[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> great group on a monday morning. thank you for coming. the great event today and i know we got people still trickling in but before we start i have a few comments. first, welcome to the center for strategic and international studies. my name is seth jones, director of the transnational threats project and the harold brown chair.

our work is available on website and we've had recent publications on everything from hezbollah activity in syria and a broad report on us counterterrorism that will be published later this week. couple of other comments, as well. we don't expect any emergencies but just in case we have one we've got exits in the back and multiple locations and we have them to the right of the state as you face it. in general, the rendezvous point for emergencies at csrs is that the nearest untrained national geographic medium located next door. if you've not been over there current exhibits they are fantastic, as well. i'm not being paid to say that but there are great programs including the titanic exhibit over there. we want to thank the folks at

the transnational threats project for all the work they put into this from matt mark upfront cap next and clayton who are helping, as well. the way we will do the q&a as you will notice there are cards on your seat. we have a couple of people that will pick up those cards after the initial discussion is over. then we will move to a q&a from a peer but at any point if you have questions please, write them down. charlie, do we have nick or clayton here in the room? okay. i will point them when mitch is done with his introductory remarks. i am happy to have a discussion today and the unmaking of jihad is him in the current effort to combat pilot asked room as him

and we have mitch silber who is the principal and cofounder of the guardian group and mitch is both a practitioner based on his work at nypd and author and i've used his book on al qaeda plots in my johns hopkins counter insurgency in terrorism and jesse morton the founder and codirector of parallel networksd we will get into a range of issues regarding extremism and counter extremism during the discussion of the q&a. thank you for coming and i will go sit down and we will move the microphone. thanks. >> okay.

what i like to do is begin by turning to jesse who's got an interesting background. i'd like to ask you if you can explain the origins, jesse, of revolution muslims in your transition. your personal involvement and then your transition. i want to go to mitch for the other side of this for a chunk of years you're sitting on the opposite side. >> so, revolution was probably the very first organization in the united states to unabashedly promote al qaeda on the streets of new york. we were one of the first organizations to experiment or initiated in about 2007 so it was a tradition from social media 1.02.0. one of the first organizations to experiment with the more social media oriented platforms such as facebook, twitter and we

ran from 2007 until about 2011. i started the organization as an individual who is attending columbia university school of international public affairs. attempting to operate in two rounds. one in my first name and or my adopted islamic name, mohammed. we partnered with abdullah was a jamaican cleric who is responsible for radicalizing people [inaudible] but was incarcerated in britain for medication of threats and was supported and transported to jamaica where he expressed an interest in inserting his jihadist perspective into the american culture. we formulated an organization against with three. one was a jewish national and

then we operated and came to new york and he gave us an interesting dynamic where we had a charismatic preacher with legitimacy and been educated in saudi arabia. get political expertise to frame the narrative in a way that coincided to revolutionary politics, if you will, and then you have a colleague [inaudible] but a reputation online that was somewhat viral and able to push back have become what we called the clown. he was able to antagonize the right wing and the anti- islamic's crowd to exploit that the point was as an organization that was calling for the implementation of short dialogue in the united states. it was a template that evolved over time we partnered with people like [inaudible] to formulate the very first english language jihadist magazines and from 2011 until i was arrested

in casablanca thousand 11 we set a template upon which jihadist propaganda had evolved since. not just the use of social media 2.0 but the development of that magazine and the private rooms that we see similar to the way isis uses telegrams today to conduct their one-on-one recruitment efforts et cetera. in 2011 after returning the writers of south park between them is mohammed-casablanca expecting to be indicted by the us government. it started a long process of the radicalization i lived in the beginning of the arab spring and was motivated by the fact that i was teaching people english teaching economics at a local university in english equivocating with my students about what they wanted to see going forward in morocco. i was enthralled by the fact that they were committed to

liberal principles that still had an islamic identity and they eradicated these ideas that i had about the hypocrisy from among the modern muslim community and opened up to organize that what people in the middle east, particularly in morocco, things i wanted and to for granted. osama bin laden placed a piece of propaganda is trying to rebrand al qaeda and essentially he had a talk about global warming which is a try to betray him as more of a progressive intellectual as opposed to a person who is calling the plea for violence and terrorism. that faux pas because it was irrational and did not make sense. that's what i reckon i semi views of the man who was held to be 8 feet tall had come down to a more realistic understanding of what he represented if this was someone responsible for making policy. it was absurd. i was arrested for weeks after he was killed and set for

extradition back to the states and in that time i interacted for five months in moroccan prison with one of their chief charismatic preachers responsible for radicalizing those that were not to conduct attacks in casablanca. he challenged my ideology because he himself changed. i found that interesting. i appeared and [inaudible] i'm scared about what i was facing and felt it was difficult because i was starting to change before my rest. the us government came on a private plane to find a home where i found out i was facing life imprisonment and found out that the united states had overtime was not [inaudible] when they return me to alexandria, virginia, across the bridge was held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day but there was a guard that felt sultry confinement was rather oppressive and she would take me four hours a day for ten hour shifts to the law library which has this library and that's

where i read in sight with an enlightenment books and thomas paine and john locke and others which played a significant role in my going back to the cell for the day she was at work and rereading the koran and the islamic texts through a post- enlightenment perspective. when i took the plea that kept me up to ten years it at sentencing i had to undergo a debriefing process and developed a very interesting relationship with a female fbi agent that me up a but was also, at the same time, would advocate for for me to be an asset to someone who could help the government going forward. time went forward and i thought revolution muslims traveled to syria and track and monitor them and make talked about [inaudible] obama have released the chief strategic implementation plans and i was giving input on that.

without my interactions with the fbi they were not waging war against islam they were primarily concerned with stopping acts of terrorism in identifying those that may go on with violence. ultimately i was originally sentenced to 11 and a half years and served almost four years of that before the judge reduced my sentence due to my cooperation. i continue to operate as an informant and in some capacity with the fbi and the public is america's first former jihadist but recognized that as time went on i have not actually done the work of the radicalization because i refuted the ideology and they never address the issues that ultimately facilitated my entrance into radicalism in the first place. i've been sober for over year and i'm doing work on myself but also trying to understand and

taking a different perspective with regard to areas such as intervention et cetera and working through make amends for some of the harm i caused under my former self. >> great. mitch, over to you. between 2006-2011 from the nypd perspective working directly against jesse so you talk about what he outlined from your perspective sitting on the other side. >> sure. to some degree i was responsible for having jesse arrested and imprisoned. we will start their backpack my role at nypd instructor of intelligence analysis and i oversaw civilian analysts and detectives who were running investigations in new york city and during that period in 2006

of 2011 probably the most complicated and challenging investigation was that of revolution muslim and that specifically of jesse martin. from 2006-2011 think of it as catch me if you can with jesse as leonardo dicaprio. i was trying to get in. in the uk there's a group called [inaudible] and speaking with the uk security services depending on the time that you are speaking there with a 25-30% of uk citizens were gone on to join al qaeda or some other jihadist organization spent some time in [inaudible]. we understand that in new york city we had a version of that. first, the society and then jesse's more extreme organization revolution muslim and we were highly concerned about that. at nypd we were fortunately able

to position an undercover nypd officer in revolution muslim and, in fact, as the it administrator. he knew what jesse was having for breakfast most days. however, it was difficult because jesse was a savvy operator. he knew where the line was as long as his first amendment and he was quite circumspect in accessing it. nevertheless, he was the type ideologue or for revolution muslim and one of the things we outlined was that there are 15 spots around the world that you can trace individuals who purchase paid in that and then being followers or interacting with revolution muslim. it was a wide stance. you got to individual carlos almonte and two individuals from new jersey were radicalized and wanted to join. you have another [inaudible] who

is a us citizen from brooklyn who traveled to pakistan and nypd interacted with the ambassador to have him to the ground at islamabad and the back to the us. his intention was to join al qaeda. your plots in the uk and plot to attack the london stock exchange over christmas in 2009. you're the stabbing of a uk parliamentarian by a woman who attacked him for his support of the iraq war. the plot against the new york city subway following the instruction inspire magazine how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your boss. he made it in his mother's kitchen. these are potentially deadly plots and all trace the origin back to revolution muslim. your plot in boston wanted to use a drone to attack the pentagon.

frankly, even if you look at inspire magazine, the first issue of it, had a list of enemies and the primary author of the magazine was [inaudible] and in that magazine he listed enemies off of al qaeda was between me and you is protection for my two sons and wife for a few different times by the nypd. we mentioned in opposition to each other and it was very much the case. fast forward last summer the attack on the london bridge where it turns out one of the primary attackers was, in fact, a member of this group. the story of nypd fighting this group has not been talked about and i knew jesse had been recently released from prison service out to jesse and said let's tell the story about nypd and how the different techniques

pioneered internet .0 and english-language magazines and interaction social media online are things that are been adopted by isis. frankly, as isis moves into the stage of a particular palisade there are techniques that isis is adopted but are pioneered by revolution muslim and we need to look at more closely it will figure out how to adequately fight the virtual caliphate. the partnership kicks off and we created this nonprofit organization called parallel networks. the idea is to do three things. use farmers to do ct research and number two, yes these farmers for targeted interventions and a pre- criminal way so that 15, 16 words are not crystalline to commonality but are spending time on isis websites and go down that road and third, interact with people gone at present we need to rehabilitate but have a background and we

know there are about a hundred people will be getting out of prison in the next five years in the us and to date there is no less program to help rehabilitate those people. that's a quick summary of my part on this side of where we are now. >> before going to jesse we have a couple of questions in the back to mitch. i wanted to remind anybody they have cards and if they could pass them down, charlie over here and nick over here, it can pick them up. again, feel free as we talk to write down questions and they were put them up and bring them to the stage. we will read as many as we can at last part of the q&a. ten questions to jesse to get the start. can you talk about your concept of the virtual caliphate and how it differed or is similar to the weight the islamic state when it

began in 2014 picked up pace in 2016, 17 and even now 18 -- how it differed or was similar? let me start with that and then i have a follow-up. >> i think it's important to pay attention to the historical evolution of online propaganda efforts to recruit. what we've seen is the development largely similar to the [inaudible] ability of people that in the beginning was a people living in espousing an ideology that was generalized but when they traveled to yemen and [inaudible] traveled was the first case of propaganda western that had a western version of al qaeda's narrative that appealed in many ways in much stronger to the stuff coming out of the middle east.

they were able to say it's the ali etiology you should hereto but show you how to act on it. the fundamentally fascinating things for me working as an apartment in present and creating a narrative of an individual, prominent individual, is one of my students travel to syria in the beginning of the virtual caliphate is coming to the awareness that isis propaganda when it comes to westerners is a western import. a lot of the individuals affiliated with [inaudible] and heavy understanding of how to make the message appealable to those in the west embedded themselves and rocca were living in a safe house altogether where they were concocting ways to utilize the internet, twitter particularly in the beginning and since navigated and adjusted the way that we use to and they take us down on youtube and we haven't another channel up and running in the same day and we could take down our domain name but we have another running and that's the cat and mouse that the virtual caliphate has play

played. now we have this idea of a virtual plot or virtual entrepreneur, someone who does not understand the eye theology may have compromised and migrated there and able to articulate in english the views but also to recruit and migrate the forms in the same way we use up program for direct messaging applications where we were able to give a broad repertoire included appeal an individual could reach out and then we could engage them in one-on-one conversation. we could encourage them or we can disseminate more understanding to get actual action on the ideas but are faced with the difficulty we've seen it rather effective. this is the problem going forward. we can sustain without having any territorial control and sustain the idea that his support and to organize the reason 70 westerners during the

caliphate is because there was a scene set in the minds and hearts of people there were living in last that the primary obligation of the muslim is living in the west that they have an operation towards the caliphate. even if you destroy the caliphate it is that legacy established and the desire to return in the ability to refer back that will still serve an appeal. isis is defense trying to sustain itself amongst [inaudible] at the same time, we see a new phenomenon of competition between jihadist organizations that have led to the ultimate barbarity of isis and of post isis world where al qaeda has been able to benefit from what social minutes call a radical effect where the brand was considered to delegitimize but now the violence promoted by

al qaeda is considered moderate and has a broader appeal. you have to think ahead it's not just about isis versus budget virtual caliphate but of any virtual caliphate online with any different -- these things continue to mutate in one of the important things is recognizable in the paper mitch and i wrote is that the splendor is important to be attended to because these things metastasize and metastasize into more and more accepting of one violence but at the same time you're stretching like groups which has 30000 people by most estimates and the organization al qaeda which introduces an organization of how to and their first

attacks will disseminate the ideology there. we want to wait for the rise affiliated with territorial safe haven so now in the lag time with the territory has been dismantled will try to do is sustain the idea but we have an opportunity to attract for particularly for western audience and [inaudible] to get to the heart of how you refute that. >> one question, if i can ask you first, and then go to mitch, there are a number of us policymakers the pick up on what you said and they've argued recently and i am quoting that the islamic state has been crushed and it's been eradicated but a number of americans and it's been a while since they have assessed and there's been a notable jihad the attack on american soil different from the british experience or the french experience in the last year in britain had a number of tax

including the ariana gandhi concert in manchester so how do you respond to the notion that the islamic state or other groups have been crushed or eradicated and what is your sense about the threat to the us either the homeland directly or what we see today? >> i would suggest that we been here before. i was remember when i was arrested in may we started to beat the mainstream press about whether it was over or winding down and that leads to awareness that it is not about organization that this is the entity is one that runs on ideology but at the moment and it's bound together by some liberals post and some of which people can differ on now you have a competition in the marketplace for competition but in regard to the threat of land

what is setting in for jihadist organizations that do have better capability to plot attacks we went from a phase of [inaudible] that his last resistance and now were going back to a situation where the internet or virtual pallet caliphate makes a possible but this realization that the community is setting in and both al qaeda and isis to claim or retain the mantle of jihad still have to do it in a way that outdoes arrivals 911. our primary concern should be with regard to some of the thoughts of whether or not there is a capacity in the united states which is the ultimate price for jihadist which is something that they continue to argue for is that the tendency in the community but we still need to prioritize the head of the snake. we have to look at and adjust for the possibility and it's important to recognize but the

very first entity that was attacked was not an isis target but the wrong group which is an al qaeda primed organization in syria that had an ongoing attack ready to have a pot and a plan to conduct an attack in europe that was in the last stages and would have rivaled with regard to casualties they saw in 911. it's important attention to these dynamics that involves the capacity to facilitate and now you don't have to travel to afghanistan in a training or pakistan to come back but now you can literally just do it from encrypted platforms. it's quite dangerous. >> same question to you mitch. isis crushed or eradicated in your sense of the that the us either homeland or interest overseas. >> i think we been here before. i remember the government

officials talking about the demise of al qaeda. sure, there was an ebb after they were taken off the battlefield but ultimately there was revival anything about the 2012-2013. before isis stormed onto the state in iraq and to some degree that's where we are. were in that ab in the diagram. where will the new safe even be and it's unclear. will it be important in syria or yemen in someplace in the horn of africa but it's unclear. no doubt the ideology will wear but frankly, the situation may be different from this first avenue in 2012 is that the number of european foreign fighters were returned to europe and has been time in europe this year in the uk and france and germany and i was just in austria and a hotbed of isis terrorism.

370 austrians went to syria and iraq and a certain percentage have come back but the most likely to see you the first wins of a bit of a revival in europe with foreign fighters who have returned may be inspiring some individuals were radicalized at home and have traveled to syria and iraq and the targets maybe us targets overseas as well as the domestic targets and the fact that we have few citizens who traveled overseas to isis land and even returned gives a certain measure of protection however, virtual plotters and individuals who were radicalized in the west were looking to do something now be manipulated or operationalized overseas and

those of the things i'm most concerned about when i look at the horizon and i agree, it's not purely isis. yet a factor in al qaeda has used this time to regenerate itself in different parts of the world where they have territory and merged the local entities and the al qaeda threat is off the table. >> let me ask you, mitch, a follow-up question and it's something that you wrote in the conclusion from revolution muslim to the islamic state. that is quoting here one reason most of the path link to revolution muslim were thwarted with the nypd and, in your case, successfully integrated with undercover officers into the heart of both the islamic thinkers society in revolution muslim you go on to say increased use of digital human comprising digital undercover officers et cetera but what is your general sense in combating and countering on the us bond for smit intelligent side and

some of the lessons you have seen and i don't want to get into broader e issues but from the intelligence and law-enforcement standpoint there are key lessons. >> one of the key lessons that so much of this comes down to human intelligence and having the right sources placed in the right location and that's been an evolving phenomenon over time and it was physical locations for many years at the greater new york state area and he lessons from overseas that might've been in places where you knew there was a radical mosque at one point in time and moved to a bookstore and moved to a café in a barbershop and physical locations where you can have an informant or an undercover to protect clusters of people radicalizing and as time moves on being online has

turned out to be the place where most likely to encounter people using virtual safe haven to meet. now it's the telegram channels and the only way you can be in the telegram channels and be able to have some chance of detecting some baby is by developing human assets or the ability to interact in a way that is believable online and we were fortunate to have police officers for divers from the country of origin perspective and people who can speak farsi and arabic and be in those or on those websites and in those forums and on those channels in a way that is believable so they can look at what they were trying to detect. that has been successful and were things that failed have been not having the right resources in the right locations. we think about the attack in new york on the west side highway

and an individual who speaking to people overseas but was not detected. that is why one of our conclusions was more effort and more resources devoted to developing skilled operators in the space. >> will take the opportunity to read a couple of questions and start with the first one. it's directed at you, jesse, i have a few other questions unless you in a little bit. here's the first one from one of the audience members. those parallel networks have plans to perform present radicalization programming in the us or is civil society, cbe space limited to post- incarceration. what is your involvement or what is the parallel networks involvement in present-day replication? >> there are a bunch of fanfare particularly with the fact that there's hundred individuals

freedom with prism -related offenses. looking into the criticism of the [inaudible] into medication those who are set for release with al qaeda cases and that's all in that five-year timeframe but also looking at the reintegration of individuals with come home and try to identify mechanisms through which you can provide programming and one of the things we will be discussing extensively going forward is the phenomenon. however, the problem is when you look at models that might apply the us is unique in comparison to others. we have vast terrain and only 500 people convicted and imprisoned and 400 people in prison in regard to terrorism offenses. [inaudible] you look at some of the things that need to be considered like communication management that was utilized to

isolate prisoners but you essentially create an incubator and only takes one person to spoil the pool. >> and yet mean that -- spirit yes, the bureau. you can list innumerable cases not only in western societies but here at home. zachary, my current member, in the article on the blog about the day they sent [inaudible] pick medication management and he left present and went on to become the primary radicalized of you on behalf of the three and a half year in the united states but while he was in the medication management unit gives a publisher article about how the people in the medication management came and asked him to teach class. the problem is not about where we have these terrorism related is that there would be major competitions because it only takes one person was charismatic feel it is the ideology that an out to make sure they don't change the police. have to be a volunteer program looking at mechanisms but a

particular mission and importance is developing expertise with regard to reintegration and reentry. we require a government partnership the community led organizations but there's a push back against government operations and number two, there's an intuitive belief that if you partner with moderate [inaudible] to be able to change ideas and the problem is when you look at the actual outcome of the interaction of moderate demands with those committed to fundamentalism then you run the problem of whether or not that could be counter productive. we see a situation in australia where the moderate leaders were provided reintegration services that started in prison and continued upon release but the minute an individual project went to the bathroom and they called the receptionist and went to the streets and engaged in a

shoot out that killed two police officers and then a distance themselves from program participation. what seems to be intuitive because we don't have mechanisms for measuring outcomes can become problematic where you violate the first principle of intervention which is due no harm. were looking into it and doing a deep dive but we want to not just criticize government for not having anything in place but provide a realistic alternative. something that can make sense and be developed and developed over time. >> mitch, if i could take a step back and ask you to outline your thoughts on us government counterbalance extremism projects and programs or probably us government agencies included in the part department of homeland security has spent a fair amount of money on programs

communities and what is your sense about how effective they haven't or not or the key challenges with us efforts? we know for example overseas with the british have spent a fair amount of resources as part of the present program and other programs, new program the british have introduced for individuals and the french have devoted increasing amount of resources on cbe as well on the prevent side and what is your sense but here what about those efforts and the challenges. >> easy question. [laughter] we look back at how the us has approached and this goes back to the obama administration and they said needed it to be done and they wanted the harder efforts rather than the softer efforts but this was start and stop and there was interest but

then questions of how to move forward after the attacks of the boston marathon and it got rejuvenated interest in the us and there were three other pilot programs put in place in boston and los angeles and minneapolis. what was determined was that we should be in the lead? the us attorney's office in those particular jurisdictions should have the lead on the efforts. if you look in the us attorney's office made good faith efforts to organize different peoples from these communities to be involved in these efforts but frankly, one of the biggest problems we saw this looking at speaking to people in the uk is that the us federal government as an actor in the space. radicalization is often a local phenomenon in bringing us government and all its

capabilities from the federal government on the way down does not have legitimacy in dealing with people in the field. you there really has to be an egg organic local effort to combat violent extremism in the other thing they have to do is convocation is that religion is a topic you just can't touch. while the us government is willing to engage in a political debate over us foreign-policy but they can't touch the ideology while it's immobilizing vector for the individuals so if at some at a disadvantage in trying to push people off the path. it seems like local organizations and organizations that almost if you look at the game world where you've taken former gang members and taken them and said go back into the community and talk about your experience and hopefully that is a deterrent when you speak to the 15, 16 -year-old version of

yourself and we been down that road and i know what you're thinking and i know the ideology but it's a dead ends. it leaves to our assessment to look at the programs of the world and that's the best route to go. if we had advice for you as a government it be to take a venture capitalist approach and provide funding to local initiatives that have credibility because it's not coming from the us government and let them do work and create standards that they have to adhere to but it will be difficult and unlikely to succeed if the us government top-down pushing the initials. >> yes, exactly, jesse, a question for you from a member of the audience which is the role of women. what role do you find women plane in these types of organizations? are they recruiters, fighters, organizers so from both radicalization's standpoint the role of women as well as in the

counter violent extremism what role do women play i'll highlight that in traveling to europe recently one of the challenges from a number from foreign fighters many cannot return to europe but their families including lives have an art and with regard of women. >> they are a cornerstone. we use to deliver leaflet for women that would administer our chat rooms for a number of reasons. because women attract men and even people and extremist movements looking for partners and looking for marriage, the primary appeals is the opposite gender. they also had, due to our contacts with people in europe, an enormous amount of time on their hands. they were housewives and in the islamic tradition is to believe the case that woman practices fundamental in islam does not go

out of work but they take care of the kids. who has more time to be on twitter? they can understand the ideology and disseminate it what they do they can be powerful because what we used to do is make it look like look, this is a woman that is sacrificing herself and sacrificing her time for the sake of this movement. what are you men doing? that's incredibly shameful approach to facilitating into violent extremism. many more variables and roles that women play but there also yet understand it's powerful because it's a conference of worldview that includes everything right on down to how you practice family life. it includes every single aspect of life and pits every single aspect of a fundamentalist muslim life against what are norms in the west. if you want to refute ideas of western feminism, what a powerful marriage it is to have a woman go on an online application and say i wear makeup and cover my face because this is done in medicine from an

islamic standpoint. on the sense of countering violent extremism and the old woman i think it's inclusive and are starting to do more and more particularly in international on the work that the nine nations is doing in dissenting voices for women is women have a serious role to play particularly with regard to the cases be referencing because maybe they were not as coerced into their participation as they make it seem which is obviously in the interest but having experience that in been able to detail what life was really like under the so-called islamic state and to document that in to show the effect on the children and show the impact that it had. there is serious trauma. it's one of the things we face going forward. the most powerful narratives that isis has to prove that it is still sustainable and legitimate is the idea of the

cubs of the caliphate. they prepared an entire generation of thousands and thousands of kids have been prepped ideologically and operationally to carry this jihad into the next generation which makes it seem like even though we lost territory we will continue to thrive. challenging those narratives is incredibly important to show the trauma of the children and coming back but not just the trauma but the fact that western society can deal with this in a non- punitive way and these women need to be given opportunities to heal and in particular cases where the risk assessment is conducted where it seems like they can become reintegrated effectively than their narratives become like mitch said, incredible but also at the same time the level of prevention can be most valuable. >> question for you from the audience. let me preface it by saying one of the new developments in the

recent british counterterrorism strategy that came out in june called contest, includes concerns about the rising threat from extreme right-wing groups in particular that had the attack at the murder of the member of parliament and one member of the audience here asks essentially about the role and the danger and the threat and the reaction to extreme right-wing groups in the us so what is your sense of the threat from the extreme right and how do we balance as we talk about extremism of whatever form, whether ethnic, left-wing, extreme right-wing, or religious in this case, how do we balance it?

>> when the cbe debate was kicking off in the us because it's such a loaded topic and because i really when you talk about al qaeda followers they tend to come from muslim background because the ideology is trying to activate that part of their identity but if you have a debate in the us it has to be broader and you have to acknowledge there are other types of extra is a, left-wing, right-wing, other types of ideologically driven and when we think about and look at and in many ways they're not that different. at least the process of turning to violence is not that different even though they come from different ideological route. i would put gang violence in a different place because there's no ideology to it. it's criminal drivel and violence. in order to protect the discussion we have to honestly state that it has to cover all of these.

frankly, from our personal perspective we are focusing on the islamist extremism but were already having discussion with the right-wing extremism because some of the process is to get into the extremism and is likely the process to bring people back will be similar so us policy has to factor that in as a designs program and is much as you would want to seed fund some groups that focus on al qaeda you'd also want a seed fund for anti- neo-nazi groups and other groups that are focusing on extremism and [inaudible] is involved with a couple conversations with people on the far right and frankly it's timely given that were coming up on the charlottesville anniversary to see if one person in particular who is a ringleader and see if we get paula back from the violent element and bring them

into the debate forum. >> jesse, i want to give you a chance to comment one of the questions is does parallel networks only use formal and former islamic sporty plan at some point to work with former neo-nazi and white supremacist and others, as well? several people have asked if you could add onto that and what the biggest factor or factors in that radicalization process were social economic and if you could start with the extreme right wing question and then we'll get onto your own background. >> okay. with regard to extremism are the brief. i feel like it's important to address right-wing extremism because in many ways revolution was the most responsible for giving them the fodder they needed to promote this anti- islamic view that the muslims in america were attempting to implement what the law and we

deliberately antagonized the right-wing bloggers and we played off of that to the point where we were able to introduce a symbiotic relationship between the two. at this point, the jihadists need the far right in the far eat me the jihadist. that is to particularly in countries like britain. understanding how to dismantle that relationship can be important. primarily we have to take things one step at a time. we are not funded and we are a startup but we do have ongoing conversations with both former far right extremists and we have a good relationship with christian [inaudible] and retained a good relationship with other people that are affiliated with these organizations. i found fascinating that my credibility as a former jihadist allows me to make breakers not just with people that are on the far right but the hubs of the

far right networks. if i reach out to someone and i won't mention specific names for the leadership of people that are organizing events or people that are engaged in being the primary ideologues and say i know you never gotten an e-mail like this before but i see a lot of myself in you and i like to engage in discourse and dialog dialogue. we have a point now where we are approaching been able to get one of the key leaders of that movement ready to go public and to say i make an absolute commitment to nonviolence which is progress. it doesn't mean we have all their perspectives but it opens up and dialogue. one of us self sabotaging realities we see today is the polarization of our society between left and right. protest and counter protests will only give them the fodder they need to say that recourse of dialogue not work any longer. >> i note that the attack was done by someone of the extreme right against and or killed an

individual in the park outside of london and we saw a number of arrests in france for individuals committed, not to attack against muslims. per se but those viewed as radical muslims so there have been efforts where the two issues that clearly are intertwined and feed off each other including radicalization process so can you talk about your own radicalization process and what were the factors that contributed to it and could you talk about the radical process. >> the opposite principles, the antithetical that i mentioned, with regard to my view are important in my own radicalization. one of the things that i learned more about is the role of trauma. i had a traumatic upbringing. i ran away when i was 16 as a result of child abuse. it opened me up to [inaudible] i

became a seeker. searching for something to latch onto and i suggest that if i were born 30 years earlier i would've been with the hammer and sickle on the factory first. i was looking for something present grown to present my society because i felt it had been unfair to me. also felt like i could contribute to the world and was denied an opportunity. i come from a poor working class and experienced with the far right experience. i watched as the factories disappeared due to globalization and watched as education opportunities decreased with regard to been able to go to committee college and i know the impact that had as hermann flooded and to those societies. i grew up around it. that led me to search for radical ideology but for reasons of resentment against my own people and for my own leftist

leanings. i chose a more revolutionary islam. in the background those of the variables associated. trauma is important with regard to looking at particularly when we look at areas of conflict and more and more areas of conflict, trauma is important to address. they quickly there is an intervention that i conducted were a lot of times it seems this is a purely rational ideological choice. every time you conduct an intervention to look at life and why they chose that. you will find that in the background is somewhat event for life circumstance that allow that if you get back to the root then you can truly get a person to realize they chose the ideology because it was in our production of their own frustration in their own pain. there was an alternative ideology that did not appeal to them. you have to get back to the root and what you do that is by addressing ideology and going backwards and saying personally about the ideology. let's talk about your life.

it's understanding the interplay. ideology is a conduit that facilitates progression intellectualism in the back if the background package and even at the level of intervention is the most important to pay attention to. >> mitch, 22, question about broader participation whether people in the room or those in mine and the public in general how can the greater populace, nonlaw enforcement for example, combat online radicalization? is the support of quote, moderate secular it raises useful? how can we wrote we have if any and countering violent extremism? >> i think that there is a role as a role for courage the debate and discussion and as we heard from jesse describe one of the routes and pathways to violence is feeling your views cannot be heard or engaged and whether it

is on foreign-policy spectrum or other types of subject matter there are you're getting these issues out in the open and having forms for discussion and potentially there is a way to get people up the first to defend their point of view in not an active chamber where they have the same people themselves they might consider other viewpoints. will that prevent someone from going down this road? i don't know. there are some of the factors that determine but if there is one way and the discussion on facebook and the discussion on twitter and it is so polarized and goes to 11 and so quickly in terms of intensity that there are some type of one restrained debate that would obviously be less likely to antagonize people but it's more of a societal issue that is much broader than

the space. >> great. last question to both of you. it gets in the issue of freedom of speech and radicalization online. first, to you jesse, and then to mitch, from one of you, how do you limit the effects of radicalizing online? while retaining freedom of speech. it's in part issue i know that some of the silicon valley firms have had to struggle with as well so why don't we start with you. >> that's quite a difficult question to answer with some condition but it's about finding the right balance. basically, only done because of the first amendment and it's understandable i walk right up to the line they were not able to do much at all about it but we deferred and defaulted to social media companies -- >> can you explain when you walked right to the line what did what does that mean for you?

>> we would press the issue all the way to basically we were i level and said you should react on his ideas. we would threaten the writers themselves but it was because my codefendant did not have a proper understanding of first amendment. i was crafty enough to understand that one of the first things i did when we started to get popular in the jihadist spirit was to review case law enforcement excessively so i knew what i could say and what i cannot say what was considered a threat and what was not considered a threat. ...

>> tweak what's permissive to say through service agreements, right? so they've been delegated the responsibility, and the government has pushed -- and it's very difficult to understand because the changing nature of the universe where like we all hear what each other says, we're all interconnected. we talk about six degrees of separation, we're all interconnected by four steps away from each other. so everything that we say resonates, but at the same time when you who we're talking about and the interconnection of those pathways, we're actually clusteredded. so they have this, like, really serious problem of how do you use free expression to engage in dialogue and discourse when nobody that disagrees with each other is talking to each other and when extremists are in their own echo chambers. it's understandable that there's terms of service efforts by takedown, to remove content. it's understandable. i'm not so sure it won't make

the problem worse. whereas you can take down content where possible, you have to realize that migration and other phenomena will sustain the discourse. so how do you promote engagement and dialogue. get -- rather than shun these people, not give them a platform, not give them an opportunity to speak, engage them. give them an opportunity to speak. because that way you can push back against them. create por -- forum like this. we are planning on publicizing that we have engagement with far right-wing extremists and put them on a stage and allow them to express views. and giving an audience like you all an opportunity to push back. but we suggest that combativeness and rational refutation, that's why countermessaging doesn't work, because people are emotional. they don't think like that. and that's why we are trying to create a counter-ecosystem. we need to induce a new term, because you can message all you want. unless you practice what you preach and you have an ecosystem

that you can pull people away from built on antithetical ideas to extremist ones, nothing will essentially work. need to preserve free speech by forcing dialogue with those we disagree with. rather than only engaging with those that we do agree with, which is something that even moderates and all of us, essentially, tend to do whether we recognize it or not. >> the last word. >> sure. i think it's worthwhile, you know, we talked about jesse dancing on the line of the first amendment. what ultimately caused him to be indicted and arrested was that his colleague, an individual from the area here, george mason grad, zachary chester, threatened trey parker and matt stone specifically online and said you should do to them what happened to theo van gogh who was assassinated in amsterdam in 2004, and his throat was slit by al-qaeda acolytes. so it was only because this online threat was specific to

say this is who you should do it to, and this is what you should do that, frankly, an enterprising eastern district of virginia found the legal route to prosecute that. otherwise jesse and his group have bedeviled the southern district of new york and the eastern district of new york u.s. attorney's office. so really that first amendment line, it's cutting it too close, frankly. so, you know, i tend to think that we've seen how mark zuckerberg has turned himself into a pretties every over the -- pretzel over the last 48, 72 hours over the holocaust issue. terms of service, you know, first amendment is for the types of threat that we're talking about is probably a line that's too far. it probably needs to be the terms of service that restrict what's said online. and i know, you know, is the germans have got a law against restricting discussion of the holocaust and as well as in france about, you know, much stricter freedom of speech

lines. they've gone to the, they've gone to silicon valley and tried to push for content to be taken down. we're seeing more of that now. but more needs to be done, and that's, you know, one of our points in the paper as well. terms of service is probably the most elegant way to do it i because you as a company have a platform and essentially get to determine the rules by which everybody plays. >> well, thank you all for sticking with us to the very end. i wanted to ask you to join me in thank both jesse and mitch for a really interesting discussion that covered radicalization, countering violent extremism, the u.s. constitution. i think there are a few things we did not at least touch on here, so please join me in thank both of them. [applause]

[inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> on capitol hill this week the house will debate extending the national flood insurance program for four months and repealing the medical device tax which pays for implementation of the health care law. members may also consider a house/senate compromise on defense programs and policies for the next fiscal year. the senate returns at 3:00 eastern and will concern the nomination of robert willkie to be the next secretary of veterans affairs. senators will vote on his nomination at 5:30. you can follow the senate live on c-span2, the house live on c-span. >> tonight on "the communicators," tina pigeon, general counsel for alaskan cable provider gci, talks about how the company makes broadband possible for small villages across tundra, glaciers and

mountains. then incoming president of the alaska collaborative for telemedicine and telehealth, christopher dietrich, on providing health care through telemedicine to remote communities in alaska. watch "the communicators" tonight at 8 eastern on c-span2. >> the group new democracy discussed how the democratic party can advance its agenda leading up to the 2018 and 2020 elections and also training americans for jobs in a future work force. speakers included former louisiana senator mary landrieu and several current members of congress. this is just under an hour. >> to the second part of this discussion which really is about the social compact, the new bargains we have to strike and get business, labor and government together on to underp