on wednesday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan 2, the memorial service marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of robert f. kennedy. from arlington national atured speakers include family, friends, members of congress, and former president bill clinton. watch the rfk 50th memorial service at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan 2, cspan.org or listen on the free cspan radio app. a new report looks at ways to inhibit radical groups like isis from being able to effectively recruit online. jesse morton is a former jihadi who became an informant for the fbi. he's part of the discussion. the event was organized by new america. i run the international security program here. thanks for coming this afternoon. thank you for those on cspan who

are watching this today. this is the launch of a paper, a very interesting paper from revolution muslim to islamic state which was co-written by mick sillber. he saw the planes crash into the towers and decided to do something different with his life which was where he joined the new york police department. one of the most important targets he had was this group revolution islam, which jesse morton was intiminateately invo in founding. they will talk about the ideas in the report. and candice morton who is a

valued colleague of ours here will make some observations about the report and then open up to a wider conversation. i'll hand it over to mitch, jesse and then candice. >> good afrnoon, everyone. first of all i'd like to thank new america and peter for not only hosting us today, but more importantly when approached about the idea of a paper written by a former jihadi extremistnd a former counterterrorism professional was willing to back it and support us. sort of an unconventional request. i appreciate your willingness to go along with this and to david stirman at new america who is a tremendous editor and resource for us as we advance our

efforts. it's sort of an interesting timing that we're here on june 4th. really, the impetus for this paper and, frankly, the collaboration between jesse and myself was triggered a year ago yeerday. what that was was there was an attack in london on the london bridge where three individuals in a van, as you probably remember, drove the van on the bridge, knocking people into the river. jumped out of the van wearing fake suicide vests, had ceramic knives, and then proceeded to enter borough market. they injured 48 and killed fivs. what attracted my attention beyond the horror of this attack, and they did it in the name of the iamic state, not operationally controlled by the islamic state. but the leader of this group was

an individual who was a member of a group that is well known in the uk. an jihadi group that has garnered great attention for their provocative demonstrations in the uk. they often talked about the black flag of the caliphate over 10 downing street over parliament. but more importantly, at various times as many as 30% -- when we were talking to british security servic services and uk terrorist an li analysts say 50% of terrorists go through this group. this was essentially a spinoff.

inside the new york city police department, we looked as many as 15 different cases of individuals both in the united states and overseas who were directly radicalized to violence by following revolution muslim either actively by interacting with jesse who was abdullah muhammad at the time. or passively by observing what revolution muslim was doing. you see kuram butt right there at the bottom right-hand corner. what struck me was this has been going on since 2001. the fellow on the top right-hand corner is a new yorker. muhammad babar, who while the world trade center was still smoldering after 9/11, that fall he left new york. he had gone to a military academic. he was in st. john's pharmacy school. he would be the first post 9/11

foreign fighter. what group had he been radicalized by? their affiliates are still causing death and are destruction around the world. the elements of the new york story had not been told. in thinking about writing this, the idea was what about writing this with the individual who had been at the heart of this group in new york? jesse morton. i reached out to jesse and he was interested. i also want to thank jesse for his hard work on this effort. i couldn't have done thi without him. muhammad babar didn't actually see action in afghanistan and pakistan, but he did provide materials, sleeping bags, night vision goggles to al qaeda. he participatedn training camp in 2004 where some of the 7/7 bombers as well as a member

of a plot called crevice in the uk were involved. again, this group and its sp spinoffs, deadly connections. in talking about revolution muslim, you have to understand in the united states, there was a spinoff cal the islamist thinkers society in new york city. jesse and one of his colleagues left the thinkers society to found revolution muslim. because, frankly, islamic thinkers society, all they did was talk. they weren't provacative enough. as a result, they spun off into revolution muslim. in our paper we talk about the origins and you have to go back to the 1950s in the middle east. that just provides some of the background, you know, for it.

why we thought this topic was so important, and what was always on my mind in thinking about the revolution muslim and the unknown stories, was that revolution muslim was responsible for the 15 different individuals or plots around the world. many of whom you've heard of but may not have underood the connection to revolution muslim. we've got a column that says active or passive. active they were interacting with jesse and his colleagues in revolution muslim and talking about should i do this, should i travel abroad? jesse was helping to radicalize them. then some of them were much more passive. some of these individuals wanted to travel overseas like two men from new jersey. then there was samir khan he

slept in the nypd ov apartment in the new york city after meeting with jesse and the revolution muslim guys before he left for yemen. you also have daniel maldanado fightingith al shabaab. but not only were there foreign fighters, there are individuals in the u.s. who plotted terrorist attacks. an individual named jose pimm pimmentel who tried to build a balm in the kitchen of his mom and then wanted to bomb the new york city subway. you have an individual who want wanted to fly a drone into the pentagon. it wasn't only in the u.s. you had people like jihad jane, a passive follower who wanted to travel overseas. you also had individuals in the

uk who had a plot against london stock exchange. all of these different plots around the world come back to revolution muslim and now jesse morton. and, you know, from the nypd standpoint, this was the jesse we knew demonstrating in new york city in times square. yeah, this is actually may 1, 2010. which some of you may remember is the day that a vehicle was driven into times square and da explode it. it had nothing to do with revolution muslim in particular. but there he was two blocks away doing his provocative demonstrations. we've talked about it in another piece about nypd using

undercovers, informants, civilian analystsnd digital undercovers to be able to thwart revolution muslim. that's a little bit on the policy side of it. let me just leavet as set up and hand it over to jesse from there. >> thank you mitch and new america for having us. the primary complaint that revolution muslim had with the islamic thinkers society when we split from them was pretty much twofold. we felt they hadn't recognized the growing influence of the internet and the role it should play in radicalization. they were unwilling to support and endorse al qaeda publicly. we differed in that. for them, street demonstrations and real world activity was a means of relinquishing yourself from the sin that would be

associated for not calling for the reestablishment of the calipha caliphate. for us the internet was a means of creating a globalized network that could have sort of run parallel to identifications that are associated with the nation state. the efforts we engaged in were essentially the onset of a virtual caliphate. we realized the important of offline activity and we would shoot everything we did including eating, talking passively on subways, aining, working out in the backyard, question and answers with the scholar that was associated with our website. we gave this perceptiono followers and we were able to say the echo chamber we created was about putting ideas we were disseminating into practice. so an important principle that

we utilized was the offline activity feeds the online. we were founded on september 25th, 2007, when then the iranian president came to new york city for a united nations events. i actually started that day in class with lisa anderson, who went on to become the dean of american institute in cairo, but by the midafternoon i was embedded with my associate who would go on to become the co-founder of revolution muslim. protesters are holding a sign that says i'll make a mushroom crowd over israel. it appeared all over anti-islamic websites. we saw quickly the power of creating controversial. we were consciously polarizing society. it was one of our primary

agendas. we do see that has continued today evolve into today. every time there was a need to point to evidence that muslims in america wanted to establish sharia law, they had but one proof and piece of evidence and that was always us. so we benefitted fm that and thee bitdm well. our online activity was supported by recording everything we did together. that was the way and the manner in which the offline fed the online. we would radical you online before we would encourage you to act in the field. that's mainly what distinguished us. one of the other things that was very important and very -- i think. okay. manipulate the mainstream media. it wasn't about what was going on in your echo chamber, but it was to be controversial so the

media would cover you. we were covered on outlets such as fox news and cnn where we were constantly covered as a group that was very small, but the way they covered us made us look larger than we actually were. for our followers it made us look like we were legitimate activists. we also appeared regularly on anti-american outlets which also gave us the venue of intellectualism and including public television talk shows. that really allowed us to solidify the notion that we were legitimate movement inside the minds of our adherents and also a major means of recruiting new individuals. another of our efforts that isis has since mastered was utilization of social media. at the time we launched in 2007 there was a major transition from the internet discussion forums, websites as the core through which the jihadists'

ideology and propaganda was disseminated and we were migrating at new outlets like youtube. so in early 2008 i received a dvd from the cleric in jamaica. he sen me a dvd on a show called religious hard talk. a segment ofha showed him telling a cleric, a catholic cleric, that jesus himself preached jihad. and then asking the cleric to look up a piece of evidence for it which was an allegory in the gospel. and the cleric did not know it existed. he was humilatwas humilulated. i showed the clip. the clip went viral and we realized quickly the power of

social media 2.0 you might say. so this was essentially the start of our youtube channel which became a major means of our radic efforts. that video has been crossposted to youtube all over. it doesn't violate terms of service agreements. it can't be taken down and it has millions and millions of views if you add them up. over five million views in totality. we really knew the youtube channel and social media was powerful when we saw the jihad jane case. jihad jane was covered as someone who had subscribed to our youtube channel and it was that case that set off the idea that we were transitioning from primary attacks ordered and directed from overseas more into the lone wolf style threat to the homeland. so once jihad jane was covered

as a subscriber to our youtube channel, that was the time when an war a a quote was saying that jihad was becoming as american as apple pie. of particular importance was the case of a stabbing of steven b tibbs in 2010. it was in an interview that she said the two primary means was revolution muslim and lectures. so this continued to happen, as i said time and time again, where we saw the internet facilitating a progression from radicalization into actual action. so it wasn't just youtube for sure. the indictment against me read that apart from ten domains,

revolution muslim used slideshare, facebook and twitter. er the first jihadi organization to access all the new social media sites th. the other template setting effort that we engaged in was the design of the veryir english language magazines. one of our associates, before he left for yemen, we started what was called jihad recollections. was authorized and i wrote the lead article. it ran for only four issues. when you compare -- as you can see in the image there -- when yo compare jihad recollections

to today's version you can see it hasn't changed much at all. it is interesting to consider that t evolution represented pretty much the very first time where you had this opportunity to become a virtual plotter. so now americans embedded with jihadists overseas had comebeco pped equipp in english. english propaganda wasn't an import to the west, but very much an export in an ameri style to organizations, terrorist organizations overseas. this is an image of a program that most people aren't necessarily aware about. it's called pal talk.

in 2009 we used pal talk to set up to hold online classes. we wouldrdat session and disreligious ciples follhat up with discourse about current affairs. our administrators were mostly female and would type the notes to students in the room and give links to articles. listeners could chat during the discussion. there would be a q&a session. then for those that had interest in donating, contributing to the movement, asking more questions or engaging in one-on-one discourse, the administrators would screen them and forward them into the instant messaging platform. this is not at all unlike the way that telegram is using that -- that isis is holding

telegram today. it's not that much different. isis developed its own online english recruitment efforts by drawing upon the foundation revolution muslim has developed. that's one of e claims we made in the paper. there's a lot that could be discussed with regard to that. a lot of the details are mentioned in the paper. one of the key concepts we imparted was called open source jihad. a term that was coined by my co-cspirats. in march 2010 he utilized the term. then the follow months when we threatened the writers of south park for portraying the prophet muhammad. it caused a lot of conversation. it led indonesia and pakistan to

threaten to shut down facebook. in that moment, the first edition of inspire was launched. that edition of inspire, that first edition includes a fatwah that calls for the woman who started the draw muhammad day to be assassinated. that first initial article included the article that mitch referenced. al qaeda just launched a telegram channel that was pretty well viewed and the very first thing they launched was every single edition of inspire magazine in the english language. that happened recently. basically inspired open source jihad as allowing muslims to train at home instead of risking dangerous travel abroad. in the same manner that isis suggested f days later they

transitioned their english language magazine's name. finally, as isis loses territory, the threat from isis will increasingly resemble that you casee a few of the slides on screen show examples of isis supporters picking up the model and the tem radicalization. basically translating in an american or in a western way content that they're finding coming from isis' core but doing it in the english language st can maintain its influence. as isis become a virtual caliphate they'll replicate what al qaeda did in the aftermath of its own territorial loss after 9/11. and, also, in the aftermath of the arab spring when a lot of

people assumed that the al qaeda threat would diminish, we had osama bin laden issuing messages that we should endorse it. during this time in the 2011 era, al qaeda and groups like the islamic state in iraq became a brand. they became an idea. that's how they wereble to maintain their influence. waiting patiently in what they consider to be a war of attrition. meanwhile, after my disbandment, my arrest may 2011 revolution muslim shut down. but pal talk, the collaboration with jihadists in britain and belgium continued. so while there was ncaliphate, there was still the disseminatio o ideogy. that is what really, i think, made a lot of westerners who

were preindoctrinated flock to the announcement that the caliphate had been resurrected. today i think we have an opportunity to attack the roots of radicalization and recruitment. that's assia withhe territial ss. other words to go further and to attack the idea, to come up with effective means of countering violent extremism we have to better understand the methodology of recruitment. that's the reason why we wrote the paper. this is a historical progression. i think when isis cameutit its big social media apparatus and its ability to tap into mainstream coverage, i think it was assumed this was something new. it's a product of a long evolution. i think one very interesting quote that i think is applicable to the context we exist in now is one from michael rappaport. he started his religious wave in

1979. model that basically expects waves to last a generation of 20 to 30 years. we're surpassing that. he says a wave of terrorism is composed of organizations. but waves in organizations have very different life rhythms. when a wave's energy cannot inspire new organizations, the wave disappeared. political concessions, changes in the perceptions of generations are critical facrs in explaining the disappearance. as jihadists transition to a virtual caliphate, run in large part supporters and not actual operatives, addressing the variables i think is key to ending the war on terror. why military operations must very much continue, it must not lead us to complacency. that's a pattern that has occurred since the post 9/11 era.

that was a mistake we made after osama bin laden.enhenited state allies pulled out of iraq, and got less interested in the middle east and failed to advance counterterrorism efforts. ideology may have involved from a quantitative perspective, but it's hard to be different. that's what we need to understand it. i think this paper intends to help us focus on attacking the ideas and also by attacking the ideas and by better understanding the networks, methodology and the template, being able to break up those networks so that individuals who were associated with revolution muslim cannot continue to resurrect themselves. there's a lot of examples of that also included in the per. thank you very much. i look forward to the discussion that ensues.

>> it's obviously a big deal to put together a paper like this. it takes a, a lot of courage, and b, a lot of patience and perseverance to kind of untangle all the strands. so congratulations on doing that. for me,think, you know, the most striking part of the paper, i guess, a couple of things that stand out on the tactical level. the first is just, you know, how quickly, you know, the twitterverse has mushroomed, all the different iteration and variations of the jihadists' ilk over the last, you know, decade or so. but i think probably more striking than that is the sort of classic struggle between the bureaucracy and innovation which is the story of all intelligence

failur failures. it's thets sto story of all sec threats. i think the nypd clearlyhod that had had learned lessons from 9/11. it want toded to innovate by ta on recruits who could get out there and collect information in communities where you have arabic speakers, urdu speakers. the surprise was the english speakers were the ones to look out for. so, again, another lesson learned there, certainly for the bureaucracy that actually innovation comes in surprising and small packages sometimes. you know, on the policy side, obviously, you know, here in washington the discussion has been very dominated by, you know, these concerns, particularly from dhs around home-grown jihadists and how to

get ahead of the curve online. i think what this demonstration is it's very difficult to do. especially if, in fact, there's a sort of unwillingness to engage with some of the key d the potential for radicalization in prisons. the need to have some sort of preinterventions methodology. there is, i think, a fundamental challenge around the need for ssmese tools. particularly, you know, psychological assessment tools. i know there are some specialists here in the crowd who could speak to that much better than i. there are some deficits that i think the paper points out. just in turmerms of what the bureaucracy is able to do in handling the problem of what seems like a relatively small group of people in the u.s. context. as we know in the french and belgium context, it's large and pronounced. even in the german context and

in the uk as well. i think, you know, there are some pretty severe policy implications going forward in terms of now thesis core is diminished physically and tespe. there is the question of home-grown fighters who come back with clean passports who will be coming back from iran and syria. that's real. i don't know how big that threat is. i think it's certainly there. and certainly the bureaucracy is not prepared for that. when i talk about the bureaucracy i'm talking homeland security, u.s. aid and other national security apparatus. the typical response of

bureaucracy is to throw money at a problem. but in a relatively kind of unintentional or unfocused manner. i think that's where we're at right now, unfortunately. but there are some lessons to be led. and we talked a little bit about the fact that the uk example, the scandinavian example presents an opportunity for the united states and its bureaucracy and dhs and others to learn how to deal with those coming back from iraq and syria. but also to create opportunities se who are exiting those who leave prison, as jesse did, to reintegrate. that's the other big challenge we don't want to talk about is the return from prison after serving your time and how difficult that is. you know, for a whole swath of

people. not just formerjidists, gang members, all struggleu with the same thing. it's a deep lack of a social safety net for those who have been incarcerated and served their time. in fact, you know, i think our system generally, you know, i think we all can acknowledge is one that embraces the idea that after the sentence, right? and that you'll be deprived of mental healthcare. you'll be deprived of the basics of transitioning back into the social fold. those are some really big issues. i think jesse and mitch kind of allude to in the report that are very important to grasp onto. most importantly, i think for e bureaucracy now as it struggles, the national security apparatus struggles to grapple with this problem, there's a great temptation to throw a lot of money at the online problem. there's still a huge, huge

offline problem in terms of returning foreign fighters, as well as, of course, the reintegration process which is critical. you know, i think we can see in the case of the troubles in ireland, in other instances where those who dec to leave the fight can be actually very constructive in managing the reintegration process, become peers, become resources for those who are getting out. >> thank you, candice. what's interesting, i guess, is it's hard to make predictions about the future as yogi berra famously said. but let's try. i do think that what your point -- the point of the paper is absolutely true. which is there was a template. i think aqap, obviously, kind of took it and it became the isis template. let's accept the fractured

nature of the middle east is going to produce a son of isis or a grandson of isis. we don't know what it's going to be called. there could be a lot of different ways it will come. it will use the isis template to letter. what will it do with it that is different? let's assume it won't be able to take over territory the size of the united kingdom and a population the size of switzerland for all sorts of reasons that we know. one area which i would - it's a question and one idea. these groups have alway taken whatever the latest technology is. for al qaeda, you know, at the beginning it was like -- even before it was al qaeda, it was a magazine called jihad. and then it was broadband video. they're early opters of whatever is available. right now, it's virtual reality technology. you kn, is it relatively

possible soon for a jihadist group -- because, you know, encouraging people not to join the jihad and all the costs that come with it, but to set up virtual reality training camps. is that the next wave? >> it's certainly a fascinating idea to think about. you know, just been recently listening to the caliphate podcast. i can't help but think about in one of the episodes talking about the trainees being in a room and the fact that isis had their, you know, detailed diagrams, entry and exit points for particular landmarks around the world. from that point, not much of a leap to say okay, and now make that available in some type of encrypted way to people who have virtual reality goggles or enhanced reality goggles who can

walk themselves through how do they get into that building? you turn right, you turn left. as we've seen different terrorism groups take hotels and hostages, you know that doesn't seem that far fetched. e islamic state had diagrams and the floor plans and the ability to walk people through, walk potential operatives through that. the counter to it is i haven't got my mind around that. but the idea of it is fascinating. >> i remember mitch, when you started looking into revolution muslim. i was very skeptical. i thought people like ges jessei didn't know jesse at that point these were not a bunch of great thinkers. they were making a lot of noise in new york. i relyidn't take it seriously. you were paid to take it seriously and you had to. it was in new york.

what made you think -- it was easy to dismiss this group as potentiallymarginal. you mentioned -- i mean it's a classic example of somebody who never met anybody, completely radicalized in her bedroom through revolution muslim. how do you see this coming? did you have foresight most other people didn't have? was the nypd -- how that work? >> i remember those conversations. we weren't the only ones to have that with you. what is the real threat of these guys? are they just provocateurs? are they fabulous at making a lot of noise out there? we had a analytical coterie.

you could see how they operated, but also we -- not being part of the washington bureaucracy and not being around since 1947, nypd sort of came to this with a bit of humility. with we're new to the intelligence world, let's meet with the french and the british and the germans and the dux. meetin with the itish, hearing about what they were seeing members, seeing that and sort of looking at that in the u.s. a wsaid thiss themage of that. we haven't seen the people travel overseas to pakistan yet, really. but it certainly is plausible. maybe the group itself isn't going to commit an attack, but it's the people who spin off who say you know all these guys do is demonstrate in times square and make a lot of noise. i actually want to do something.

i want to get into the fight. it's the people who leave those groups are the ones k a eye on which ended up being very much the case. >> jesse, you mentioned zachary chesser.just mind theaudience, in super max right now, in fact, but he was inciting violence against the creators of south park because of that portrayal. we live in a first amendment society, you can say all sorts of things about the prophet muhammad. you can't insight violence against people -- you can't insight violence with people who might actually go and do something about it. that was basically the point of this. t so you said something very interesting about, you know, we have hundreds of people who are going to get out of prison. we're 20 years -- john walker linde is getting out of prison pretty soon. people's sentences are coming up. we haven't seen -- based on the data we look at, unlike in

french or belgium there isn't that much prison radicalization we've seen in the past. when people come out -- jesse, what'sr view on this? which is do some people kind of become more radical inn as a way of protecting themselves emoty an physically? rhe people -- i mean, i was in communication with zack chesser. he wrote me a 100 page letter when he was in jail. you know, it was fascinating. he sd i lied at my sentencing hearing. i'm much more radical now. i took that to some degree to be partly bra. how are you going to cope with 20 years in prison? one of to is to become the bad guy on the block. what happens with these guys -- and they are overwhelmingly guys -- what are the problems they're going to face? what did you face? what can we do?

>> i mean, zack arrehary is an interesting case. he was born to an affluent background. educated at a private school. gravitates towards jihadism. becomes one of our prolific writers. like mitch said, he was rather adamant to a degree where he felt like action was necessary rather than just speaking. so apart from just threatening the writers of south park he went on to try to join in somalia. i've read letters from him as well. let's just say there's indications of serious narcissism there. his case is a little bit different. these serious offenders will get out much further down the road. the exception being john walker linde. i think the way we dealt with it after 9/11 was very problematic with regard to communication management units.

i think we created an echo chamber where we assumed communication would not occur. >> explain in more detail what these units are. >> communication management units are isolated units fortha these units are.>> they are isolated units with people that have i guess, extremist affiliation. not just jihadists but sometimes environmentally, but predominantly, jihadist. so, there are many examples where, they are supposed to be essentially monitored in these cases but somehow or some way that's clearly not the case.>> why is that? what the theory of this case ?>> the idea is that if you were to put them in the federal prison system, one radical individual could rival a guys -- could radicalize the entire population. this is problematic because, these individuals, or those who are in communication management

have probably, let's say, a sentence of seven years. that you are embedded with this man who has 20 years. ofthe indef e communication networks was this man. he played an influential role. particularly, there was a lot of confusion about the syan jiha and how it came to this. when you put them in an incubator, it's problematic beusyou wiperice basic social psychological facts, further radicalizing the individual. for those people coming home typically now, they found a way , with individuals in the community management, then there was a great chart, a couple of years ago, it showed where they are now. like chesser and others. >> the other florence.

>> yeah, call her up. i think this is problematic. that's why we think i need, to get some in place now because there's the risk with th naf reduceseencing, there is more of an ability, to provide them with what they need. the interesting thing is we are communicating wi who have been released as part of trying to come up with a methodology that's sort of pragmatic, it's a program to help. but the most important aspect is the fact that you are unemployable your tarnishe inside of yo soety, it wouldn't be very easy to hypothesize or speculate that the individual might come to the realization that, there's no future for me. and maybe we are back to violence.>> where are you at?>> my process is a case oint i got out of prison in march 2015 and worked very hard to do radicalize with no formal program. i worked with the fbi

informants online and off-line. while i looked for a location to become america's first former long process, this is certainly not what would be the typical case. but i associated with that of my real world and i could not get regular employment so i had to work through the union, i got myself a degree with columbia university, it was humiliating, in retrospect, i did relatively i got a service job and was fired once my identity was revealed. it was a long process. back in dc, i went to public in august of 2016. i had addressed the into a duizatiosian -- the

radicalizati, i reverted not back to pre-radicalization which included reincarceration.>> where are you today?>> today i am in a much better spot, i've got a mental diagnosis of bipolar disorder, i work with locally, i've got a pro bono therapist who treats my trauma, i've finally been able to talk about the things i've experienced regarding abuse and early running away in life so i addressed that component as difficult as it is and i came in a good space. and i think that you know, contact with the process it took to repatriate her eyes --

it took to normalize, all the sudden i realized when i was leasn march 15. ame up with a methodology to experience weathered jihadists had believed that i was released due to my cooperation with law enforcement or due to my appeal process. i went and made a youtube video to say that i won mycase, my sentence was chand d i was free but i think essentially no one would have believed that i was the radicalized. i was immediately embedded with this program. the long story short, the presence was there, he was someone we hide -- we had identified so, it was sort of brought to the table with regard to the fact that, what happened going forward, om the field

which led the individual who was in appearances to say i could no longer protest or express my grievances so maybe i should create an act of violence but in the context of that i appeared in this new york times piece discussion with the identification of that. but apart from that i was recognized with the law enforcement community. regarding the radicalization. for mitch and i, watching this it was a different experience. this was an ideology and organization that is supposed to be defunct.>> how did you hook up again?>> mitch emailed me to say i know you've seen what happened. and you know, if you are up to it we could probably give an ghtening report that could be beneficial. and of course i was open to the idea, we started to collaborate and share outlines. one of the most amazing things was that even though i had destroyed my ability to

function in the state for the time being when i came home i contacted peter and david and they were willing to have a discussion with me as a new ntioned thath had ed and we started to pop about -- talk abothe possibility. editing advice and the process that was sort of making that the paper -- making sure that the paper was included.>> do yodisagree about things?>> may be. >> i think that you know, it's surprising how much we've been in agreement and you kn, i never thought the project would sort of go where we are, a year later, the steps that, we were really adversaries. this team of analysts and myself, i mean, jesse was the boogie man.,

there he was dancing on the first amendment line. in a way, it was for five years, we could not nail him,>> even those in columbia. was at kind of a commonality?>>h different thoughts.>> did they overlap?>> we did not. ybe that is why it made him our adversary. we had and appeared in the marketing material. it was very you know, jesse was a challenge for us. we happened to have under co and informants tremendously well-placed and online, the human asset so we knew what we were doing but nevertheless, jesse was just still propaganda i think. radicalizing and recruiting pe to mobi

olce. frankly my belief is that if it had not been for chesser and his mistake, yeah, i'm not sure how is story would have changed because really, they didn't want to touch the case because it was freedom of speech. it was only when zachary chesser d the specificity of this threat, at the south park creators, what was allowed to the prosecuting district in virginia, to be out there on the line, i think we could prosecuted. and ytinto place from there.>> from the moment. you could say anything pretty much about anybody in this country, what was the line that he crossed, what was it specifically that he did makethe difference? >> so i guess the, it allows

you to say anything. it doesn't directly cause for or provide an access toharm an indial butmy ulti chars was -- charge was communicating a threat. and what chesser did, he posted a picture of a man that was killed in amsterdam 2005 with a knife in his back.>> remind us who he is.>> he was an individual, he made a video that was deemed to be inappropriate or defamatory ag muslims specifically muslim women, and they found out how to access him and sort of took it upon himself to come upon him by bicycle in the

middle of the street and killed him in the street. this was a political reference to the threat but that alone suicient, athe did was he followed it up by not just predicting that there would be harm but justifying why they could be harmed in the theolol argunt and posting the offenses that might or might not be where they were located. this is what was entered into the realm of communication threats. and i think at that model in it of itself it was adapted because one who migrated to join this and had tech skills, they were very keen the osaddresses and names of officials and be effective for intimidation even though the attack might not be likely and the probability would have to be almost minuscule but it was an effective means of propaganda to show you had this cyberspace capability and ability to locate people.>> if you have a question raised her hand. please. >> this gentleman in front. which for the microphone.

>> thank you very much, it's fascinating a lot of this insight. i would like to address the question for jesse, let's say you were the cnn version of online jihadist him, running a revolution, what was the fox, the nt, who are your competitors are the ones online that were, that they had a you know, anti-radicalization presence and perhaps the question.>> i'm not sure that like this comparison. >> abc, cbs. you know, and maybe this would be an you know, apart from the discussion, the ongoing problem.

what could be done online you know, in terms to counter? >> so, if you were to consider revolution is him with cnn and fox opposition, the radicalization message from fox news or separate entity it's an important point you make because at the time there was no such thing as counter extremism they were implementing programs to contain this etc. but here the leadership chose to not give attention or ample my does mike amplify voices which is when the criticisms took place. they had some trouble times, they sent is a publication and it was great for the audience because they came for a different reference. in this event, we refuted his

theological argument from our own perspective and the same thing happened with webb and they really backed off th there really wasn't much of a counter voice but the greatest amplifier for us was far right extremists and we knew it. the cofounder was essentially designated, he essentially had a transcript. he said to me, i want to start the organization he says you've got an ideal education on just the clown what do ihave to offer you? >> i said you are a clown that's great, just be a clown which was more effective than anything, if you wanted to get on fox news or cnn, you just had to go and do some provocativstf right wing would pick it up and you would have more polarization which is how you wanted it.>> it was not until people started to develop systems and ideas for counterbalancing e

strategic implementation plan but by that time there was not as much support so it wavered with regard to implementationepending on the context. so there wasn't muchof an opposing voice, not one that would engages directly for fear of the reply from our voice. we went on cnn trying to terrorize the disbelievers, suggesting that the sensational it was required to get ratings, we were manipulating it and they weren't showing enough positive reasons which is one thing, i think we learned a lot from that at the time from there but, it is important.>> reacting to the graham would argument, summarizing the argument, what do you make of it? >> he said isis is not, it's not islamic but it's very islamic essentially. i think this caused a lot of controversy truth be told i think it is unnecessary

controversy, all of their interpretations and every interpretation and revision should be -- and opinion should be considered valid but the ideology even worse it's a strand of religion that needs to be addressed and understood, is this ability easy? the downplaying of the ideological, he goes into pulse nitclub and hells the operator. a higher-level operative but then you see the massive amount of reporting that says this had nothing to do with idlogy at all until these transcripts were released it was homophobia or, other coverage of it it was because he was a latent or outright, sexual but i think, he's absolutely correct to say that's what it is, a very islamic interpretation because

they revert to the text more so than 99 % of the modern ones do. in order to counter that it's important to understand the nuance of this ideology which is where we make mistakes with our eye on the mainstream. they don't necessarily know how this basis is a sole understanding of that is needed in order to refute the ideology not saying that the ideology, one of the realizations i came to is i thought this was all ideology and an objective assessment -- assessment but then i realized that they had a lot of personal issues. it's all about acting upon them so i think they were essentially correct.>> i don't know that i'm totally convinced that he is correct i think you raised some important issues. there's this deep theological debate going on in the muslim community here in the united states and abroad around whether you are talking about isis. but i think there is this

divide and even in my own line of work, i rarely refer to isis as isis because i don't subscribe to the idea that was ev tite caliphate or a legitimate government. that's not what was represented there essentially. it is sort of a cooked up version of tyranny with a lot of traffic you know, it was very attractive pew people so the debate is really an important one in the sense that i think that the muslim community here, it's got a lot of debates internally abound, where they sit with regard to the legitimacy of some of the argumentation, the theological debate that's very real but i think the other piece here is that, prior to 9/11 there was sort of the anti-muslim cast. the muslim community here, obviously afterward, certainly

i think that they released a torrent of debate as far as where the community sits within the united states and in the meantime we know very well the coverage of the nypd case in court the racial profiling, religious profiling as it were that this was a very real concern and that you know, there is that line around sort of association of freedom of speech protection from undue circum-seizure, it's hard to ignore, very hard to ignore but even more hard to ignore i think is that the muslim community you know, they feel profiled, they feel that they don't have a space and that they are assumed to be monolithic and therefore could be profiled in some way or

another but there is a real twist here that i think that in this case, it's a rough one but there are some parallels i think in belgium in particular and in france it's a special case i know this personally had been there for a long time where you had a try interpretation of the culture along religious lines and i do not know actually in this case, that meet -- that might be the more dire case in terms of how to grapple with the issue of local identity in the european context and what that might mean for the muslim community who are sort of in this situation where if they take ownership of the debate, then they are responsible for everything i do not know if they could grapple with that i think there would be someone better to speak to that.>> in terms of political roles within

the muslim community.>> i think in the u.s. in the early days i was in belgium two weeks ago, it was explained to me that in the brussels state legislature or in the political division, 25 % of the legislature is local. so, i mean in the u.s., with got yoone-people here d there s registering on the scale that i imagine will require some more adjustment but i think something that's clearly on this side, we are the head of the home office, it's gotta be the best argument through a but the idea -- to rebuttal the idea. you could be the hold ministry and you know, that level of achievement and participation in society is ultimately a good thing because that is the best

counter narrative that there is, i think.>> and i would say that, it's not necessarily put the -- the political role but ultimately one of the greatest things was sports, politics and participation, for anyone who could be remotely radicalized. it's stricter policy isn't and this is one of the earlier lessons easily disseminatin one shape or form or another. and even for the more progressive ones in politics. showing someone who is successful with regard, particular people who even use kickboxing is a mean -- a means of to radicalization.>> that raises a big question, a policy goal has been to put it back in the box but now we got someone who is removing saudi arabia from a more centralized

participation, he is also, you know, really pushing back in a very real way from the establishment if you area woman in a divorce case you could maintain kids without going to court which is something way ahead of most states. how big of a deal is it that you've got him accepting that he's done a lot of things but he's also done a lot of things with the religious issue to what extent do you see the ideas part of the radicalization? did you mention these ideas as neyork city? lepr is he able to put the toothpaste back in the toothpaste holder is this do -- is this a big deal or not? >> so, i do not think this will

be that effective in preventing radicalization because i think essentially at this point, understandingthey are fundamentally different and how they coincide with these interpretatis of the text, i don't think it could be put back in the bottle i think they will actually prove to be more terproductive than they would effective in attempting to do so, i wrote a piece that says, basically it says that there's a coming war between these crowned princes. their propagandizing against the proposed reforms to encounter that this man, they had them invade in the peninsula as well discussing the fact that they had a tenure contacted and how this is currently had onbecause there's all the reasons without

the framework, it's important that a lot of times what they are missing with the conversations about fundamentals is in the fundamentalism, some could be the biggest deterrent from the adherents. maybe they can't induce the radicalization but they certainly play a role in the promotion of disengagement so i'm not so sure that removing that woul anything there was a movement were previous kings try to sort of monetize these and in return they occupy thes on the raised peninsula which induced the transition into accepting the idea that the doctrine was the most appropriate through criticizing first the king and announcing him which is authorizing we going against him and transitioning into making his population or audience aware that because they are partnering with the americans they would be no way we could overthrow saudi arabia

unless of course the americans were reduced to not playing the role of global quote unquote superior. >> you know, clearly, from this new york perspective, the two often intermingled those who were sort of imbibing this eology, the earlr stages were not sophisticated enough to understand the differences where they existed but i think you know, the truth is out of the two, i think there is enough material online, published, it can't be taken off of the field and for those who are interested in that, it's something that they could sort of metabolize and use and justify political action that they might have with their religious veneer and their legitimacy to it so, i

might be a little more hopeful but, on this ideological standpoint i think too much is already out there to play back in a meaningful way.>> other questions? this gentleman here? >> my question is mostly for jesse, you mentioned the mediums that the used to transmit messages, facebook, twitter whatever. my question is more about the means you used to propagate it where you more passively waited for people to thread it for you or did outreach to market and message to other groups.>> i think this is an important point, anyone who expressed an interest in us to satisfy their need to be embedded in the network we would give them a position. people were literally assigned to share our information and spread it. it allowed our message to be

reproduced many times over and it gave this person a feeling like they were embedded in part of the movement i mentioned in the presentation that we deliberately recruited free males -- females from britain who are living off of the welfare system. made it awthat women were participating in similar manner. we were able to say it was something for everyone there wasn't a gender bias and that women had a role to play as well it was the ility to maintain this sense of active engagement that anyone could participate no matter where they are in rl >> we had the head of global contact policy speaking here and she's the head of global contact through facebook and counterterrorism was a huge part of that, how would you assess the job that facebook has done in countering these kinds of messages?>> better

than youtube. i think whoever is involved in faceok heaers has some more innovative.>> he runs the counter trl. go ahead. >> i was born a muslim. i got my education in muslim but what i learned about religion, what was similar and what they were teaching, also in the summer when i went to th sque, i learned about religion i learned about them saying wh ey taught is religion. the occupation was muslim. most of the people in muslim will come to isis and i was at that

time working with a organization we did a focus group with some who were young. the occupation it was young people some of them were so happy because this wa first time that they saw the justice of the islamic state but now because of my work, every day i'm facing people who post on social media they post that it's similar with the idea of isis but when i engage with some of them and ask them do you believe in isis, their answer would be, no isis is a terrorist group, my question

for all of you, how should we stop these ideas? isolating if we don't stop these ideas this ll happ again, everywhere and every time in this history. thank you.>> could i ask you really quick which with regard to your education, what country are we talking about here? >> i was born in 1978.>> okay. >> coinciding to the transition with regard to the role that we would play in the iraqi state after that. there was, coinciding to the promotion of, these things are trickling all over. becoming the dominant framework for this for religion but it's not the idea i think she is

correct, in order to counter this we don't just need to counter the ideology or break up the network but need to understand jihadist them and break up the movement particularly in areas of conflictformulate relationships within the community and when you live in a situation like in module where you have the control of the government -- in module -- in muzzle -- there was very little resistance as they marched onto. i don't think it's just about ideology. they encounter this at the same time as we address this. so there's this series of democry,his serious debate. it shows that in some places this could be about social economic variables while another places it purely

ideological. i think that, what you will see now, they were so barbaric that people would accept organizations like al qaeda, you would see an increase that would be beneficial to them as a ol as they became a brand, a corporation, a franchise model, competition was good. in any way that you want to allow yourself to experiment or innovate these organizations alongside every terrorist organization was a learning institution so the benefit is that the general population might be very frustrated with their severity but may be more willing to accept and set up this narrative which is why you might see that they made the announcement for the core ideology, it presents a series there that could you know be dealt with from a holistic

angle it's just not the idea particularly talking about the middle east.>> this is difficult when i mean, you pointed out quite frankly that it was real, it's growing etc. but the elephant in the room, it's really big and it's poor governance and what we know about iraq and what we know about syria is you know, people turn to religion often who are having ideas about social justice when they speak on inequality when the security forces apparatus are targeting populations that are part of the undercla when there's deep corruption in the government so, you know of course there's this kind of great temptation to kind of

talk about the grievances in thabstra but it's important to understand that one of the biggest investments that we were bound to make was in regrowing and reconstructing the government in places like this area in such a way that there was much less appeal and some of these other arguments. >> this is a very key point. and i'm not going to venture into a long discourse but i think there are problems that are multidimensional as people turn towards religion. graduating -- gradually contemplating this. there are innovative ways we can deal with that but i don't know if current policy is trending in that direction. i think it's a good idea to have a true presence certainly, to train military leaders and operatives in the field. but there are conversations that could incur -- that could occur. with regard to this. but understanding the importance

within the structure. it doesn't necessarily have to go along this as long as they are providing effective governance to the people. they effectively collected. there's a bigger problem but there's a large number of people. at the end of the day governance is important. >> returning to the question about trying to detect people who are radicalizing. and then they become violent impediments to using ai to sort of look at people and say who is likely to radicalize but i think from this view, i think thcould be usel as a tool to create a totalitarian space and start essentially with this

overtime. you could get a better assessment on this issue.>> i'm not sure that facebook and youtube aren't doing this. if they were really doing it manually, we had an annulus to figured out -- we had an analyst to figure out, what this would look like. we reengineered this. before he became, we could sort of see the steps and a visible tell with the change for their names and what they were talking about. you could see this in the manual. this no doubt could be done in terms of seeing someone change over time. the question is, what is the intervention?

is that information available as an open source or this is something behind some type of privacy setting? it could very clearly engineer this and look on this. >> then there would be the impement to engineer this manually but have a lot of cases and say i'm going to make this up and certainly there were 10,000 cases that you applied this to. >> if someone was showing this as part of their profile that was visible. it wasn't behind the privacy settings on facebook, theoretically that shouldn't be a legal barrier to get because you are allowing this to be useful to arrest or start detecting. we always think about this as sort of this radicalized buff but we found this was useful. people can be dumb on social

media and say stupid things which indicate what they are thinking and maybe they're getting smarter now but what was your experience?>> there was this evolution where it used to be everyone met up at the mosque. you know, there was a smarter place to be a conspirator and it moved online. it became virtual and it also became a medium where individuals could talk and interact which was an era where people could have participation and might see it change all of the time soere was this element of exploitation. thisnow, prior to the primary place, what people are presenting themselves four on social media, where they are putting up the flag, maybe there is a second look.>> are there other

questions?>> okay. david's was the last one. >> my question involves, doing a great job on these topics and also on sort of showing this consistent goal of, the islamic state or caliphate in some form obviously there's a big difference in what this means going back decades but i'm wondering what was the strategic vision of how what you are doing tactically on social media, contributing to getting into the caliphate? relatedly did you see yourself as having a strategy or were you just, identifying and es ur o d g others to identify more knowledge that the strategy for you it might have been, more about solidarity or living

up to this?>> i think at the time we launched we were basically gradually working with the idea that there was this exception in the community but due to variables, they wanted to be receptive to that. we knew early on, there was an interest. essentially we had the same ideology at the time and worldview. we were actually abiding by this fully which was essentially that they needed to become an idea and everyone everywhere had the obligation to disseminate the idea because of the contraction for their ability to fight in the field. so we were fulfilling that in the united states. but also i don't think our message was that different but anslated is in a different way. we made it very provocative

with a different approach. we would literally scream outside of the mosque ev a piece of literature. but with the use, the public persona, we did american type of stuff, it was great when you looked at this. so. >> well, thank you very much for thpresentation. thank you for thil discussion. ease read the paper and let's give them a big round of au.

>> a couple of hearings to tell you about. a senate panel is investigating sexual abuse of olympic and amateur the fo womes program director for the us gymnastics testified earlier. we will have on cspan dues -- cspan two.>> she was asked about school run violence -- gun violence you could watch that tonight at 10:00 eastern on cspan. >> sarah sanders spoke to reporters about the president's decision to cancel the philadelphia eagles visit to the white house. we will hear from the white house council of economic advisors chair who provided the update on the u.s. economy and job maet the portioy's n of white house briefing is 25 minutes. >> good afternoon.