-- you deal with in homeland security. there are critical engineering issues, mathematical issues involving predictive analytics, but also sociological and psychological things that have to be studied to really understand how things work. one of the interesting things about homeland security as a government function is, unlike the defense department or the military, where you either command everybody that you are dealing with or you're controlling them in some fashion or killing them, you have to enlist civilians. most of the major muscle parts of homeland security involve people who voluntarily are rulesg to submit to the and get sufficiently educated in what is required in order to be able to comply. that is a very different kind of a skill than controlling the domain and commanding it. it is about understanding human psychology and sociology.

those are important elements of what you bring to this. we have seen a lot of value. we have used at the department of homeland security some of -- we have used at the department of homeland security, both in my tenure and that of my successors, we have used your studies in the areas of demonstrating economic value of immigration reform and how it has a real impact in a positive way on our economy. i know here in california, the armor algorithms have been used for smart randomization of checkpoints. it is an efficient use of resources. in terms of the application of grant funding, we relied upon some of the work done it here in terms of maximizing the value of how grants artistry did so they -- how grants are distributed so whatare done based on manages risk and not what is politically expedient or looks good to the layperson or where it seems to satisfy some kind of intuition. we know that the efficient use

of resources is in fact one of the pillars of homeland security -- security. back in 2007, when i spoke and made reference to the fact the time of 9/11, shortly thereafter, osama bin laden himself argued to his adherents that by causing a huge amount of economic damage and forcing a huge expenditure of money by the west in response to an attack that was basically funded with $500,000, he was really leveraging economic power to damage and destroy the west. that was a clear message that if we did not construct a homeland security enterprise that was rigorous and economically based in a way that would not actually destroy our economy, we would each conceding to bin laden and -- we would be conceding to bin laden and his followers a victory. i was in our mind in 2007 when i came here to speak, and i know that your leadership role in pursuing this philosophy is still a very important part of what the department of homeland

security hopes for and expects from the centers of excellence. so now i would argue that we need this even more than ever and first though, as i mentioned we are in tough budget times. , that means that the pool for money that becomes available becomes even stronger, that competing demands become more urgent, and that brings me to the second point. the reality is the public needs to understand that in fact we are not wasting money on homeland security phantoms, but there is rigor and logic and data to support what we do. i will be honest with you. we live in a time now where some of the public support for homeland security has diminished. in some ways that is to be expected. if you think about it, there's now a generation of people, many

of whom are going to school here, for whom 9/11 is really not a vivid memory. a were children when happened. -- they were children when it happened. quiteo not remember with an acute recollection what it was like that day as it unfolded. that means the natural emotional support for preventing it from happening again is not quite there. beyond that, there's a greater skepticism for government, and we're struggling with the legacy of a difficult economic crisis, all of which suggests there other problems and concerns that have to be addressed. as one more than ever in a world -- that is why more than ever in a world in which i think we do have increasing danger the ability not only to conduct research and analysis, but to explain it in a way that is clear becomes a foundation of being able to continue to build on homeland security successes we have had. the successes themselves are part of the challenges we face.

no one would have believed in the weeks and months after 9/11 and we would not have another really major attack on the united states. we have had some close calls. i was reminded, talking to a reporter recently, and i mentioned the august 2006 airline bomb plot, where the al qaeda adherents in britain had the plans to blow up about a dozen airliners going from heathrow to north america. the reporter does not know what i was talking about. that told me that a lot of time has passed and people have forgotten a lot, and we need to explain to them that we have not had an attack does not mean that we have no threat, it means that we have used the kind of innovation and knowledge that you brought to the table in order to prevent attacks. that becomes a little bit of a problem in terms of sustaining support.

what do we face going forward and where do we need to be looking for solutions and innovation in the next 10 years? well, i will point to three things. no doubt you could find 30 more. we have the eve falling -- here is where i think we have evolving challenges that we need to consider. the first is what i call al qaeda 2.0. you might call it 3.0, the next evolution of al qaeda as a terrorist organization. it is quite true that the core of al qaeda, the original cadre that was responsible for 9/11, has largely been eliminated. either they have been killed as in the case of bin laden or have been captured. that does not mean al qaeda has gone away. either they have been killed as in the case of bin laden or have been captured. that does not mean al qaeda has gone away. what we are seeing is a new -- thaton that is now has now passed the size can become more of a franchise

operation, and has spread around the world. their strategies may be different. they may no longer look for the in 9/11 orent like something like the august 2006 airline plot. they may be looking for multiple smaller events against softer targets. we saw that in mumbai in 2008. we saw attempts to carry out attacks like that in times square and in the new york subway over the last several years. you seen a couple of successful attacks, including an attack as a lone wolf at fort hood. a much moreing with difficult strategy to deal with, perhaps with lower body count, but with lower signatures and therefore different kind of thought processes. frankly, terrorism that is much more community based and requires much more state and local intelligence and awareness to identify incipient threats that are not going to be revealed because of spies and

satellites that are somewhere over waziristan. in addition to that change in strategy, we are seeing new platforms from which terrorists can mount attacks. we have known for some time that yemen now is a center of bomb making. we have had some sophisticated efforts to try to get bombs into the united states. there was the underwear bomber, and then there was the effort to goingmbs in printers ever to be placed on cargo planes. technologicalthat ability of the terrorists refined through years of creating improvised expose of devices will continue to remain a threat, and not only do we see this problem in yemen, but we have seen a spread of al qaeda into mali, niger, similar affiliated groups in nigeria. these pose a threat to american interests overseas, but also create possible launching point

for attacks against us here in the united states. to two other areas we need be thinking about as we go forward. first, we look at pakistan. pakistan itself struggles with the taliban, and there are certainly forces within pakistan that have sometimes aided and abetted and supported terrorist groups. we saw that with respect to the 2008. attack in what is particularly concerning as pakistan's struggles in some ways as a state with weak governments is the fact that it is a nuclear state. and therefore, one has to at least aat possibility at some point that nuclear capability could get into the hands of either toernment that was hostile the united states for some segment or part of the government that wanted to use those weapons in a destructive way against the united states.

that means we cannot simply rest on what we have done so far in dealing with a nuclear threat dndo capability. we need to think about a threat that could become quite real in the next 10 years. another area we have to watch closely is syria. some of you will remember in the 1990's, chechnya was a recruiting and training ground for extremist radicals who came from europe, learned how to fight, and then went back to france and germany and other places and carried on the terrorist struggle over there. or recently, we saw some somali toricans go to some only -- somalia. we made cases against them because they were plenty to carry the fight into the united states. there is now a fairly significant number of westerners who are going to syria to fight.

some of those will come back to the west. they will come back to europe and united states. they will have learned new techniques, tactics. perhaps some of them will have evolved some experience with typical weapons. the ability to deal with these kinds of threats and these kinds of weapons of mass a structured and how do we identify these people and how do we track them -- these are going to be the analytic challenges for the next 10 years. besides aler areas qaeda i would like to at least put on the horizon for you to think about. one is the issue of what i call the insider threat or violence from within. i do not know if i am imagining this, but it seems there is a significant uptick in the number of instances where individuals, not affiliated with an international terrorist group, but motivated either by some kind of idiosyncratic ideology or i some grievance had quickly resorted to weapons or bombs to

try to kill innocent civilians and tragically not in frugally in schools. we have seen that time and again. we've also seen efforts to attack our critical infrastructure a few months ago. ttack i powera station in california. there is not a public examination of the cause of that. it shows a sophisticated level of violence and a threat from within against a major part of critical infrastructure. moreover, the episode of edward snowden, which is not a violent episode, but reflects a very substantial trail -- betrayal by suggests that we are now facing what is increasingly being described as the insider threat. people who do not have a record of criminal activity, you cannot necessarily connect them up to a terrorist cell overseas, but

they are dedicating themselves within either a government enterprise or a private enterprise to actually do damage and the tray -- betray their obligations, either by revealing information or should not be revealed or committing acts of sabotagefrom within or critical infrastructure or cyber systems. how do we determine which insiders are a threat? how do we reconfigure our system for clearing people so that we are not simply replaying what we did in the cold war, but we are looking at how we detect the kind of insider threats that we face in the 21st century? monitor whatage to goes on in an increasingly collocated world where data moves and all different places so we can allow people to exchange information, but not downloaded and sent it where it should not be? i would suggest the insider threat, whether it results in

aolence or simply in compromise of sensitive information, is going to be an area of homeland security that is going to require increasing research, not just for the government him up but for commercial and private enterprises as well. they're going to be interested in knowing how they can balance protecting against the threatening insider with continuing respect for civil liberties and civil rights. i think in the area of cyber, you have seen the news if you've opened the paper, now finally i think the clear recognition that be the numbermay one threat we face here in the homeland. some of these are criminal activities that cause serious damage to our economic institutions into people's financial lives and reputations. some of them are the theft of intellectual property. increasingly, we may see the use of cyber as a way actually to commit acts of violence.

we know for example that a couple years ago saw the -- saudi aramco was attacked by a a group supported by iran. we know that industrial control systems and other physical infrastructure that operates based on the internet is increasingly forwardable to attacks and could cause not only disruption of service, but a a lasting damage to that critical infrastructure. it is about to get more complicated. we are entering what is now being described as the internet of things them which is the ability to connect smart devices over wireless connections into the internet and control them or monitor them from remote positions. the problem is that creates vulnerability's through which that people can hack in. if you pay attention to what goes on at the black hat

conference in lost vegas, there been presentations about for example the ability to hack into remotely, when his medical devices are connected wirelessly to a monitoring station. they have demonstrated your automobile can remotely he interfered with through some of capabilitiesnstar they are built into modern automobiles. this is going to become a more serious issue as more and more devices in the home, linked up to smart grids, whether it is returns that order or smoke specter or your -- smoke detector or your television. all these things will be things that can be remotely monitored and in some ways compromise. how we think about the architecture and the trade-offs involved in an internet of things is exactly the kind of challenge i think that an institution like this ought to be looking at. there is a technical dimension

about the way the internet works from an engineering standpoint, but also a social logical dimension. there is an economic dimension. this in a way that allows us to get to the value and efficiency, but without creating serious amounts of damage that we're -- that will not only cause a loss of life, but undercutting the value proposition. bringing together these --ciplines to look at that and you probably ought to get --ilawyers involved, too want to congratulate you on a terrific 10 year anniversary. a lot of great work. at the work is far from over and i know you will continue to be

major contributors to the security of this country, to the economic health of this country, >> him more now from the university of southern california terrorism center. at [applause]r. >> ladies and gentlemen, please nbc4,e coanchor from colleen williams. >> hi, everyone.

the four we get started, i want to ask, are there any foe's in here? you know what that is. friends of erroll. [laughter] there you go. i understand you had to be an foe to get in here. the men we are about to meet on the panel today -- i will be brief in terms of explaining who they are. you have their bios there. it allows me more time for questions. first up we have the research director for international security studies at uc san diego. his research interests include economic development and conflict. he earned his phd in economics at harvard. "the newt book economics of terrorism." he has way too many publications to list, but i trust you will read along. brian jenkins, rand senior adviser and the author of several books and reports and

articles on terrorism. including "will terrorists go ?"clear if that does not keep you up at night, i do not know what will. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he was involved in an effort to take stock of where we are and where we should be going. he was a paratrooper and a captain in the green berets. he says he cannot prove any of that. he promises me it is true. john miller is deputy director of intelligence with the new york police department and worked for the fbi as a national spokesperson. as a reporter and anchor for abc news, somehow he managed to connect and get an interview with osama bin laden in afghanistan. he worked for cbs news across the board, including "60 minutes." dr. erroll sothers is the associate director of research transition at the department of homeland security's create. ok, that is a mouthful. that is why we call them foe's.

he is also a friend of erroll. he is an adjunct professor and has been here for 10 years. he is involved with security at all levels. formerly served as the assistant chief of homeland security at l.a. world airport. he was an fbi special agent. and as many times as i have interviewed him, i just found out out reading his bio. also a swat team member and the santa monica police department officer. bottom line if you see these , gentlemen on television talking about terrorism, you know you are getting the real deal. the experts who know what they are talking about, not like all the experts we are seeing pontificating about malaysian flight 370. [laughter] welcome. about malaysian flight 370. welcome. the first question i really thought about when i was asked to moderate the panel is, what keeps you guys awake at night?

what do you worry about? >> uc san diego does not have a football team. that is because we do risk-based analysis. we are happy to watch you guys at ucla beat up on each other. that is fine. night, thise up at might not be the correct thing to say here, that mostly is not terrorism. we are all going to die at some point. 10,000 times more likely to die thanart disease or cancer we are to die because of terrorism. i think it is important to put things in context and not be sucked into what the secretary

was talking about when he spoke toosama bin laden's plot trap us into doing something which was not cost effective. we respond way more to does spike terrorism family due to deaths by other means -- then we do to deaths by other means. it is a psychological flaw on our part. in the category of terrorism, there are things that keep me up at night. let me be clear about that. i worry about iran, a scenario in which iran is a allowed to get nuclear weapons and starts curing out terrorist attacks with impunity because there is nothing we could do about it. this would be harkening back to the cold war era in which the soviet union was sponsoring terrorism abroad. there was nothing we could do because with nuclear weapons in

place, regime change was not on the table. involved in the killing of civilians in syria. they have been involved in the killing of civilians and threatening our national interest, including our soldiers in afghanistan. gulfhe other persian countries are worried about this. that is my number one thing. order ofhave an magnitude bigger problem if the iranians were allowed to continue. >> you are going to get a string of contrary and answers here. member of a been a workshops, red exercises, itnius is interesting. most experiences you run through a fairly narrow spectrum of

.cenarios they can evolve weapons of mass destruction. those are pretty well known. occasionally, you do come across some others. the results of these exercises are classified that would be less technologically challenging, but really would cause just tremendous psychological reactions on the part of the people. it is not so much that their weapons of mass destruction, but they could set off forces in this country, set off fear and alarm. >> are you talking about things like we saw aster with the boston marathon bombings? something as big as on 11? >> it does not have to be as a 9/11. thatf the worst incidents hit russia was a terrorist takeover of a school.

we have had incidents like that in this country which shooters. can get at -- deeply emotional events. beyond the immediate tragedy, it is going to set off a series of reactions. i think the united states is a pretty tough country. i do agree we often overreact in a sense of terrorism. -- if itally begin to begins to look like a campaign here inents, go with me terms of the sniper in washington. .ssues pertaining to children things of that sort. you can provoke extraordinary reactions on the part of the

people, on the part of the begin tot, where we fundamentally effect our society . those are the things that concern me. >> the things that keep me up at night, there is a stock answer to that question, which is? >> i thought i would throw you a softball to begin with. with. iswhat ke up tonight joe arson i have -- tsarnaev. i am responsible for the area of or 60ty out of the 50 plots that have been hatched since 9/11, 16 have focused on new york. our intellige collection is pretty good. there is no such thing as 100%

when it comes to our partnerships with the fbi and other agencies on al qaeda, al qaeda affiliates. they are not clunky or client need, but we can usually hear them coming from some distance away. 12 years after 9/11, the united states has gotten good at that. what keeps me up at night is inspire magazine goes out to tens of thousands of people who have varying levels of interest and commitment to its content. the other half are reading it saying, here is a set of instructions for a pressure cooker bomb. i could put that at the boston marathon. i could take it to super board -- super bowl boulevard. some of them are looking at the new edition which has a simple recipe for a large vehicle bomb that you can do at home. model or therathon

tsarnaev problem is what do you do when you are not dealing with al qaeda? what do you do when you are not dealing with an al qaeda affiliate? what do you do when you are dealing with al ism?a- ben the conspirators may not content given network or reaching out to the channels the u.s. government has been good about intercepting? what if they are just talking to each other? how does that give them opportunity to fly under your intelligence radar? that is what keeps me up at night. and i go to bed, i go down that list. what could we have missed today? where did we not look? which case are we going to step because month too early needed resources to start the next one? i am not sleeping that much.

the people that we miss, the people that deliberately stay made a grid, tsarnaev comment that he had no friends and that was more by design than by accident. i worry about when john was here in 2005, gregory patterson -- they were nothing more than honor students at two different universities with no criminal history at all who were getting closestfor what was the to an operation plot we would have had in this country since 9/11 was no proclivity that suggest they might do something like that. the thing that keeps me up at night are things like inspire magazine, the increasing opportunities for online radicalization.

now sing a hybrid of ideologies where you have people -- who is embracing islamic extremism on one hand and becoming a holocaust denier on the other hand. that is the kind of individual i worry about. >> is the face of terrorism the thing we need to worry about here changing? we do not hear that much from al qaeda lately. is anhink al qaeda organizational struggle right now. i would boil it down three ways. andhave al qaeda central, then you have the al qaeda affiliates and then you have al qaedaism. and then you have serious. -- syria. al qaeda, trying to run a complex organization under the gun.

shortest tenure you can have in any job is to be the chief of external operations for al qaeda. there is a very high turnover because of high mortality rate. then you have the al qaeda affiliates. a straight up affiliate in the arabian peninsula. al qaeda has given them the ticket and said, we are too much under the gun, but this is your assignment. you need to attack america. you need to figure out the underwear bomb and they did. figure out a printer bomb, and they did. they have tried to deploy all of that. and then you have the al qaeda affiliates, not affiliated with al qaeda, but they are in the same narrative. the pakistani taliban who despite our best intelligence, managed to put a truck bomb in times square at the height of

the theater rush on a saturday night a couple of years ago. the changing face of terrorism breaks down to the base is associated with these four levels. -- based number one goes to martyr himself but get snapped up by al qaeda. they tell him, you can do much more damage if you just go home and put 16 backpack bombs on the new york subway. al qaeda's best bomb maker, they spent time training him to do that. the face of the al qaeda kid whoe, here is a contacts online because he likes his videos and his messages in the message resonates with this kid. he trains him up and gives them the underwear bomb and put them on the airplane. the face of the al qaeda affiliate, he drives a truck

amen to times square because he wanted to join al qaeda and could not get in. he said blow up new york and are named -- in our name. that is of al qaedaism, tsarnaev. i think if you look at the stepladder of that changing it is shifting largely to that bottom rung. it is casting a wider net through developed messaging. >> there was a situation in california eight months ago where there was an attack on the grid in northern california.

to that end, is that what we are going to see rather than some of these dirty bombs or large attacks or a situation like the boston marathon bombing? grid would be a tax on the -- attacks on the grid? what about the water and food supply? discussed.e are topics of considerable concern, but there is a difference between attacking an electrical substation and going after a food supply or water supply system, which turns out to be a much more daunting task. the attack in northern carolina -- carol foreign you on the he attack in northern california on the power grid, we have to keep in mind

history. it carried out a string of attacks on power stations because it was angry with gas and electric. they did cause some significant in san jose. they got better at it. we are not sure what is behind this most recent attack. >> it is not a test run? >> i do not know if we have information that tells us it is a test run. we have information that tried to do it. we are not sure of their notice. -- motives. i would not be able to say. this to besome of

pushed by reporters for answers and we often go way beyond the , whichle information often turns out to be wrong anyway. people were describing within hours of the disappearance of flight 370 that this was obviously a test run. know if we had any information that told us that. about that.areful do i think we are more likely to see the attacks on the power grid or the boston marathon bombings then we are likely to see some of these more ambitious scenarios, which require some skills and logistics to carry

out, the answer is yes. >> eli, you talked about iran. area struggle within the country, but they seem to be less radical than they were five or 10 years ago. nuclear concern about capabilities? >> absolutely. the point to make is that these things are interlinked. the terrorist threat is coming that thesame place failure to eradicate polio was coming from. there are these pockets of the world that are generating drugs and human trafficking and terrorism and disease. difficultes are just to deal with.

there are not that many places, but those places are very difficult to control. the iranians have had a hand in destabilizing those places and should they have nuclear weapons, which is possible, should they get into nuclear weapons, there is nothing we would be able to do about the iranians destabilizing lebanon and other parts as well. it is not just a terrorism concern. it is a public health concern and the concern about human trafficking. >> we have all been talking about the middle east for the most part. what about north korea question mark what about what is happening in the ukraine? are their think tanks looking at

that and perhaps ramifications down the road? concerns has to be places like syria, places like somalia and yemen. gang members.a. who had a video go viral who've now join the fight in syria. they are not the only westerners there. regions,k at those they are inspiring people here because the thrust of that video was to inspire their homeboys back here in los angeles. i find that quite interesting. i would like to go back to brian's comments about the grid. we do not think about that, but

what is interesting is the groups they are targeting certain things, we have been so fixed on aviation for a decade that we forget other infrastructure. several months ago, the fbi thwarted a plot who are going to target a grid. the motivation there was an overreaction of the united states government and the cascading effect could trigger martial law. i sit and wonder, is there some kind of organized effort that targets question mark it could be a stretch, but i find it interesting the grid is being targeted by the same types of people embracing the same types of ideology. >> what kind of effect would for have if it went down region as large as northern california or the state of california? what sort of chaos would ensue

in terms of banking, financials, , gettingod systems airplanes up, internet? what could be the ramifications? you an infantry school answer. it depends on the information on the terrain. can someone with a degree of knowledge and some skills bring grida small portion of the , part of the city, for a short period of time, 12 hours, 18 hours, 24 hours? if we are talking about something on that scale, then we know what happens because we have ample examples from accidents. there are large-scale urban and outages.

over ag the net down larger portion of the country and keep it down for a while is much more difficult. i am not saying there isn't a vulnerability there, but that is multiple coordinated strikes. that is tough to do. --ause the grid is honorable vulnerable to storm, wildfires, all sorts of things, it has a certain amount of built-in resilience into it. could we be looking at ways to increase that resilience? yes. step down transformers. batteries thatke are all interchangeable. they are built for that particular place and takes a long time to replace. to get a long-term, really

long-term, something lasting over a significant area would require coordinated operation that is beyond the capabilities of anything we have seen displayed thus far. >> if you were sitting in handicapping -- let's put you in the mind of a terrorist. if you were sitting overseas or domestically and handicapping, but which are first target the -- target be question mark other than new york city -- target be? other than new york city. >> a large event. city, washington, l.a. are the attractive targets because each one -- >> why? if they hit omaha, it still strikes fear. >> their attractive targets

because they are media capitals and symbolic of different things. new york about money, washington about power, los angeles about fame. i was famous in new york, but nobody gave the shit. nebraska, youra, point is well taken. it means we can hit anywhere. it means we can hit the heartland. that media capital thing is overrated because everybody has a phone, which means everybody has a camera, which means everybody has a movie camera. something that happens in omaha will be instant global news no matter where it is. the ability of those places that do not have the infrastructure that los angeles has developed, new york possesses, that washington has, are going to be

less able to counter those things. it is something i think about. i want to hit back on the grid for a second. they will attack the water supply, they will poison the milk in the calais, they will do a biological -- milk in the h cows. they are thinking about, i need to kill people. i need to have the street running with blood. i need it on tv. i am not worried about causing a blackout. theater. is it requires a storyline that means a big dramatic scene. the money shot involves blood and bodies and that is what they are thinking about.

>> the fact that. is, if we look at homegrown terrorism, it is different then 9/11. qeuda does not have that ability. this is do-it-yourself. do what you can. when you look at the record of homegrown terrorist lots, we see local terrorists looking at local targets. inhave had plots springfield, dallas, seattle, other parts. they were there. determinedorist is -- and john is right here -- i

do not have to -- i do not have to go across the country to a place that is out of my territory to find a target. i can find a target if i am in torrance. i can find a target within one hour of torrance. if i am in springfield, i do not need to go to chicago. i can find a federal building in springfield. >> are different terrorists perceived differently? we hear about to make the , is thatr major hassan perceived differently than the boston marathon bombers or 9/11? >> if you look at the most "inspire"ue of magazine.

"inspire"e in magazine. they quoted me from an interview i did in my book about the boston marathon. they chose to use the quote to say that it is a soft target they can go after again. one of the things i find consistent in the homegrown variety -- whether from one extreme or the other -- they are always anti-government and go after israel. what is interesting about that is, one of the first pronouncement after 9/11 was by a man named august priest. he said, glory be to those who attacked the world trade center. he was a grand dragon with the kkk and was trying to partner

with al qaeda. he said they had a common enemy. in the latter part of the magazine, to have a list of cities and desired targets. aboutpecifically talk gatherings of large people, stadiums, marathons, events, malls, things that have not been attacked successfully in the united states that they would like to attack. disrupting the economy is a desired side effect. the body count. they want to go after places. the last page of the magazine has a truck in a traffic jam in times square with a circle around it. bomb in the right right place can do the right job. it is clear what their objective is and what the targets are.

left, right, or even extremists who are ecoterrorist, there always anti-government and always anti-judaism. >> there are a lot of people from los angeles and it is a los angeles-centric crowd. if you were to look at soft targets around here, what will be primary on your list? what will be the top five? at pastld look behavior. it is the best predictor of future behavior. if you look to "inspire" magazine or the upcoming magazine that we have not seen "et, "resurgence. it will be marketing itself to african-american converts. the leadoff promotional video

featured malcolm ask. -- malcolm x. -- key to terrorism it is the opposite. it should be low tech and high cost. it should be high-yield. this -- of this are the mumbai attacks. you combine that with fire. you saw that used by the terrorists in mumbai and benghazi. all of these things are within reach. when los angeles had the plot on augusteferred to patterson, washington,

the plot was devin -- devastatingly simple. the plan was to walk into santa monica and kill everybody inside. $7,000 from robberies of gas stations and convenience stores to buy guns. they were days away from picking up the last assault weapon. they were going to go underground until yom kippur. reemerge andng to massacred jews as they tried to go into a synagogue until the arrival of the police and then martyr themselves. they had chosen targets, said dates and run getaway routes.

the question is, where would you pick and what would you do, you do what you can with what you have. inyou can find instructions a magazine and you are going to build a bomb, you run the risk of a technical glitch. to one going to default of these other active shooter situations. both models are dangerously within reach. right now, they are being more to araged than ever before larger audience. >> elliott, i want to talk you about the economics of terrorism and pursue this a little bit more. how do you find out about these things? you guys are all involved in intelligence. people on the outside, sometimes looking in, it is easy to monday morning order back. they see 9/11 and think, how did we miss it? they see boston and wonder how the brothers got five.

wasn't there communication? were they not on the radar? two that we see, how many are foiled? >> we have records and they are pretty good. i want to assert that domestic intelligence is optimal. -- i do not want to assert that the message intelligence is optimal. , we areook at the plots confining ourselves to homegrown terrorist plots. not the shoe bomber or something like that. we are looking at 40 of them. got as farnly four as an actual attempt. device in the

car in times square. hassan. ledsoe.whab bo the brothers in ston. that is an extraordinary record and is the result of good old-fashioned police intelligence work. fbi, local police, working to identify those plots, uncover them, and, and, and were them -- thwart them. record has been achieved. the difficulties of the terrorist plots, 68% involve a single individual. one individual operating alone. no matter how good your , while there may --clues in the review mirror

rearview mirror. if you read the last page of a theery first, then read book, all of the clues are obvious. going forward, not so obvious. >> i get a perverse pleasure from going from the back and working forward. >> these little tiny conspiracies, one individual or guys,others or three those are tough to pick up and we are picking those up. -- because itk seems to happen on the east coast or somewhere other than -- notn california necessarily law enforcement, but

littlepublic may be a lackadaisical about "see something, say something?" >> i think we are. in los angeles, we turn off the cell phone, text a couple of friends to see if iit is real. is it time to do the drill? i have not finished my e-mail. in new york, you will get run over. it is not to say that, if you do not look at history, this state has long been a desired target by a number of organizations. ghuth be known, even though laden's first target

was lax. we have been fortunate. we do have a robust system, as brian mentioned earlier, of intelligence. thatve amendment rights are protected. particularly the first amendment. were it not for the good work of the digital hate less. we would find on 100 murdersry by racist extremists. think aboutsting to "inspire" magazine and "resurgence those quote magazine -- "resurgence" magazine.

they had been posting for 18 months before they went out and permitted murders. they had discussed violence being an acceptable form of conflict resolution. it is interesting to go back to the commonality of them all talking about the united states government and the zionist occupied governments being their targets. ist makes it more difficult having the ability to go online to promote hate speech and violence, up to and including the firstcause of amendment. we protect hate speech in this country. will, is the beauty of a democracy. it makes ittime, very difficult to defend a democracy when we have these kinds of laws. flex is it religion or money that motivates the terrorists?

>> is almost certainly not religion. it has little to do with money. it has something to do with something else altogether. it is organizational form. think about the managerial problem that a terrorist bases. you can either recruit a lone wolf who will do damage, but a limited amount. there is not that much we can do about that. you can try to form an organization. the organization has to be a special type of organization. you have to somehow trust people enough. it cannot be one person. you need someone to identify target. you need someone to get money. you need someone to take a video that will make you all famous. as john says, it is theater. you have a conspiracy of five people in each of the five people could trade you in for $1

million. the 40ey talk about plots and 36 were broken up, how did they get broken up? somebody rats out their friends. the economics of terrorism is creating an organizational form of people you trust enough that they will not rat you out for $1 million or to protect their own families or something like that. few numberly a very of organizations have managed to solve that problem. what we have learned with risk management here as part of the six or seven years ago turned out to be so of it -- valuable that we started advising u.s. forces.

research agenda has become so successful that it has come home with the troops and they are using the same ideas to break up organizations that have hotspots. a similar form and different goals. gang violence and drug smuggling in california. not aboutics is religion. we know that because, if you interview failed suicide terrorists and ask them why they did it, they never say god told them to do that. it is not about money. it is not that expensive. $500,000 operations at most. hundreds of millions of damage are done because of our reaction. media and end, the people in general have a misconception on what the face of terrorism is and what motivates people to have -- do harm. >> that is clear.

you look at the arrest that are made and a good number of the people who become terrorists, a sense of believe has something to do with it. , there areeology expressions of faith. the one common thing that keeps is personal crisis. this individual, at that moment in their life, finds that terrorism is going to be the solution. it is the conveyor. the ideology is the conveyor for the personal discontent. my life sucks. i am pissed off at the world. i hate the government. i cannot stand jews. fitsis the ideology that

perfectly and gives me a license to fulfill my sense of aggression. it gives me some sense of meaning and some sense of belonging, doing something, because my life is in crisis. i am running on empty. i can put something into that through a magazine, an online website -- and by the way, that works for religion and for those on the other end of the spectrum. sewer -- point about , -- hasbombers interviewed more would be suicide bombers and the number one motivator is not god telling them to do it. it is all truism. they believed they were doing something good for the community. when you talk about enablers, it and

is community and the environment. mother of the the boston marathon bombers, who said that their son was not shooter. the lax they were minutes behind him because they knew something was wrong. the different family environments speak volumes for what those individuals do. flex you mentioned enablers and we are running out of time. bombers,ston marathon -- there were three or four college students who are being charged with aiding and abetting. you guys deal with terrorism and terrorists. what do you think the sentence should be? should they be held accountable? students andlege just helping a buddy and had no idea what was going on?

i will ask that your answers be brief. flex it is critical that people understand that they have to talk. --you do not establish that i teach college students. i love them. my children are that age. be forgiving about not sent their -- not sharing information about a threat to human life. flex these are ongoing cases. we want to be careful here. between a difference having a buddy who is shooting off his mouth and saying strains ain't and not calling the police. call -- t a .here are degrees of complicity the notion that there is no

penalty for having advance knowledge of a felony or something in which people can get hurt is a well-established principle. >> do you think they were incredulous? they knew he was doing it and could not believe that he was 19 years old. just some dudes spouting off about what might happen. >> i suspect that there are probably a lot more would be terrorists that were turned off by family or friends when they started talking that way and it was in intervention. that does not lead to a call to the fbi or the police. somebody says that is a stupid idea and knocks them off that path. if they go off the path, there is no reason to call the authorities. on the other hand, if somebody talks about violence and

continually talked about that, that becomes worrisome at a certain point. again, put yourself in that position. somebody, aall know close friend, a relative, or something, that has pretty extreme views about the political situation. coastow, being a west anarchist, i have a lot of those friends. you do not immediately think that you are going to call the somebody as a couple of beers and starts talking. there is a line when someone starts talking and it goes beyond a fantasy. that theeyond thinking american public is not served by its elected officials.

that is a common opinion. people start talking about where they can get dynamite, explosives -- >> and you hide my crockpot? this was not a scene out of animal house. it was not that his friends did not know. they recognized him from the picture on television, suspected it was him, took a phone call from him. based on the public documents, you have to assume that they understood that they were in aing up evidence bombing where three people were killed. i am all for understanding that boys will be boys.

this is not that. this is a serious crime. will probably end up in a situation where, no matter how to explain it, if they are convicted at trial or make a decision to plead guilty, whatever happens, they will be dealt with seriously. there is no way to say that they did not know. >> i have to agree with john. you asked that question and the first thing that came to mind for me was the officer who got killed in the line of duty and the people who will never run with two legs again, the people who've lost body parts, the lives that were changed forever. that is not knowing if it was just the two brothers. i have to agree with john. it is hard for me to excuse, in any way, justification for a phone call for two people who we suggeststhey are that

that they hide evidence that leads to the location and identification of others involved in the plot. >> we wrap up with one question here. i ask you to make the answers brief. with my interviews, i go on long. are we in a better place at recognizing terrorists than we were after 9/11. absolutely. we know so much more about what terrorists look like, how they train. we have much better surveillance. updicting somebody showing at the airport, they go through that testing and the models are way better. the, the regions of the world that produce -- we are better and

-- >> they are getting better too. communication is getting better between federal agencies at a federal level. they still require a degree of improvement at the federal level and the local level. that is still -- that is still difficult. one thing on your first question, we are a lot better at recognizing terrorists and our security and so on. the fact is, there is also a degree of terrorism fatigue setting in on the part of the public. the fear has gone down and that is appropriate. that terrorisme is so last year and why do we need this anymore? constraints pistol

-- fiscal constraints. it could lead to a massive dismantling of those abilities. i am not saying they should not be reviewed. we have procedures that started out as extraordinary measures and became permanent features of the landscape.