we are showing how authorities can interfere with her online communication and recruitment. jesse morton, a former g hottie who became an formant for the f vi took part in a discussion at new america. this is about one hour and a half. >> thank you for coming this afternoon. thank you for ose who are watching this today. this is the launch of a paper. this is from evolution muslim to islamic state th was cowritten by [ indiscernible ]. was an investment bank and -- banker on 9/11. he saw the planes crash into wershe went to columbia and do a studies in ma. he joined the new york police department where he became the head of intelligence analysis. one of the most important targets that he had was a group called revolution islam.

the other author helped found the program. they will talk about the report. candace who was involved with this as well, when she was that u.s. i.t. , anis a valued colleague, will make observations, and we will open it up for a wider conversation. i will hand it over to mitch. >> good afternoon everyone. first fall, i would like to think of new america. thank you for hosting us today. when approached about the idea

of a paper written by a former g hottie extremist and counterterrorism professional, they were willing to back it and support us. it's an unconventional reques i appreciate your willingness to go wrong with this. we would like to think our editor. it was interesting timing that we are here. the collaboration of this paper between jesse and myself was triggered one year ago yesterday. what that was was there was an attack in london on the bridge. three individuals in a van, as you remember, drove the van on the bridge, knocking people into the river. they jumped out of the van wearing fake suicide vests and proceeded to enter market,

tacky people. they entered 40 people and they killed five before they were subdued. what attracted my attention beyond the horror of this attack , and they did this in the name of the islamic state. it was not controlled by the islamic state, but the leader of this group was an individual. he was a member of a group called [ indiscernible ]. this is a group that is well known in new delhi, and the islamic groups. they did provocative demonstrations in the uk. they often talked about the black flag over downing street and parliament. more importantly, at various times, as many as 30%, when we are talking to british security forces, as many as 50% of uk

terrorism suspects at some point in time past through this area. why was that of interest to me? well, it turns out that in the united states and new york ci specifically, there is a group called revolution muslims that was led by e same group. this is a spinoff from this other group. inside tnew york city police department, we looked at as many as 15 cases of individuals in the united states and overseas to see who radicalized violence by following revolution muslims, either actively or in actively. they observed what revolution muslims doing. you can see these folks right here in the bottom left-hand corner. what is interesting, and what struck me was that this has

been going on since 2001. the fellow on the top right corner an divial, and new yorker. he allowedthe world trade nter oldering. after 9/11, he left new york. he went to the military academy. he went to st. john's pharmacy school. he went go be the first to post 9/11 foreign fighter. what group was he radicalized by? [ indiscernible ] in new york city. here we are 16 years later, he and his affiliates are still causing death and destruction around the world. the elements of the new york story had not been told. when i was writing is, the idea was, how about we write this about the individual. i reached out to jesse, and he was interested. i want to thank jesse for his hard work on this effort.

i could not have done this without him. [ indiscernible ] did not see action in afghanistan or pakistan. he did provide materials, sleeping bags, night vision goggles, to qaeda. he also participated in a training in 20where some of the 77 bombers were involved. again, he has deadly connections. with talking with revolution muslim, you have to understand that in the united states, first there was [ indiscernible ], and then there was the spinoff called the islamic society in new york city. it then jesse had one of his colleagues left the islamic thinkers. the society talked. they were not radical enough. they were not provocative enough. as a result, they spun off into

volution muslim. people talked about the origins of this program. you had togo back to his career. in the 1950s in the middle ea, that provides some of the background for this. why would you think this was important? what was always on my mind was thinking about revolution muslim comment some of the unknown stories, was that revolution muslim was responsible for these 15 different individuals around the world. many of these eve heard of, but you may not of understood what the connections were to revolution muslim. some of these i mentioned, we have a comment on whether they were active or passive. that means they were interacting with jesse and his colleagues with revolution muslim. they talked about should i do

this, should i travel abroad jesse was helping to radicalize them. some of them are mu re passive. some of the indivialwanted to travel overseas. like these folks from new rs that wanted to jofolk in somalia. and there was sameer con, he was killed in a drone strike. he met with jesse forehe left r yemen. you have daniel [ indiscernible ] who connected while overseas. not only were they foreign fighters, they are individuals in the u.s. who plotted terrorist attacks. an individual named josi [ indiscernible ] who tried to build a kitchen -- a bomb in his mom's kitchen and then wanted to attack the new subway indidual like [

discerble ] who wanted to fly a drone into the pentagon. he had been in an interactive relationship with jesse and s colleagues u like jihad ja, who a passive follower who wanted to travel overseas. you also have individuals in the uk who had a plot against the london stock exchange. all of these different plots around the world come back to revolution muslim. from the nypd standpoint, this wasthe jesse that we knew. he was demonstrating in new york city, in time square. this was may 1, 2010. some of you may remember is the day that alex mensing drove

his vehicle into time square and attempted to exodit. it has noto do with jesse and revolution muslims in particular. he was blksaway, early in the y, s provocative demonstrations. we talked about another piece at west point about nypd using undercover informants and civilian analysts. we had digital undercover's to thwart their plots around the world. that was on the policy side of it. we'll talk about that during the questions and answers. i will set it over to jesse from there.>> thank you madge. thank you for having . the primary complaint that revolution has them ha, when we split em was twofold.

the first we felt that they had not recognized the growing influence of the internet and the role it should play in tmt. nuo,they were unwilling to support al qaeda publicly. r them, etdemonstrations and real-world activity was a means of relinquishing yourself from this and that would be associated from not calling for the reestablishment. for us, the internet was a means of creating a globalized network that could run parallel to identifications with the nationstate with the west or you can say that the efforts that we gauged and were essentially the onset of a virtual influence. we included everything including eating and smoking, writing on the subways, playing in the backyard.

we shot everything we did. we gave a full countercultural perception to our followers. we imparted the message that this image is not just about the ideology was about putting the ideas that we were disseminating into prtice. an important principle that we utilized was the off-line activity that i discussed fed the online practices peer where founded on september 25, 2007. [ indiscernible ] while he was there in new york city for a general assembly and united nations event. i was at columbia at the time and started that day in class. anderson went on to become the dean of american institute in cairo. by midafternoon, i was indebted

with my associate who had go on to become the cofounder of revolution muslim. [ indiscernible ] this was it appeared the next dayin e new yopost. thereafter, it appeared all over anti-islamic websites. we should how quickly the power of creating controversy. we work consciously polari society. it was not just us. we do see that that has evolved today. every time there was a need to point evidence that muslims in america wanted to establish area law, we had one piece of evidence, it was always us. we benefited from that. we recorded everything we di together. that was the manner in which the off-line happened. we would radicalize you online before we encouraged you to act in the field. that's what distinguished us from the other group.

one of the other things that t was ve important for us ce ] to influence the mainstream media. it was not so much about what was going on online, it was an effort to be controversy also that the media woulveyo it gave us a sense of legitimacy and the ability to reach a wide audience. we are constantly covered on cnn and fox news. are constantly covered as the group that was small. the way they covered us madeus look larger than we were. for followers that made us look like we were legitimate activists. we appeared regularly on anti- american outlets. gave us an edge of intellectualism. the longest-running public television talkshow had us there. that allowed us to solidify the notion that we were legitimate

movement inside of the minds of our followers. it helped with recruiting new individuals. anotr the efforts that has been mastered was the utilization of social media. at a point where we launched in 2007, there was a major transition from the internet discussion forms and websites as a course for icthe jihadists ideology and propaganda was disseminated. we were migrating at that time, looking at youtube. in 2008, received the dvd into make a -- in jamaica. it was an hour and a half long debate. a segment of that showed him telling a cleric, catholic cleric that jesus himself reached jihad. he asked the cleric to look up a piece of evidence. it's an al gore in the gospel.

one segment of the allegory, the cleric does cleric did not know it existed. he humiliated the talkshow host. it was an interesting exchange. i experimented with a digital editing software for youtube clip. it's nine minutes in le that shows the return of indiscernible ]. he was released from incarceration in britain. that clip went viral. we realize quickly the power of e start of the . revolution the growing popularity and became a major movement of our radicalizing effort. to this day, the video has been sent on youtube all over. it cannot be taken down, or it has not been taken down. it has millions of views. we knew that this was powerful.

jihadist jane was covered as someone who had subscribed to our influence channel and was influenced by it. it was the case is set up the idea that we are transitioning away from a primary concern for and orders directed to oversee into a leaderless, lone lf style threat to the homeland. once jihadist jane was covered as a strategy and cribbs to our youtube channel, that's when we are able to make the transition. jihadists and became as american as pine as british as afternoon tea. for example, particular importance was the case of [ indiscernible ] you stabbed a member parliament 2010. it was inher interview with law enforcement that she said, the two primary means of her radicalization was revolution.com and listening to lectures.

this continued to happen time and time again. we saw the internet facilitating a progression from radicalization into actual action. it was not just youtube. the eventual indictments against that, but there was a total internet domain. revolution muslim you social media plforms all over. we were the first jihadist organization to access all of the new social media sites. we transitioned into becoming the primary source for information as opposed to online forms. the other effort we engaged in was the design of the very first english-language magazine. one of the key connections and associates [ indiscernible ].

before he left for yemen, we started what was called jihadist recollection. it was authorized. i will read the article from the first edition. it only ran for four issues. when you compare damage, you can seethat the template is nearly identical. send design and content. it is considered that the evolution associated with discernment, combining together provided the first time where you had an opportunity to become a virtual product. now, people embedded with jihadist mentality can get tech skills, and being radicalize in their own country.

this was not just here is an import to the west from jihadist organizations, but it's very much in export. this is an american-style to organizations overseas. this is an image of a program that most people are not necessarily aware of. in 2009, we used this to set up a website to have an online class. this is an influential teacher such as myself would coordinate sessions and would discuss religious principles and follow it up with a discourse about rrent affairs. administrators were mostly female. type a nose to the students in the room and give links to the propaganda. we could chat during the discussion. there would be a question-and- answer session. they would get responses from the preachers that were preaching. for those that had an interest indoting, or contributing to

the movement, they could as more questions for engaging on one-on-one disurse. the administrative groups would stream them and talk them into an instant messplatform. this was not unlike the way that telegram is in their options with isis. they moved to encrypted channels. then they went off to other monitors. itot that much different. isis developed its own on language -- online english radicalization. this is one of the claims that we make in this paper. there is a lot that can be discussed within the regards to that. many of the details are regarded in the paper. one of the key concepts that we imparted was working with you. that's a term that was coined by zachary [ indiscernible ]. he is my co-conspirator.

in march 2010, in an article on revolution muslims, we utilized this term. the following months, when we threatened the writers, it caused a lot of controversy. there was a woman in washington started a facebook page called everybody celebrate mohamed a. that led indonesia and pakistan to shut down the facebook. in atmoment, thlaunched the first edition of this coming from [ indiscernible ].>> this allows the man for the woman who did this to be assassinated. that initial article included the article that mitch referenced. this is a recipe that has been utilized in several attacks up to today. they just launched the telegram

channel that was well viewed. the first thing they launched with every edition of the magazine in the english language recently. basically, this allows musls to look at this at home instead of traveling abroad. in the same manner that isis suggested, five days after [ indiscernible - heavy accent ]. immediately, they had a section of that titled just their attackers. it's a replication of the open- source jihad model. finally, as they leave the territory, this resembles our revolution. you can see a few of the slides on screen, showing examples of isis's supporters picking up the model and template for radicalization. they translated, in american or

western way, content that they are finding coming from isis. they're doing is in the english language, to maintain its influence. as it becomes a virtual option, will replicate what we did in the aftermath of 9/11. also, in the aftermath, when people assumed that al qaeda's threat wadiwe had a summer been lauded posting messages saying we should endorse it. they change the ideology to become truly islamic. during this time, in 2011, al qaeda and groups like the islamic state became a brand. they became an idea. that's how they maintained their influence. waiting patiently what they consider to be a war of attrition to bankrupt us so we can no longer interfere in the middle east. meanwhile, after 2011,

revolution was shut down. it stayed on pal talk. recruitment continued. while there was no group, there were still dissemination of the ideology. that's what made a lot of westerners, who are pre- indoctrinated with the idea, flocked the announcement that it had been resurrected. we have an opportunity to attack radicalization and recruitment. in order to go further and attack the idea, come up with effective means on attacking extremism, we need to deta the template and ideology of recruitment and radicalization. that's why we wrote the paper. this is historical progression. when isis came out with their

social media apparatus, and its ability to tap into mainstream coverage, this was something new. this was a long revolution. one very interesting quote is one from michael [ indiscernible ]. he developed a famous model for waves of terrorism. he started his religious work in 1979. this model is jumping a generation. they say a wave of terrorism is composed of organizations. organizations have different rhythms. normally organizations does -- disappear. one awaits energy cannot inspire a new organization, the wave disappears. resistance, political confessions, changes in the perceptions are critical faors in explaining the disappearance. as this has changed, son in large part by supporters.

they are discussing the variables. military operations must continue. [ indiscernible ] let's not lead us into complacency. that was the mistake we made after osama bin laden. when the united states and its allies pulled out of iraq, and were less concerned in the middle east, and also at the same time, they failed to effectively implement the initiatives to advance them. the revolution was a template and ideolo. it was the methodology. it might have evolved from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. it's not different. that's why we need to understand it. and contractor, safe to help us focus on attacking the ideas.

by attacking the ideas a better understanding the networks, we can break at the networks. that we individuals who were associated with revolution, will not resurrect themselves. there are lot of goodes of that. thank you very much. i look forward to the discussion.>> obviously this is a big deal. it takes a lot of courage. it takes a lot of patience and perseverance to untangle all of the strands. congratulations on doing that. for me, the most striking part of the paper was a tactical level. the first, look how quickly the

twitter verse has mushroomed. over the last decade or so, more striking than that is, the classic struggle between bureaucracy and innovation.that intelligent failures. there are some things that are simple on that front anyway. the nypd clearly showed that it had learned lessons from 9/11. you wanted to innovate. it took on recruits who could get out there and collect information in communities where you have arabic speakers. it turned out that the surprise where the data speakers. they were the ones to look out for. again, that's another lesson

th is a forthe bureaucracy. the lesson comes in surprising and small packages. on the policy side, obviously here in washington, we have discussed concerns from dhs around a homegrown jihadist. we need to get ahead of the curve. what this demonstrates is that it's able to be done. if there's an unwillingness to engage with the key issues around radicalization. we have the need to have some sort of intervention and methodology. there is a fundamental challenge come arou this. we need to have assessment tools. we need to have psychological assessment tools. there are specialist here that

could speak to that much better than i can. clearly, there are deficits. in terms of what the bureaucracy is able to do, in handling the problem what seems like a relatively small group of people. as we know, in the french and belgian content, it's quite large. there are severe policy implications going forward in termof the isis core being died. they may float back online and mushroom there. there is this challenge around homegrown terrorists. these are insiders that will turn back. they will come back with passports. they may not have been detected. they will come back from iraq and serious -- syria.

the possibilities there. the bureaucracy is not prepared for that. when i talk about the bureaucracy, talking about the combined bureaucracy of homeland security, state departments, and other international city apparatuses. one of the reasons for that is, the typical response, the bureaucracy throws money at the problem. this is an unfocused manner. that's where we are right now, unfortunately. there are lessons to be learned. does not command the r.have tal that the uk example in the scandinavian example presents an opportunity for the united states and its bureaucracy to learn how to deal with those coming back from iraq and syria.

we need to create opportunities for those who are exiting. that way theycan in th'shebig challenge that we do not want to talk about. are talking about the return after serving your time. we are learning how difficult it is for a whole bunch of people. it's not just former jihadists. gang members, all of these folks struggled the same thing. the complete lack of a social safety net for those who have been incarcerated and serve their time. in fact, i think our system, we can acknowledge, it punishes you after you served your time. you will be deprived of mental health care. you have to transition back

into the social fold. these are big issues. you guys allude to that in your report. is important to grasp onto that. most importantly, for the bureaucracy, as it struggles, as the apparatus struggles, and we struggle with this problem, there'a great temptation to throw a lot of money at the online problem. there is a huge off-ne probleins of foreign fighters, and force integration processes. that's critical. we can see, in the case of the troubles in ireland and other instances, where those who tried to leave the fight can be very constructive in managing the reintegration process. they can be, peers and resourfothe getting out. >> thank you. what is interesting, are the

predictions about the future. let's try. i do think that the point of the paper is tely true. i think these folks took it and it became the isis template. let's accept that the fractured nature of the middle east is going to produce a son of isis. we do not know ibe called. it cod link up with other elements. it will use the isis template. the question is, what will they do with it that's different? let's assume will not be ableover terries the of the pop -- united kingdom. one area that is in question, and one idea is, these groups have always taken whatever the latest technology is. for al qaeda, at the beginning,

before was al qaeda, it was [ indiscernible ]. it was called the jihad. before that, it was called [ indiscernible ]. right now, the most interesting technology is virtual-reality. is it possible for jihadist groups, encouraging people not to come and join them, but to set up virtual-reality training camps? is that the next wave? >> that is a fascinating idea to think about. we have been listening, d lse has as well. they listen to podcasts. i can't help but think about, one of the episodes talking about the trainees being in a room, and the fact that isis

had their detailed di entrd exit points fo particular landmarks around the world. from that point, it's not much of a leap to say, okay, now make that available was some type of encrypted way for people who love virtual-reality to walk themselves through how they get into the building. you turn right and you turn left, and you can see the terrorism groups using this for hotels and hostages. that does not seem that far- fetched. before that, they had diagrams and floorplans, and the ability to walk people through all of that. the counter to it is, the idea of it is fascinating. is >> i remember when you looked

into revolution has i was very skeptical. i did not ow jesse personally. i feel like these were a bunch of clowns. they seem to be moronic. these are not a bunch of great thinkers. they were making a lot of noise. i remember that we did not take it seriously. you are paid it to take it seriously. let me do you think, it was easy to have this group that was marginal. this is a classic example of somebody who has never met anybody, and was completely radicalized in her bedroom. she loved the revolution. how did you see this coming? did you have some foresight that other people did not have? how did that work?>> i remember those conversations. we were not the only ones to have that conversation. where ask about what the real

threat is of these guys. are they just fabulous folks making a lot of noise? we had a phenomenal analytic group. there out in the audience today. they were very keen to look at what was going on around the world. they looked at revotion muslim , and see how they operated. with not being a part of the washington bureaucracy, not being around since 1947, we came to this with humility. we say we were new to this. let's go out and meet with the french, british, and german. with meeting with the british, and hearing about what they were seeing with member, and those associated being radicalized. seeing that in the u.s., and it was like okay, this is a mirror

image of that. we haven't seen people travel overseas to kistyet. it certainlys lvable. the group itself may not commit an attack. is the people who . all these guys do is demonstrate times square and make a lot of noise, actually want to do something. i want to get into a fight. it's the people who leave the groups are the ones to keep an eye on. that ended up being the case. >> as you mentioned, zachary, remind the audience, he is in super max he was inciting bombs because of the betrayal of the prophet mohammed. you casasoof thing about the prophet mohammed. what you can't do is incite violence against people. you cannot incite violence to people who might go and do something about it.

you said something very interesting. we have hundreds of people who will get out of prison. [ indiscernible ] is getting out of prison soon. people sentees arcomi up. based da we look at, we haven't seen a lot of data. there's not as much radicalization. when people come out, at is your review on this? some people become more radical prison. it's their way of protecting themselves emotionally and physically. i was in communication with [ indiscernible ]. it was fascinating. he said i lied, much more radical now. i took that some degree to be

total bravado. maybe it is true. how do you deal, psychologically and prison? sometimes you just have to become the baddest on the block. what happens to these guys when they get out? can we do?>> essentially, you had an individual who had a very affluent background. he was educated at a himself with one of our writers. he was rather adamant that this was necessary. he went on trav in somalia. it shows when he writes the letters. i write letters to him as well. let's just say, i'm not a

psychiatrist. there are indications of narcissism. they will get out much further down the road. the exception being [ indiscernible ]. thwaat we dealt with the after 9/11 was very problematic for my rspective. [ indiscernible - low volume ] essentially, we created an echo chamber. we have more details of what the units are. the communation management isolated units for people have various affiliations. some of them are environmentalists. they are predominantly jihadist. you get many examples where, they're supposed to be monitored with all their communication. somehow in some way, that's not the case.>> why is that? what the theory?

why are people put in these units? >> the idea is, if you put jihadist across the federal prison system, that one radical individual could radicalize an entire population. they could coordinate planning with other inmates that are about to leave. it is problematic, because these individuals, many individuals who are in communication management will be here for six or 7 years. you are embedded with this guy for 20 years. one of the biggest propaganda is inside of this unit was th usage of [ indiscernible ]. he played an outstanding influential role. there was a lot of conversation about jihad, and how it needed to be cleansed. [ indiscernible - low volume ] when you put them in an incubator and echo chamber that's problematic, it's a psychological and polarizing

option. instead of coming home, now they move away. now, they disperse this to showing where they are being housed. [ indiscernible ] >> this is problematic. that's why we need to get something in place now. isrisk asciated with reduced sentencing. they have more inability to provide them the servic th need. the teresting thing, they are communicating with people that have been released. they try to come up with a methodology, and a pragmatic program that will help. the most important aspect of the fact that you are unemployable. you are tarnished.

it would be very ey to hypothesize or speculate that an individual might go to the organization where there's no future for them. they may rert back to violence. >> where you at? >> my process his employment. i got out of prison in march 2015. i worked very hard to do radicalize. i did that on my own with no program. i worked with the fbi as an informant online and off-line. i became america's first former jihadist. that was a long process. was outed as an informant. this is not what could not get regular employment. [ indiscernible ] it was humiliating. in retrospect, i did well with it. i was fired from a job. ultimately, through a long process of hiring, i went

public in august of 2016. i reverted back, not realizing that i had only dealt with e intellectual radicalism. >> i reverted not back to the jihadist reality, went through various stages, including a relapse. ultimately, i had a reincarceration for the time being. >> where you today? >> today i'm in a public spot. i've accepted that i have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. i take medication to balance it. luckily, i have a pro bono therapist to treat my trauma. i have been able to talk about some of the things i experienced with abuse, early

in my life. i have addressed that. is difficult as it is, i think i'm in a good space. i'm able to write again. it is very healthy. [ indiscernible ] the process read this paper has been beneficial. >> tell us about that. >> with regards to mitch, i've talked about what has happened. all of a sudden, i realized that when i was an informant, was released in2015, came up with a methodology to experiment with whether or not jihadist believed that i had been released with cooperation of law enforcement, or do to my al process.went and made a yout so that i want to case and my influence was changed. essentially, i don't think anybody ever would have believed that i had the radicalized. i was immediately embedded. long story short, [

indiscernible ] was there. he was somebody that we identified as a radical muslim. that was brought to the table with regard to the fact that with [ indiscernible ] going forward, the charismatic preacher's were moving to the plainfield. that led an individual who is not an inherent to stay. i could no longer protest or discuss grievances. maybe i should just commit an act of violence. in the context of that, i discussed the identification of him. it was recognizing the law enforcement community have been aware of radicalization.tchinge a remnant of an ideology and organization that is supposed to be defunded. >> how did you hook up? >> mitch emailed and said i

know you have seen what happened. if you're up for it, we could probably give a very enlightening report that would be beneficial. i was open to the idea. westarteto collaborate and share drafts. one of the most amazing things was, even though i had destroyed my ability to function, when i came home, i talked with david and te ey talk with me on new america. we started to talk about working on this paper. ung, with editing advice, making sure that the paper cluded what it needed. to make did you disagree about things? >> idigrth mitch, mae. >> is surprisingly, we have been in agreement almost things. for , i never thought that the project, one year later, we

really were adversaries. this was a team of analysts. we were the undercover's. jesse was a marked man for us. he was the bogeyman. not only were all of these people wanting to fly to somalia , or pakistan. there he was, dancing on the first amendment line. for 5 years, we could not nail him. >>was that a commonality? >> yes, i was asleep are. >> did you overlap? >> i did not. it made is where the adversaries. [ indiscernible - low volume ] jesse was a challenge for us from a counterintelligence

perspective. he had been tremendously well placed. online, we knew what they were doing. nevertheless, jesse was stillra people to mobilize for violence. frankly, my belief is, if it had not been for these guys, and his instinct, i'm not sure how the story would've changed. the u.s. attorney's office in new york did not want to touch the case. this is the freedom of speech. it's only when zachary crossed the line with the specificity of his threat at the park. they allowed the prosecutor to be out there on the line. everything fell into place from

there. >> dig into that for a minute. in the united kingdom, this is a crime. you can say anything about anybody in this country. what was the line that they crossed? ma difference?>> [ indiscernible - low volume ] my communicating a threat. what he did was posted a picture of [ indiscernible ] dead on the street with a knife in his back. it slightly that the south park riders were involved. >> he was an individual that owned [ indiscernible ] pick he made a video was inappropriate or defamatory against muslims, including the

women. a moroccan found out how to access him, took it upon himself to attack them on a bicycle and killed them in cold blood. this was a clear refenc that was not sufficient to make that a threat. he followed it up, not just by predicting it, but justifying why they could be harmed under the islamic argument. he posed references about where they were located. that's where and judgment entered into the realm of a threat. >> that model in and of itself was adopted. one of the key people that migrated, and had technology skills was very key about dealing with names of officials

, and intimidating them. the attack might not be likely, the probability of that happening might be minuscule, it's still an effective of propaganda to show that you have this capability and the ability to locate people.>> if you have a question, wave your hand. identify yourself. this gentleman here the front. go for the mike. >> thank you very much it is fascinating a maybe i will address the question to jesse. if you were the cnn version of online jihadist, who was fox news? or your anti- or your competitors or those and

perhaps perhaps question. -- >> never thought of that. >> abc/cbs. >> maybe, this is ing to, obviously from what the discussion, an ongoing problem, or to both. what can be done online, you know, in terms to counter? >> so if you were to consider revolution was in efforts to cnn and this fox opposition, and deradicalization of fox news or separate entity, i think it a important point you make. at the time there was no such thing as tve, in britain they were implementing programs, et cetera, but here the american muslim community leadership chose not to give attention to not amplify our voices. that is when the criticism started, muslims in america

unwilling to deannounce terrorism for radicals. they felt-- and it happened sevel the youth group sent a publication, great from our audience. basically lehim a hypocrite, rebutteed his argument. same thing happened with suede, they backed off, there wasn't much of a countervoice. greatest amplifier was the far right extremist and wu knew it. the co-- knew it. the fosays-- cofounder says muhammad, introduce me, we are watching down the street and he says i want to start this organization called revolution muslim. he said you have an ivleague education, i am just a clown, i said what do i have to offer? i said you are a clown, be great. if you wanted to get on fox news or cnn, you just do

provocative stuff and the right wing blogs pick it up and you have further polarization and gumention, that is the they way wanted it. it wn't unl people started to develop ideas about extremism, 2011, barack obama launches a plan. by that time there wasn't a lot of sport. it wavered with implementation depending on content. there wasn't much of an opposing voice, not one directly for fear they would amplify our voy, when we-- voice, when we went on cnn with a viral interview, muslims came out with a suggestion that sensationalism that was required to get ratings, in the main stream media, we were manipumenting and not showing enough positively. that was one thing, i think we learned a lot from that at the time. it is important.

>> grand wood argument that isis has paramount to do this, i am summarizing the argument. what do you make of that? >> isis is not islamic, it is very islamic, essentially. i think it caused a lot of controversy. i think it is unnecessary controversy, i think all religion have interpretation and every should be considered valid, regardless of how irrational it is. i think isis ideology and adherence, worse than al qaeda, is a strand of religion that needs to be addressed and understood. the down playing of the role, like mateen, who goes into pulse nightclub and called a 911 operator, pledges allegiance, he says revenge for higher level. you see reporting that says no it had nothing to do with

ideology until transcripts were released, it is homophobia. other coverage it was because he was an outright home sexual. i-- homosexual. i think it is correct to say that is what it represents, islamic intrperation but they refer to sex more so than 99% of the moderate-- the way they skth to counter that, understand the nuances of the ideology, i think this is where we make mistake with relying on main stream, not necessarily quoting the same basis they weren't and don't know hothat basis is a thorough understanding is needed in order to refute the ideology, not saying ideology-- i thought it was all ideology and assessment of wanting to find the truth. now i realize it had a lot more to do with this, but dical ideas and acting upon it. esse

correct >> i think you raised a couple of important issues. first, this is ry deep thelogical debate, in the muslim community, here in the united states, also abroad. around whether you are talking isis or something else. i think the divide, even in my own work and writing about isis, i rarely referred to isis as isis, i don't subscribe to the idea that it was legitimate government. that is not what was represented there, it was essentially cooked up version of tyranny. with a lot of-- you know, very attracted to people. that debate is really a very important one in the sense that i think the muslim community here is not-- it has a lot of debates about where they sit with regard to legitimacy of

the argumentation, the thelogical debateerize very real-- debates are real. the other piece is to remember, prior to 9/, there was always anti-muslim to a lot of the way we talk about the muslim community he but obviously afterwards it became more, certainly i think the arab springs unleash new torrent of debate around where does the muslim community really sit inside the united states? in the meantime, of course, we know well nypd case in court on racial profiling, that this is very real concern, that it does lock up to the line, association, freed sech, and seizure, all of this is in here. hard to ignore.

very hard to ignore. even more hard to ignore, i ink the, the-- think, the muslim community feels profiled, feels that it doesn't have a space and that it is assumed to be, and therefore can be profiled in some way or another. i mean, there is a twist here ati think in the u.s. case, wrestling, but there are parallels, i think in belgium, in particular, and in france. belgium is a very special case. i lived there for a long time, where you ha the culture, and religious lines, and i don't owat se, that may be the more dire case than even the united states or france in terms of how to grapple with the issue of muslim identity in the european contract. what that ans for it muslim community who are, you know, in the situation where if they take ownership of jihad and

jihad debates, then they are responsible for everything. i don't know if the law enforcement community grappled with that. i guess you would be better decision to speak to that. >> in terms of the political role for the muslim community? >> i think in the use it is really early you know, i was in belgium two wes ago and it was explained to me that in the brussels legislature or the political division, 25% of the legislature is muslim. so, i mean, in the u.s. we have got one or two people here, not even registering on scale. but i imagine that will require more adjustments but i think something that is clearly on the side of the uk, home of the head office is muslim. london's mayor is muslim. i think it has got to be the best argument to rebut the idea that there is no pathway

forward for muslim in the uk, wait a second, you can be whole ministry, you can be the mayor of london. that level of achievement and participation in society is ultimately a good thing, that is the best rnarrati there is. >> i would say that it is not necessarily the political role of american muslims in europe that is ultimately important. one of the greatest entertainment, politics and participation in politics, even remotely radicalized. we impart democracy, policyism, participation in democracy, one of the earliest lessons, in one way or another. it is not just jihadists, policy also, and more progressives denounced participation in politics. somee with regard to in britain in particular,

people that use kick boxing as a mean s of deradicalization initiatives. >> that raises a big question, one of the consistent american policy goals has been to kind of put it back in a box. now we have somebody moving saudi arabia fra consensus base monarchy to secularizing totalitarian dictatorship, but really pushing back in very real way on religious establishment. the very big thing he has done is, if you are a e, a woman in divorce case, you can retain your kids without going to court. is-and this is a ne thing, way ahead of most ab states. so, i mean, how big a deal is it th you have them, that most liberals could find abhorrent. to what extent as part of your

radilial, ese id as partof the problem? if the saudis put the toothpaste back in the toothpaste holder, is that a big deal or not? >> so, um, i don't think it will be that effective in preventing radicalization because i think at this point, understanding saudi arian are fundamentally different than the agreements thatcoincide with interetion and reinterpretation. i don't think it is a genie that can be put back in the bodal. i think muhammad will prove to be more counterproductive than he was effective in attempting to do so. the road recent that says basically that there is a coming war between the crown prince, the son of bin laden utilizing the setment for reform in order to counterthe

idea that this man is in any way descending his son. ey had release from al qaeda ksing a contract with world wrestling foundation to wrestle. same work is important, but a lot of times what goes missing when conversation about fundamentalism occur is that it can be the biggest deterrent from adherence to jihadists and the narrative is-- you might like to think maybe they can't induce deradicalization but they should play a role in ingajment. -- engagement. a movement where previous things tried to modernize society and, in tu, allowed americans to occupy emselves on the arabian peninsula and reduced the transition into accepting the idea that the

doctrine was the most important through criticizing first, the king, denouncing him, rebellion against him, and transitioning into making his population or his audience aware that because they partnered with the americans, there would be no way we could overthrow saudi arabia as jihadist unless the americans were reduced to not playing the role of global interior. -- interior. -- inferior. >> clearly from your perspective, the two interminthose invibeing the ideology in early stages weren't sophisticated enough to they exibut i think, you ere know, the toothpaste is out of the tube, i think there is enough material online, published, that can't be taken

off the field and for those interested in that, that it is something they can ingest and sort of metabolize and use to justify political actions that they may have for religious ven ear, lu-- veneer, legitimacy to do it. i might be hopeful about mbs, but i think too much is out there to pull back in a meaningful way. >> another question? >> jeremiah young, my question is mostly to jesse. you mentioned the mediums used to transmit yourmeage; facebook, twitter, whatever. my questio reabout the means you use to propagate it, possibly waiting for people to spread it for you? or doing outreach to market your message to other groups?

>> i think that is very important, what we would do is anybody that expressed interest in us, to give and satisfy their need to be embedded in the twork, we would give them a position, people were vying just to share our information on facebook, not only did that allow our message to resonate and reproduced many times over, it gave a person a feeling like they were embedded in a part of the movement. i mentioned in the presentation, we deliberately recruited females from britain living off the welfare state, good minister, why would we do that? men love women, number one. and number two, by making it aware women were participating in much the same manner that isis does today, we were able to say this about everyo, right? it doesn't have a gender bias and women have a role to play. it was ability to insert everybody into active engagement. totally decentralized movement that anybody could participate with, no matter where in the world, could be

loaded in-- down loaded in any country. >> we have the global content of policy speaking and she is head of global content for facebook, and basically counterts a of her. how would you assess the job facebook has done in cong these messages? >> better than youtube and take- down approach. i think whoever is involved at facebook's headquarters has some more inovateive-- >> it is brian fishman, an american fellow who e counterterrorism. >> i was born in muslim, and i get my education in muslim. what i learned about religion, what isis is teaching their members, also in the summer

when i was in musk to learn about villageing, same thing, i learned what is now teacng their religion. it wasn't a surprise for me, isis occupation, muslim. lots of people in muslim actually welcome isis and i was workinth an organization, non-profit. we did focus group inside muslim with some young, actually, for first week isis, we did this. group with young people. some of them, i have the record, some so happy because this is first time leading under justice of islamic statefelt now, because of-- state. now, because of my work, every day i am facing people who post on social media, post similar

with isis idea. when i inganl with somof thll them you believe in isis? there answer be no, isis is a terrorist group. you are posting isis on, isis myestion for all of you, how should we stop this idea? because i believe if we don't stop these ideas, isis will repeat and happen again everywhere and every time in the history. thank you. >> can i ask real quick what-- i don't know how d you are, but with regard to education and upbringing, can i ask what time frame? >> back to the question-- >> i am so sorry, you don't have to answer. >> i was born in 1978. >> okay. >> yeah. so i meancociding to sort of the transition with regard to the role religion played in the iraqi, particularly the military too, there was and

coinciding to the promotion of islam by the saudi government. these things are trickling in all over the world and becoming the dominant thing to which interpret religion. i think it is not just about thidea, the american enterprise institute, i think she said in order to counter that we don't just counter the ideology or break up the network, but need to understand the social movement and the way it pullspaicularly in areas of conflict, make a base and formulate relationships with the basic community. anwhenlive in a situation like in mosul, where you had control of the government in the hands of individuals, the military, personnel there, may have been- - it explains why there is little resistant on to mosul. i think ideology itself is countered in terms we think of

addressing the grievances that are valid. so, there is a series oof democracy, one of the papers new america published called all jihad is local, some places it can be about social economic primarily ideological. the other point, i think that what y willsee now is what the social movement is called, isis was so barbaric people accept organizations like al qaeda, i think you will see increasing resurrection but beneficial for the jihadist movement as a whole, like al qaeda became a brand, basically a corporation with franchise models. competition is good, right? in any way you want to allow self to experiment and inovate. jihadist organizations alongside terrorist organizations are learning institutions. the benefit now is that the general population, maybe

frustrated with isis's message, they may be willing to accept a more jihadist narrative and i thing that is why you see that. it would veer to the poor ideology that drives jihadism and presents a series that has to be dealt with. not just the idea at all, you talk the ddt. >> hol istic is very difficult, ghtlthat tsoalnt out quite isreal, it is, you know, growing, et cetera, et cetera. but, look, the black elephant in the room is big, poor government. what we know about iraq, what we go about syria, is that, you know, people to turn to religion often for ideas, not social justice, when there is deep inequality, when the

e targeted, are targeting tus populations that are part of the underclass, when there is deep corruption in the government. so, you know, of course there is this great temptation to kind of talk about grievance and the abstract, but it is really important to understand one of the biggest investments e are bound to make, is in regrowing and reconstructive government in places like mosul, in such a way that there is much left appeal in some of the argument. >> plausible, very good point. i am not going to venture into a long discourse on how we might do that but i think the problem is multidimensional and recognize how people turn towards religion. largely consequences underlying political and economic, there are ways, innovative ways, that we can deal with that. i don't know if current policy

is pending in that direction. i think it is a good idea to stay in syria and have them stay but in the same way we train military leaders and operatives in the field, conversations kind of can improve awareness inside of rerd to things like that, and understanding the importance of giving people freedom and that is okay to do so, this is how structure, doesn't have to concern itself as long as they providing effective governance to the people. isis was able to collect cash and as an individual that lives in the middle east, i know how big a problem it is, they were welcomed by a large number of people. governance is important. how to solve that issue is totally different. >> returning to the question at the beginning about people radicalizing what they might do, there are lots of radicals, very few become violent. but so there would be lots of

legalal impediments to using ai to lack at people and say who is likely to radicalize. i don't think, from, i am curious about your view, i think ai could be tool for a totalitarian state and start assessing, because of overtime, i think you could do a good assessment, right? on this issue? >> yeah, i mean i think a couple of things. i am not sure facebook and youtube aren't doing it, i think they are and sort of self regulatory manner. i think at the nypd we were doing it manually, we had an analyst who figured, what was the online, you know, motto? in person, radicalization we knew what it looked like. we reengineered who he was online, a mere con, a kid in queens before he bekim who he became, we-- became who he

became, we could see steps, they change their name to, what they were talking about, you could see it and it was manual. there is no doubt it can be done in terms of seeing someone change over time. the question is what is the point of intervention? is that information available open force? or is it something that is behind some type of privacy setting? that is maybe where the legal point is. you could clearly engineer when he was a student at london, ucl, to him-- >> and there would be no legal impediment to engineer this manually, just a lot of cases, not making this up but you have 10,000 cases. that you have ai to, no legal impediment to you doing that. >> if it was part of their profile that was visible, it wasn't behind your privacy setting of facebook, theoretically there shouldn't be a legal barrier-- >> as a law enforcement official the fact social media

was very useful for you to arrest people, because we always think social media as being this radicalizer, but turned out to be rather useful by law enforcement perspective because people are dumb on social media and say stupid things which indicate what they are thinking, maybe they are getting smarter now, what was your experience? >> look, there was an evolution where it used to be "everybody met at a mosque." that is where they radicalized. after 9/11, you know, wanna be jihadists realized it wasn't a smart place to be a concerter. then he moves online and it became virtual, or became, you know, what jesse showed there. it became that media where individuals could talk and interact and that was an area where people over repeated participation might change over time. exploitation, i would say i f left pdbut i imagine now it

is the place linkerize coming-- links are coming, what are people posting? putting up the black flag on their facebook page? >> not a gooda. >> horses and ords, maybe worth a second look. >> another question? >> david? last one. david was instrumental in making this paper happen. editor. >> um, so, my question revolves around, in the report you do a great job on the toxic and also on showing their control of islamic state or some form, obviously big differences in what that means. going back decades. i am wondering, what was stratevision of how what you were doing tactically on social media would contribute to getting?

and relatedly, could you see yourself as having a strategy? or were you just identifying and encouraging others to identify figures abroad to add more knowledge of the strategy, but for you it might have been more about solidarity or living up to a religious place? >> very quickly, i think at the time we launched we were laughed at, like peter id, the idea that there was this american exception of among the muslim community that due to socioeconomic variables they wouldn't be recept toofb the message but we-- receptive to the message but we knew there was an interest and would ensued in subquent years was proof of that. essentially we had the same ideology of al qaeda and the world view and we were actually abiding by a dictate story, essentially that altidea needed to become an idea and everyone everywhere had an obligation to

dissim nate the idea because of the contraction phase of the ability to fight the field. we saw fulfilling that in the united states&i don't think our message was that different but we translated it into an american way, in a way we did w making itprovocative, we had a different approach, would literally go scream at the american/muslim community at the mosque every friday, handing out dvds and a piece of literature, an incredibly written propaganda, but with use of as our-- use yusef as our persona, great when you look at a world with videos on youtube. >> thank you very much, mitch, and jesse, very brilliant presentation, thank you, candace for the discussion. please read the paper and give a big round of applause.

> live wednesday on cspan, 10:00 the house returns full work on combined spending bill for energy, water projects, the legislative branch, and military construction. on cspan 2 center returns for debate on judicial nomination and cspan 3 at 9:45, health and human services secretary alex hazer testifys before the house education and work force committee about his agency's policies and priorities. 30 p., keucky senator rand paul leads a senate homeland security committee on impact and constitutional implications of the u.s. military action under the existing authorization for use of military force.

thursday morning, we are live in lansing, michigan, for the next stop on the cspan bus, 50 capitols tour, atsenate president protim will be our guest on the bus during washington journing, starting 7:30 a.m. eastern. sunday on q&a, new york times columnist, ross talks about his book "to change the church," pope francis and catholicism. >> he thinks the church needs to change in various ways, particularly i think around issues related to the sexual revolution, marriage, divorce, and so on. ese are changes the church can't make. so there have been these places where he clashed with bishops

and theologians over how far he can push the church to change, what the church can change without undercutting its own traditions or breaking face with the new testament, the gospel of cheeses joois. q-- jesus christ. q&a, sunday night on cspan. now we take you to the center for strategic and international studies in washington for a look othow mu- - at how marine task forces coordinate with military branches to train for maritime missions. this is abt an hour and a half. >> i would like to welcome you all to today's event, i am mark, a senior advisor here at csis. the event is part of an ongoing series, the mare time security dialogue which is cohosted by csis in the naval institute.