strongly resisted. It is a complex issue,
but I think it is one which the Senate will have to tackle.
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, first I would
like to send my thoughts and prayers as well to all the victims
in this morning's shooting in Alexandria. And, I think the
Capitol Police for what you do each and every day. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Today's topic is certainly a very important one. I have
appreciated the testimony of all the witnesses today, and
recent tragedies certainly underscore the threat posed by
violent extremism. But, reading through some of the written
testimonies, I became concerned about a recurrent theme of
anti-Islamic sentiment, and certainly Muslim and Arab Americans
serve honorably in our military and our law enforcement
agencies and in the intelligence community. And, I will say
that they are an incredibly important part of the social fabric
in my State of Michigan, and that they contribute a valuable
and necessary perspective that is critical for keeping all
Americans safe.
The perpetuation of anti-Islamic attitudes I believe
undermines our collective values, and it contributes to the
undercurrent of xenophobia that is being levied at some of
America's ethnic and religious minorities.
Equally troubling, such sentiment erodes positive community
relations and feeds into the larger extremist narrative that
the West is at war with Islam, which we are not. And, rather
than lending legitimacy to a distorted and prejudiced view of
Islam, we should endeavor to counter all types of extremism
that leads to violence, regardless of who may inspire it. And,
as a Nation, we should seek fact-based solutions that enable us
to address all extremist threats in an adaptive and integrated
manner.
Mr. Leiter, my question relates to online radicalization,
and over the last several years, we have seen improved efforts,
as you have mentioned, by the U.S. technology companies to
identify and shut down user accounts that espouse violence.
Still, there are certainly inherent challenges in identifying
content that warrants removal and that which constitutes
protected speech. These realities and the ubiquity of the
Internet and our robust civil rights protections suggest that I
believe we need incremental, focused reforms rather than
sweeping legislative changes.
So, during your time at the NCTC, you witnessed firsthand
the ease with which groups such as ISIS are able to leverage
the Internet to disseminate extremist content, often branded
with its flag and logo and hymns as well--in other words,
contact that is really unmistakably designed to support the
objectives of a foreign terrorist organization.
If you could make only one recommendation to this
Committee, what would that be in terms of your approach to
confront the issue of ISIS propaganda on some of our popular
social networking sites?
Mr. Leiter. Rebuild trust between the U.S. Government and
those technology communities, because as--we are talking about
trust a lot here. We are talking about trust between the U.S.
Government and Muslim communities. That is critical. There is a
lack of trust and cooperation between many technology
communities and the U.S. Government, and that is very
problematic. And, I very much understand. Companies are doing
what they are designed to do, protecting shareholder value,
expanding shareholder value. But, we are now in a place where--
and companies have done a lot, Google, Facebook, Twitter, in
particular, have done a lot over the past 2 years to increase
cooperation. But, it was starting at a pretty low point because
of the leaks of Edward Snowden and that alienation.
We have to get back to a point where there is a cooperative
relationship where easily identifiable features which are
rather indisputably associated with political violence of any
sort are rapidly reported to the U.S. Government. That is not
what happens today. It is often removed. It is rarely reported.
And, the U.S. Government simply does not have the means to
monitor the Internet. It is impossible.
So, building that trust, rebuilding that trust with people
who are really good, smart, wonderful Americans in the Valley,
like the general counsel (GC) at Facebook, Colin Stretch, I
mean, these are really thoughtful people who want to be of
assistance, and we have to figure out a way that their
interests as companies can be protected, the privacy and civil
liberties of people who are innocent who are using these tools
are protected, but you still do have a rapid methodology for
reporting instances like you suggest to law enforcement
officials so they can start to find some of those needles in
what is a massive haystack.
Senator Peters. In your recent piece on Lawfare blog, you
mentioned that the G-7 is a potential vehicle to influence
technology companies. To what degree is the threat of online
radicalization really going to require an international
approach to what you have just mentioned?
Mr. Leiter. I think the reason that Prime Minister May
brought this up at the G-7 was because the U.K. itself probably
did not have the market power to drive technology companies'
behavior. So, in my view, the first thing we should do even
before we get to the G-7 is to try to drive this between the
United States and our companies. Otherwise, we will end up with
international pressure on our companies, which will not be in
the same vein as our normal constitutional protections, and
they might find even more uncomfortable.
So, I do think that it is inevitable that they will begin
to see increased pressure from the U.K., Germany, France, and
the Belgians at least on some of these issues. I do not think
that they can withstand that pressure over time.
Senator Peters. Well, as we are working with our companies
here in this country, do you think there is the need for the
United States to play a leading role in terms of defining what
actually constitutes extremist content so that private
companies are able to uniformly develop new terms of service
and potentially identify violations?
Mr. Leiter. Absolutely, Senator. That is critical because
only when you have that clear definition--and it is probably a
little bit easier in child pornography than it would be in this
context. Only once you have that can you have that reporting
mechanism that people still believe protects privacy and civil
liberties. I do not think we can live with the Frankfurter-
esque ``I know it when I see it.'' We have to give them some
rough boundaries, and even if it is not capturing 100 percent
of the material we want to get down, if it captures a big
enough percentage, it will still be of meaningful assistance in
terms of Internet radicalization.
Senator Peters. I appreciate it. Thank you for your
comments.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator Peters.
I do want to just comment that I also fully read the
testimony. Certainly I saw anti-Islamist terror comments in
there. I saw anti-violence against women comments. I did not
really see anti-Islamic. I think, quite honestly, the witnesses
were very careful to distinguish that. I think they have been
very careful in their verbal testimony to distinguish between
Muslims who are practicing their faith peacefully and
spiritually as opposed to political Islam. So, I think they are
bending over backward trying to make that distinction, and
hopefully we can all agree that we are against Islamist
terrorism that incites and kills and, all kinds of areas of
depravity.
This has been a little unusual hearing so far. We have four
witnesses, and all of the questions have been directed to Mr.
Leiter. And, listen, I appreciate your expertise and your
service to this country.
Mr. Leiter. I am happy to step out at this point.
Chairman Johnson. No. I want you there. But, as I have been
watching this, I have also seen other witnesses jotting down
notes. So, before I start a second round, I would like to
afford or offer those witnesses an opportunity to respond based
on your notes to basically the questions and the answers so
far, and I will start with Dr. Lenczowski.
Mr. Lenczowski. Thank you, Senator. In all of this
discussion, we have not talked about the war of ideas. We have
not talked about the fact that the animating force behind
radical jihadism is a moral attack on the United States and the
West and our culture. And, there are things that we can say in
response to this, and this is not something that can be
developed particularly at the local law enforcement level. This
has to be done by national leaders who are the representatives
of the American people at the highest levels where such things
as a human rights campaign can be launched.
One of the most effective things that is being done right
now in the online war is done by a very small organization
called ``Good of All.'' It is dedicated to fighting against
radical jihadism and in a radicalization prevention operation
by standing for and promoting the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as an alternative set of ideals, as an idea virus
that can capture the imagination of the new generation of so-
called digital natives, the younger generation who are fluent
with computers and cell phones and social media and the like.
And, this has taken some of this effort, which is barely funded
at all by--it is privately funded, has managed to catch fire in
different parts of the world. Millions of hits in Egypt, for
example, on the work of this organization where Egypt was not
even particularly targeted, but this was the natural course.
Senator Peters mentioned earlier that we are not at war
with Islam. Well, one of the biggest arguments of the jihadists
is that, in fact, the West is at war with Islam. And, sound
arguments have to be made that this is not the case and that we
are opposing a certain kind of radical political ideology.
I am also concerned here that much of this conversation is
focused on the question of terrorism and not on the question of
trying to establish basically a totalitarian, theocratic form
of government. Sharia law may not have made the kind of inroads
in American society that it has in other parts of the world.
But, if you look in Europe--and, European countries have plenty
of enclaves that have established parallel structures, parallel
track for Sharia law, and there are cases in U.S. courts when
it comes to family law where a Muslim man may marry an American
woman; they will have children. The man can then make his
proper Muslim declaration of divorce, and then Sharia family
law has triumphed in cases like this where the husband can take
the children off to Saudi Arabia and the American mother will
never see those children again.
I am not an expert on all of that particular stuff, but I
have read enough about it to know that such things exist and
that the parallel track for Sharia law has established a very
good foothold in a number of European countries.
I think that we have to be making it very clear that
insofar as there are those who want to try to establish a
political order in this country that is at variance with our
constitutional freedoms, this has to be opposed. And, it is
being done under the shroud of religion, under the protection
of religious freedoms. But, in fact, it is a political movement
that is at variance with the Constitution of the United States.
I think we have to be vigilant about this, and I think we have
to make the proper moral arguments at the highest levels of
this government that can both inspire those who would be
radicalized to take a different path and to alert so much of
the country about what the intentions are of certain kinds of
people, which is not just violence but it is the establishment
of an unconstitutional order in this country.
Chairman Johnson. Good. Thank you. Ms. Nomani.
Ms. Nomani. Yes, Senator, I have a 14-year-old son, so I
watch a few science fiction movies once in a while. And, we
oftentimes see the monster flailing, and we can take this
approach that we try to address every place where that monster
hits, from San Bernardino to Orlando to London to Dhaka to
Kabul. Or we can go to the heart of what is controlling that
monster. And, what that is is an ideology of extremism that
everybody on this panel has acknowledged.
I have lived on this Earth and seen this ideology take root
in communities from my hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia,
to Northern Virginia, to the rest of the world. The heart of
this sits in propaganda machines that are churning out this
dawa of extremism. Those propaganda machines are in Qatar, in
Iran, in Saudi Arabia, and all of their proxies.
Senator McCaskill, you said language matters, and as you
said, Senator Johnson, we do have rules, contracts in this
country when you incite violence, when you lead people to
violate our U.S. laws. Amazon sent me overnight this book,
``Woman in the Shade of Islam,'' that outlines how a man can
beat his wife. It was first delivered to me at my mosque in
Morgantown, West Virginia, by the Muslim Students Association.
Ideas matter. Words matter. We have to get at the heart of the
ideas that are then leading people to violence.
We are on a conveyor belt. We should not just look at all
of these incredible programs that are dealing with people once
they become violent. We need to address the ideas that take
them on that conveyor belt to that radicalization, and that is
why I believe also that our Internet companies are failing us,
unfortunately. Amazon.com brought me this how-to book on how to
beat a wife. GoDaddy in Phoenix, Arizona, hosts a website
called ``AlMinbar.'' I invite anyone to go there and use the
search engine and just look up the word ``Jew'' and see how
many ways they say that Jewish people should be murdered. They
host the website of Hizbut Tahrir, the Islamist organization
based in Northern Virginia and Chicago that wants an Islamic
State.
We are not doing enough to police these bad ideas. These
are ideas that are not protected simply by our free speech
rights in America. They are ideas that incite violence. We
stand together against white supremacists. We should stand
together against Muslim supremacists. They exist, as all of the
members of our panel have agreed upon, and unless we go to the
heart of the problem, we will continue to be fighting terrorist
acts for the generations to come. We have to dismantle the
network of these bad ideas that are being put forward into the
minds and hearts of young people, and we have to do it today.
We have to investigate, we have to dismantle, and we have to
put forward exactly the positive ideas.
In the Muslim reform movement, our ideas are for secular
governance, for peace, for human rights, including women's
rights, consistent with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.
We have to put forward the good ideas and shut down, eliminate,
and take from this Earth these bad ideas either through our
relationships with these countries that are putting forward
these ideas or by any means that we are able to then stop the
promotion of those ideas into the minds of our young people.
Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Ms. Hirsi Ali.
Ms. Hirsi Ali. Mr. Chairman, I would like to go back to the
big picture, and listening to Mr. Leiter, Mr. Leiter, I think
you in your capacity working in the government, you have worked
very hard, and I really appreciate that. But, I want to
evaluate--if we reflect on how this government has performed
since September 11, 2001, and how other Western governments
have performed, my evaluation would be we have failed. We have
these small programs that, if you look at the big picture, look
like small drops in the ocean. We have spent trillions of
dollars. We have waged wars since 9/11. The Islamists, the
radicals, whatever name you choose to call them, they have
grown exponentially. Their sympathizers, the agencies, the
money, the funding that they get, all of that has grown
exponentially since 9/11.
If our posture on September 11, 2001, was we are going to
take the wall to them and we are going to stop this evil, in
2017 we can barely say that we have stopped that. It has
doubled, tripled, in some places it has quadrupled. We have
completely failed to define the enemy, and because we have
failed to define the enemy, we are flying blind.
Our ambition cannot be we are going to develop all of these
programs to stop or to limit the consequences of the next
attack. In 2001, it was we are going to stand for no attack at
all. If you look at some of the other countries, I am really
worried--and I think we do not have the sense of urgency here--
worried about some of these European countries. Do you realize
that France is in a state of emergency since November 13, 2015?
Germany has closed some mosques. Radical right-wing groups in
Europe are on the rise as they have never been. I have lived in
Holland for 14 years, and when I came, there was a very small
radical right-wing group, and today it is the second largest
party.
In Britain, after this attack in London, the authorities
said there were 3,000 people they were surveiling, but there
are 20,000 other people at large.
It is absolutely true that when it comes to mounting large-
scale attacks, we have made it very difficult for them to do
that. And, they may not succeed, and I hope they do not
succeed. But, when it comes to entering the minds of human
beings and turning them into live missiles against us because
they promised them a hereafter that is fantastic, in that sense
we have failed. And, in that sense, because we do not get to
the ideology, we do not want to talk about this problem, we are
now seeing thousands and thousands of men, and increasingly
women, who are prepared to use anything as a weapon--their
cars, their knives, etc. And, it is very easy for us to say,
and convenient maybe, to say this is happening online. But,
that is not entirely true. It is still happening in the
mosques. After the recent attacks in Brussels, in Germany, in
France, mosques have been raided and closed. It is happening in
people's living rooms. It is happening in schools.
What exactly is happening? It is what I call ``dawa
activities.'' It is an evangelization that is carried out by
Muslims who accentuate the political-military doctrine that
they are raised with, and they are using that doctrine to turn
people's heads and minds away from the principles--Senator
Harris just left, but she said what we thought were universal
decency. That is what their minds and hearts are being turned
away from, and their minds and hearts are being turned away to
the idea that you are doing God's work, Allah's work, to kill
people, to maim, to repress, and to bring down societies. It
has not happened in the United States. It has not yet happened
in Europe. But, there are, in fact, countries in Africa that
have been brought down, countries in the Middle East that have
been brought down. And, I think we need to bring to this
discussion--I know this is the Homeland Senate Committee and we
do not speak for the entire government, but I do not think we
should walk away this afternoon when we are done with the idea
that there is no sense of urgency. There is a great deal of a
sense of urgency, and between 2001 and today we have failed,
and we have failed miserably, and it is time to correct our
course.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Ms. Ali. And, by the way, I
completely agree that we should not be penny wise and pound
foolish. Again, the purpose of this hearing is to define the
problem, admit we have it, so the resources we do spend--I
mean, you do not start with resources. You start with the
definition of the problem. And, again, what I am hearing is,
quite honestly, a great deal of agreement in terms of what it
is. Senator Daines.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAINES
Senator Daines. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
McCaskill, and thank you all for testifying.
The ideology of violent and radical Islamic extremism is a
challenging topic, and it certainly takes moral, political, and
at times physical courage to speak up.
As we reflect on and learn from these recent terror
attacks--Paris, London, Manchester, Egypt, St. Petersburg,
Istanbul--in fact, 1 year ago this week since the lone-wolf
attack in Orlando--we cannot allow fear to disrupt our daily
lives or our liberty. We must remain vigilant about the growing
threat of Islamic extremism and work to extinguish the
proselytization of violence and prevent future tragedies.
I want to direct some questions here regarding the freedom
of religion. Everyone in their testimony made mention of it,
and that is, we are not at war with or opposing a certain
religion. What we are at war with is an ideology and violence
that threatens our free society and the liberty of every
individual.
Ms. Nomani, as a Muslim American, how do we reassure the
freedom of religion while pushing back on dawa and violence
carried out in the name of religion?
Ms. Nomani. Senator, thank you for the question. My family
comes from India, and in India, Muslims are a minority
population. The Islam that I learned from my parents was one in
which we accepted the values of the society and secular
governance. That was what my parents taught me.
The values of Islamism are ones in which there is a sense
of superiority to anybody else's world order. The history of
how we got here is rooted in the last 100 years. The
dismantling of the Ottoman Empire brought with it dreamers who
wanted to create a new Islamic State. And so, some of those men
had names like Sayyid Qutb, Maulana Maududi. Those men created
movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e-Islami,
Tablighi Jamaat. They are the ones that Ayaan is talking about
in terms of the dawa that they have done.
When my father came here in the 1960s, he got a ticket to
Manhattan, but it was Manhattan, Kansas, because like a lot of
Indian immigrants, he was given a ticket to the heartland of
America. And, he loved this country and the values. He loved
the dignity of labor that he saw by the professors.
Sayyid Qutb, meanwhile, came here to this country, and he
came to Colorado, and he hated this country. He hated the
freedoms that women get in this country. And so, how do we
protect Muslims and how do we resist that Islamist movement? It
is, in my estimation, by differentiating that Islamist movement
from Muslims and isolating it, marginalizing it, blacklisting
it, taking down their websites. This is how I think that we
have to create an image and a vision of Islam that is
compatible with the 21st Century, that is compatible with the
West, that is compatible with the United States.
You come from a State that is the heartland of America. You
believe in the same type of values that my parents taught me to
believe. And, it is that kind of universality that has to drive
us, and we have to recognize that there are people in all
communities, including in our Muslim community, who do not
share our universal values.
Senator Daines. Thank you. In your testimony, you mentioned
the role that social media companies are playing in blocking
terrorist material. As a society here in the United States, we
encourage the free flow of information and ideas, but there are
limits.
Ms. Nomani. Right.
Senator Daines. This platform has enabled reward for
illegal and oftentimes gruesome actions, and it must stop.
Now, I spent 12 years in the cloud computing business and
software business, and I fully appreciate the challenge and
commitment to maintain reputable platforms. Twitter announced
they suspended over 635,000 accounts for promoting extremism
since 2015. But, how can governments and Western society
augment the tech companies' efforts?
Ms. Nomani. So, to me, we have to make a moral decision
that we have a right to speak up and against any form of
extremism, even when it comes in the name of religion. We
should not give Muslim extremists a pass because they are
expressing religion. We should not give them a pass because we
are afraid of offending Muslims. We have to use the same
standards that we apply to all of society against the Muslim
supremacists that want to control our country.
When I was doing research for this testimony, I looked up
the terms of service that GoDaddy has, that Facebook has, that
YouTube has. There are so many operators, as you know, who are
violating those terms of service by preaching hate against
Jews, against gays, from within my Muslim community. And so, I
feel it is my obligation as a Muslim to say we cannot allow
that to exist. And, we have a ``See something, say something''
verse in the Qur'an. It says, ``Bear witness to injustice, even
if it is by your own kin.'' And so, in that way, I believe that
the social media companies actually have to have the moral
courage to police these Muslims who are also practicing hate.
Senator Daines. Thank you.
I want to turn to Dr. Lenczowski. Based on your expertise,
how do we get platforms outside the United States to get
serious, like Twitter and Facebook have, about removing
inappropriate content?
Mr. Lenczowski. During the Cold War, we had the U.S.
Information Agency that got information out about the United
States in the face--to counter the falsehoods about anti-
American--of anti-American propaganda. We had information
policies. We had America houses, for example, in Germany where
there could be good public policy debate about these issues.
We had all sorts of educational, cultural, and other kinds
of exchanges, visitors' programs. So, many people abroad have a
caricature view of the United States as fast cars, skyscrapers,
dishonest businessmen, all surrounded by pornography. And,
people do not see the work of small-town America, of
churchgoing America, of the charitable work and volunteer work
that is done in this country, the kind of things that can melt
people's hearts rather than incite hatred. We need to be
telling--we need to be portraying our country much more
accurately to the world.
The last couple of administrations have been gradually
shutting down the Voice of America. It is a crime. The Voice of
America during the Cold War, along with Radio Free Europe and
Radio Liberty, were described by the great Russian author
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn as ``the most powerful weapons'' we
possessed in the Cold War because we broadcast information, we
broadcast the truth, we broadcast ideas, we gave people
accurate history when their history was being erased by
totalitarian regimes. Radical Islamist regimes do that kind of
thing, too, a complete mischaracterization of historical facts.
So, that is some of the open public diplomacy that can be
done. And, by the way, public diplomacy has been completely
neglected by our government. It is, I believe, the most cost-
effective instrument of American power in the world. I will
even argue that public diplomacy was the decisive element to
have brought down the Soviet Empire, but I do not think most
people in the foreign policy community understand that.
But, then there is the covert side of it, which I think is
equally important. As Mr. Leiter said, the U.S. Government does
not have much credibility in talking about religious and
theological matters. I think that, however, there are people
who do have credibility talking about these things, and the
U.S. Government can magnify their messages.
For example, there are doctrines within radical Islamism
that say that Allah wills everything, and that means he wills
the rape of the 12-year-old girl and he wills the cholera
epidemic in Pakistan. Does Allah really will evil? Is that
really so? Is it Allah's will that somebody should go out and
kill innocents? Are you going to go to heaven for killing
innocents? Or perhaps are you going to go to hell? Is it a
Satanic thing to do?
This is language that perhaps U.S. Government
representatives cannot use, but it is language that can be put
on programming, for example, on, say, the Voice of America,
whether it is radio or television, or whatever, where there are
discussions about these things.
And then, there is the covert side of things. During the
Cold War, we had Frank Wisner's ``Mighty Wurlitzer,''
newsletters, newspapers, journals of opinion, broadcast
stations, organizations, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, all
sorts of things like this that were designed to fight the war
of ideas against communism and were remarkably effective at
doing this. And, people wrote for those journals without even
knowing where the money came from. The money came from some
foundation somewhere, but it was U.S. Government money after a
few cutouts. So, there are many such things.
Senator Daines. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator Daines.
I just have one further question here. I think part of the
reason I wanted to hold this hearing is, again, to explore this
concept of something other than just jihad, the dawa, and the
use of potentially what looks like in many cases maybe benign
organizations, but maybe not. And, I just want to ask Mr.
Leiter, to what extent have we really followed the money trail
in terms of money being diverted from charitable works to not
charitable works? Let us put it that way. And, how much more
work do we have to do on that?
Mr. Leiter. Senator, a foundational point. I think
following the money is very important. I think in terms of the
overall counterterrorist effort, again, important but pretty
small. And, what we are seeing in many of the attacks, at least
domestically, funding is about the least important thing there.
Now, certainly when we talk about larger organizations
overseas, whether it is Hamas or Al-Shabaab or other
organizations, you are in a different context. But, in the
United States, that funding piece is, I think, less important.
Second, I do think that the FBI, Department of Treasury,
the intelligence community writ large--National Security Agency
(NSA), CIA--actually do a fantastic job today about pieces of
this. So, first of all, in terms of identifying the money and
using that as a tool to identify who the people are and then
pursuing them, either through covert action or law enforcement
or elsewhere.
The second piece of actually stopping the broader flows
from charitable organizations to bad pieces is admittedly
probably the most difficult piece here. I think we have done
pretty well with established organizations--Hamas, Hezbollah.
The FBI has done a tremendous amount of work on smuggling of
tobacco and other things, pursuing that money in these large
organizations.
It gets much more difficult for the U.S. intelligence
community and I do not think we have done as well the more
diverse those networks become when you are dealing with smaller
charities, individual hawalas. That gets really difficult. And
so, I think it is something that we have to continue pursuing.
It is worthwhile. There is a return on that investment. Again,
this is penny wise, pound foolish. We have to support this
because it does not cost a lot. And, it is also an important
way, if done well, again, to build partnerships with the
community, to talk about the charities that are doing good
work, but then not alienate the community when you shut down a
charity because some of the money has gone to bad things. And,
the Muslim community, like every other community, has to
understand that just because they think a charity is good, some
of that money may, in fact, be diverted to very bad things.
And, if the U.S. Government takes legal action against that
charity, again, it is not a war against Islam. It is a war
against certain elements funding things that are contrary to
U.S. law and principles.
May I have one--just very quickly, Senator. Much of what
this panel said I do agree with. I absolutely--again, I want to
echo the good doctor's points--I am just calling him ``the good
doctor'' now because I am not trying with the last name. But, I
want to echo the good doctor's points on the lack of funding
more broadly for public diplomacy and engaging this
ideologically. What I want to stress is it has not been
aversion to the discussion because it is so uncomfortable. It
has not been due to some political correctness that people say,
``Oh, boy, we better not call it `Islamic extremism.' '' It has
been actually deep thought about what the right language is,
what the problem is. And then, I think--and I hate to say this,
but Congress bears responsibility for this as well--a lack of
strategic vision and funding for programs in a global, robust
way to match the many fantastic military, intelligence, law
enforcement people that we have funded. That to me, if we can
come out of this hearing with a commitment both domestically
and internationally to do that with our partners, in
partnership, and to make our Executive Branch officials
speaking about this problem in a way that does not alienate the
partners, this will be more than worth its salt.
Chairman Johnson. Well, again, I appreciate your testimony.
I agree wholeheartedly we should not be penny wise and pound
foolish in terms of resourcing, but it starts with the proper
definition of the problem, admitting reality, not denying any
reality, understanding how, I do not like this reality we are
dealing with, but we have to deal with it. The U.S.
Constitution does not have to be a suicide pact. We have to
recognize that.
I want to thank all the witnesses. I would encourage all
the Senators, all the members of the audience, read the full
testimony of all the witnesses. I think that is probably a
pretty good start. So, again, thank you all for your courage,
for your time, for your testimony.
This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until
June 29th at 5 p.m., for the submission of statements and
questions for the record. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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