announcer: washington journal

continues. host: former ambassador marc ginsberg, who served in morocco under the carter administration, now serving as the president for the coalition for a safer web talking about efforts combating domestic extremism. welcome. guest: pleasure to be with you. host: tell us about the coalition for a safer web. what is your goal and mission? guest: the coalition is a nonprofit. to accelerate the purging of extremist consignment from social media platforms and to promote new policy proposals to enable social media companies to fulfill their mission and pledges to prevent extremist incitement from promoting terrorism in the u.s. host: when was your group

founded? what was the impetus? guest: i spent a lot of years fighting al qaeda and isis on social media platforms. when i returned from the middle east, the magnitude of extremist assignment in the u.s. compelled me to focus more energy on the threat of extremist incitement on both sides of the political divide. the organization was started in 2019 with the goal and objective of providing a forensic capability to the u.s. government, private-sector sector and social media companies to support their efforts to fight extremism on social media. host: with the data your group gets, what do you do with that? guest: first of all we issue a lot of reports and press releases. secondly, we do advise social media companies when they are falling down on the job and

missing extremist content. third, we provide congress with a daily dose of identification of extremist incitement to enable them to more effectively determine what proposals are necessary to fight the scourge. host: the rise of domestic terrorism, extremism in the u.s., a headline from back in april on that saying that the data shows a surge in homegrown incidents not seen in a quarter-century. from your observation and analysis, what sorts of events are you seeing and monitoring? guest: based on our work, as well as the work of many others, as well as what reports have been issued by the anti-defamation league and the fbi, there is an enormous

escalation since the charlottesville unite the right rally in extremist organization and the development of malicious. -- militias. all of this came together on january 6. what we are seeing is individual efforts of prejudice, attacks against religious and racial minorities across the country, attacks against asians, against jews, against minority businesses by white coalition groups, retaliation by fringe extremist groups on the left or anarchists. the city of portland has been turned into a haven of what essentially is insurrection by extremist on both sides. we have seen this time and again where individuals have either acted on their own using social media to plan and plot as well as to demonstrate their attacks.

what happened in the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh is a perfect example of that. we saw that at the pulse nightclub attack and the attack against hispanics in texas. the list goes on and on. that is one of the reasons president biden ran for president. he felt the country, he stated this when he first declared, that the country was in the throes of a type of extremist incitement which was dangerous to the core of our democracy. host: you wrote an opinion piece earlier this year in "the hill" that says "we need a social media early warning center." it sounds a lot like what you're doing but what would this proposed group do? how would it function? guest: i will give you an example of the reasoning. we issued press releases prior to the violence on january 6 warning that there was a day lose of social media content

inciting attacks at the capital and unrest in washington. it fell on deaf ears. there were similar organizations issuing comparable reports. i tried to call the capitol police and warned them. somehow the report must of gotten lost up the chain of command. we decided mid-january, after what happened, that what is necessary is to get all the social media organizations together to try to create an early warning center so that when we were able to detect threats of incitement and attacks on religious minorities and other incitement, that we would be able to create a fusion center that would enable all the data we are able to see from here and abroad and share it with social media companies and government and civil society and police authorities around the country. host: what are your concerns now

post january, impeachment, inauguration, attack? what are your concerns going forward in terms of political domestic extremism? guest: quick question. for example, the qanon conspiracy phenomenon of crackpots around the country who continue to try to find ways to reorganize initiatives to support the reinstatement of donald trump, for example. the fact that qanon conspiracy's still run rampant on social media, platforms that helped to facilitate extremist attacks. despite efforts by the fbi and other police authorities to crack down on militia groups, we still see a huge deluge originating from state actors

like russia and iran exporting incitement into the united states, as well as groups from europe, particularly from germany using telegram to organize and make connections with american counterparts to create further incitement in the u.s. host: you served in the middle east. you have been on these issues. from what you hear from president biden meeting with president putin last week, do you think he raised these issues forcefully enough with the russian president? guest: i'm confident that the president did raise them forcefully. the problem is, we saw from 2016 all the way through today, the kremlin, through its infrastructure, whether it is the incitement it uses by individual groups, by the

kremlin's own internet research agency, is continuing to push out incitement and vindictive efforts to promote dissension within the u.s. that is continuing and it is dangerous. it winds up interacting with other content, making it even more lethal than it ordinarily would be. host: marc ginsberg is our guest. we welcome your calls and questions. (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. eastern and central time zones, (202)-748-8000. should the fbi have caught the chatter on twitter and facebook? what could the fbi do about this "free speech?" guest: the work we do is really

not protected by free speech. we are a private organization. we see a lot of content issued by individuals. when we provide it back to the fbi and law enforcement authorities, we don't use names. we are providing them reports on data we are able to intercept. there is no doubt from the biden administration's own new initiative, the national strategy for countering terrorism and the privacy laws of the u.s., we have to be careful about protecting the rights and privacy of individuals but let's be clear, there is a big difference between protecting free speech and protecting incitement against terror groups and violence in the u.s.. from our perspective, it is very easy to determine one from the other. host: let's get to calls. dem, olympia, washington. caller: thank you.

i don't hear a lot of pushback against groups like antifa, who for six months burned down portland. there is a lot of insurrection there. i don't see the caller speaking about that. another question. the data he is collecting, right now you have people, their rights are being violated, who are in federal prison. is he contributing to that kind of abuse of power? that is my question. i am really a very straight-line guy on this kind of stuff. it seems to be a double standard. it makes me upset. i hope he speaks to that. thank you very much. guest: during part of my conversation i said there has been violence from both fringes of the political spectrum. our organization has issued a

bunch of reports around the violence in portland calling out the fact there were leftist organizations, antifa, even those who have hijacked the moniker "black lives matter" for provoking attacks on police and looking for violence with white militia groups. no doubt about it, we called both sides out. secondly, so far as you are asserting thereindividuals who d in prison, i am not sure what you mean. is it because they were arrested for committing violence and causing insurrection at the capital? they deserve to be thrown in prison. host: last week, the administration released their national strategy for countering domestic terrorism. the attorney general spoke about that. [video clip] >> according to an unclassified

summary, the two most lethal elements of the domestic violence extremist threats are racially motivated extremists and militia extremists. the top domestic violence extremist threat comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race. the militia violent extremist threat, described as those who take over at steps to violently resist or facilitate the overthrow of the united states government, in support of their belief that the united states government is reportedly exceeding his constitutional authority, also increased last year and will almost certainly continue to be elevated throughout 2021. particularly concerning is the

observation that the threat from lone offenders or small cells poses significant detection and disruption challenges because of those actors' capacity for independent radicalization, ability to mobilize discreetly, and access to firearms. the domestic violent extremists threat is also rapidly evolving. as the fbi director has noted, we continue to observe actors driven by a diverse set of violent motivations, sometimes personalized, and develop from a mix of violent ideologies. developments in technology exacerbate the overall threat. today, people may be drawn to social media and then to encrypted munication channels. there they may interact with like-minded people across the country in the world. host: your thoughts on what you

heard? caller: it is best to put this into several examples to prove the point of the attorney general. there are thousands of videos on youtube promoting how to make pipe bomb's, how to train for incitement. i ask this question time and again. why should youtube be permitted to put on their platform these types of videos that have helped train domestic terrorists with the know-how to develop pipe bomb's that were instrumental several years ago. why should social media organizations be permitted to enable terrorists to operate on their platforms? most americans are not aware of

the telephone mobile app called telegram, and encrypted -- encrypted app developed by russia to permit people to engage in conversations that are encrypted. it has become the principal supermarket for terrorist incitement in the united states. there has been no effort in the united states to regulate it. it has become of the meeting ground for individuals to incite violence in the united states. the attorney general has a lot of work cut out for him here. host: as we continue our conversation with marc ginsberg, a question on twitter. please define domestic extremism. guest: domestic extremism is violence committed in the homeland of the united states by individuals who either incited

it from abroad or in the united states. for example, he may have individuals funding domestic militia groups and committing atrocities against racial and religious minorities. you have groups that have been declared illegal, for example proud boys in canada as a domestic terrorist organization. in the united states, it is on the fbi watchlist. so individuals in the united states committing acts against americans in the united states. host: from the administration's counterterrorist strategy, number one is understanding and sharing domestic terrorism related information. they say the u.s. government will enhance domestic terrorism analysis and improve information sharing throughout law enforcement at the federal, state, local, tribal, and

territorial levels. in florida, this is chris. caller: good morning. i tell you what, i am anti-violence. i am becoming concerned about the government's bias against conservative views. i am an independent who voted for obama. i have been watching reports that the fbi was involved in the january 6 marches. i do not called in insurrection. i call it a protest. i do not think there was a single shot fired by anyone in that crowd. i think they were just really angry people about what went on during the election. from what i have seen from things put in the windows to prevent people from seeing what

was going on, people who were poll watchers being thrown out, pallets being harvested from underneath tables more than once , etc.. host: any credibility to her charge that the fbi was somehow involved in the venue or six attack -- january 6 attack? guest: our organization is nonpartisan and we are careful in assessing what we are able to do. one thing we focus on is what is originating on social media that could create incitement and promote terrorist attacks in the united states. a lot of conjecture issued by french organizations and others. for example, the origination of the fact that the fbi was somehow involved in the january 6 insurrection originates with a bunch of qanon believers who

issued this on social media. you have to take it for where it comes from. we saw this originating from qanon crackpots, so why should anyone give it credibility? host: next up is carol in massachusetts. go ahead. caller: i was -- ok. my left-wing credentials are in place. what i have been seeing is there is no french. there is no extreme french on the left. there were some local things going on in portland, in one

city, where the city was carrying on some sort of experiment. i am not familiar with it very much. they were trying out something. some element sort of leapt into the gap, but outside of portland i have never heard of any left-wing extremism. you need not have any fear of the left. i go back to the 1960's. in the 1960's, there were elements that favored self-defense. we were mostly nonviolent.

host: marc ginsberg come a focus on her comment about portland and reporting about groups there. guest: there has been an enormous amount over the last year of french anarchist and leftist fringe organizations, whether they call themselves this loose organization called antifa or anarchists in the underground of communists in the united states that have engaged in violence. on social media platforms, which is one of the reasons we called for the creation of east social media standards board -- of a social media standards board to provide independent oversight of social media. we issued several press releases proving there had been significant french anarchist

violence in major cities across the united states these past two years. do not take it from us. this is one of the reasons we believe there needs to be some independent regulatory oversight by which people judge the origination and ability to engage in constant moderation. they are failing to not only provide information to the american people where violence is originating but not doing enough to deplatform this content. host: you talked about the proud boys and mentioned the group is on the fbi watchlist and they are on the front page of usa today this morning. the headline, one man's journey in the world of proud boys. they join for brotherhood. they found racism. where does that group stand today? is your group seeing malevolent activity online from that group, the proud boys? guest: we believe that president

trump helped insight the proud boys to come out of the closet across the united states when he commended them in a speech about a year ago. while proud boys is nothing new, it was eventually -- initially viewed as a macho white group of young men who wanted to band together. they started engaging in plotting and planning of extremist violence, so many in their chapters began to incite attacks against jewish synagogues. they do not have any clean hands. because of the fbi crackdown, they are clearly in disarray. when the fbi finishes with them, this undercurrent of extremist

white incitement in the united states, whether the oath keepers or any french organizations that are white supremacist or acceleration is groups -- one of the most important acceleration asked terrorist groups, is leader is based in russia. the russians gave him refuge from where he is operating. host: let me read you a little from the article. in the article in usa today, they say proud boys leaders such as the national chairman who self identifies as afro-cuban insists it is not a whites a premises group. they point to nonwhite members as evidence. we are a little rough around the edges but now they make us out to be -- not what they make is out to be. at least 25 people associated

with the proud boys are among those arrested in connection with the insurrection of the u.s. capitol. proud boys have been charged with felonies stemming from street fights with anti-fascist protesters. i would not call them terrorists. they are street fighters. that is from gerald johnston, formerly with homeland security. would you call them street fighters? >> if they were street fighters, why was terrio arrested the day he arrived in washington for carrying concealed weapons into washington in the run-up to january 6? i think that says it all. host: let's go to dana in california. good morning. caller: i am just curious. you can tell you are biased against trump voters. you blame everything on trump voters and things like that. there was no insurrection at the

capital. there was only a riot. there were no guns, no weapons of any kind of guns found. you guys do not talk about antifa come up black lives matter. if anybody says they are proud to be white, they are a white supremacist. you can raise your fist and say i am proud to be black and you are not a racist person or anything like that. host: marc ginsberg, any reaction? guest: there is a lot of challenges in this country, it a lot of good people who voted for the president. the fact of the matter is there are people who were arrested for committing violence, for carrying weapons, for injuring police, for trying to stop the constitutional order of this country. you can defend it all you want and claim this is all part of an attack on president trump.

for those of us who work in this world, the fact of the matter is the overwhelming amount of evidence points to mr. trump and his supporters, mr. giuliani and others, inciting that crowd to march to the capitol to engage in the violence they engaged in. those are the facts, whether you like them or not. host: north carolina. we will hear from mike. caller: like the gentleman just said, your complete lead biased. you used to work for the carter administration. when the guy in atlanta shot and killed the people at the massage parlors, everybody jumped on white supremacist. look at all these asians getting beat up and stabbed and killed by blacks, a majority of them. you are jewish and you are not condemning no muslim extremist against the jews.

you will not say nothing about hamas. you are strictly antiwhite. you are the racist. host: do you care to respond to that at all? guest: this type of condemnation comes with the territory. i have spent almost my entire career fighting isis and al qaeda. we explained so much of these attacks originate from the french left as well as from the right here the fact of the matter is that this gentleman has no evidence that the majority of attacks that were committed against asians across this country were committed by blacks. it is the type of prejudice that is disturbing and shows people are not prepared to take evidence at face value because they have their own views. i refused to accept the fact that i am prejudiced because i'm a democrat. i'm prejudiced because i am an american who wants to see extremist violence ended,

weather by people who call in and say it is justified or by people who call in and say it should be condemned. we need to stop it. this country depends on putting these groups out of business and decapitating them. there is a french on the left or french on the right. host: there is a piece in the washington post about oklahoma city and the bombing in 1995. the 1995 bombing offers lessons and warnings for today against terrorism. looking back on that particular incident and incidents like that am a what lessons do you think we learned as a country from them? guest: that the fbi and local authorities need better support to be able to determine the whereabouts and plotting and planning of individuals as well as small cells prepared to

commit violence in the name of overthrowing this country or attacking it because it does not abide by its constitutional order and framework of government. we were helping a florida police department the other day arrested a group of neo-nazis that were slashing swastikas all over synagogues. the police department there said, we need help. we do not understand how social media operates. we need more money to provide support that the biden administration is going to be increasing, funding local authorities and helping track down these people. every day we hear about domestic violence committed by extremist groups on the left or right, there are still people

supporting isis in this country plotting and planning attacks in the united states, constantly interrupted. the fbi has its hands full. and now has to transition and focus on domestic extremism. that is testament to the danger we face. host: in terms of efforts by the biden administration, they say the government has revamped support with immunity partners to prevent individuals from ever reaching the point of committing terrorist violence. the government will strengthen domestic terrorism prevention resources and services. dhs has designated domestic violent extremism as a national priority area in the department of homeland secured grant program. that means over 77 million dollars will be allocated to state, local tribal, and territorial partners to respond to domestic violent extremism. let's hear from peter in florida.

go ahead with your comment. caller: good morning. marc m a i have to disagree. you're talking about is something i expect the chinese government to do with their people so they do not get access to the internet. i want to give you two examples of what will happen. example one, i remember with the kuwaiti ambassador's daughter was testifying that iraqi soldiers were throwing babies on the floor out of incubators. i remember cnn, the new york times, and the washington post all caps their mouths shut so we would go into war. now let's take it present day. we have a fantastic journalist out of d.c., totally fantastic.

he proves in syria it was a lie that the syrian government used gas on its people. the opcw is now embarrassed around the world, but under your legislation you would keep that information away from the american people, even though cnn and the new york times are all playing ball with government. host: we will get a response. guest: social media needs to be publicly transparent. social media companies -- i would like to use this technology. they are a sewer treatment plant to protect americans from malicious contamination through the internet, enabling it to happen. at times, we have seen social media companies have censored independently organizations and

individuals on the right or left because of different standards that many have. facebook has one standard. youtube is another. there is no harmonization by which individuals know what is permissible and not appearing i am not even calling for legislation such as the decency act, which granted social media platforms immunity from content liability. there needs to be an independent, private sector, independent oversight board, able to help the american people understand what is permissible and what social media companies are doing to abide by the rules. host: trent in the nation's capital. caller: i would like to thank mr. ginsberg from what he is saying and i would like to use a word, whitehead jiminy -- white head jiminy -- hegemony.

i hearing a lot of people calling in, blinking -- blaming this gentleman. a lot of injustices happening in this country are because of systematic racism. host: to charlotte and houston, texas. make sure you mute your volume and go ahead with your comment or question for mark ginsberg. getting some feedback there. we will go to jane in illinois. caller: i want to commend your organization for the work you are doing. you obviously know and are researching these dangerous websites. how can you alert the public to avoid these websites?

perhaps tv spots saying don't be fooled into reading these sites. are you related to the great rbd -- rbg? guest: i like to think she will be proud to have me as a son, but we are not related at all. part of the problem here is the mainstream social media companies are by and large excellent places for americans to communicate a lot. what happens is during periods of incitement, of increased tension in the united states, all the crazies come out to put conspiracy theories on the internet. then it is replicated and amplified by algorithms inside these organizations that enable eyeballs to watch and read the stuff. why facebook is permitting qanon content to remain on its

platform even though we know it is camouflaged, even though facebook pledged almost eight months ago to eliminate all cueing on content from his platform, is really unacceptable. why the united states has not done more to fight to the use of telegram the mobile app as a one-stop shop for extremist incitement, largely white extremist incitement in the united states, is beyond me. the list goes on and on. why does youtube permit it to have videos that train people how to build guns and pipe bombs? the key here is to make sure we understand there is no such thing as free speech in this country. speech is inhibited by those who engage in incitement and violence.

that is not protected. it is important for americans to understand that people who engage in incitement and violence, whether in the public or private domain, they have no right to place malicious content, whether black lives matter, fringe organizations, or anarchists, who are engaged in the violence they have engaged in our unacceptable and should not be permitted to have that content there. host: let me ask me -- you about a political story. naaman bundy, the antigovernment militant who led an armed takeover of a u.s. government building is running for office. guest: look at marjorie taylor greene, probably the most prejudiced, anti-semitic,

anti-minority congresswoman in the united states and she was elected by the people of georgia. she has turned out to be someone who facilitates conspiracies. there are other members of congress who support the qanon conspiracy crackpot theories that are rampant on the web. these people are somehow permitted to come to congress and engage in counter constitutional behavior. someone who comes from an organization and supports the constitution i have no problem with. when they are elected to carry out the vicious extremism they believe in and undermine the constitutional framework of this country and be prejudice against jews, blacks, or even whites is unacceptable.

it would be unacceptable that he would be elected even if from a black constituency. host: let's go to wisconsin. good morning. caller: i have a couple comments. one of my biggest is the fact that we do not ever get to the head of these organizations. if you want to talk about the insurrection on january 6, we still have never held anyone responsible outside of the few people we have arrested that actually were doing the act. we do not follow through. same with the politicians. when they make statements that are not factual and no one ever really calls them on it unless you do your own fact checking. caller: --guest: one of the things we could have done to

their coalition is provide a new, bipartisan commission to explore what happened. the republican senate refused to permit the creation of this bipartisan commission. a bipartisan commission would have been very helpful in helping to identify where the money came from, who provided the organizational support, what other individuals were involved in facilitating the violence, we for example no -- i will give you an example. about a year and a half ago, there is a storming of the german parliament by followers of q and neo-nazi groups. many of the people involved with organizing that were inciting people in the united states to do the same, but that never came out because we did not have a bipartisan commission telling to stem the transnational threat and how an organization like the proud boys and the one presenters and three presenters,

-- the one percenters, the three presenters. host: former ambassador, now president of the coalition for a safer >> the house of representatives comes back into session at 6:30 p.m. eastern for votes on some of the legislation debated today. members this afternoon debated a number of veterans and consumer product safety measures. one bill would make it a federal crime to defraud a u.s. veteran of their federal benefits. when the house is back in session at 6:30, you can see live coverage here on c-span. ♪

>> at today's white house briefing, press secretary jen psaki answered questions about the president's covid-19 vaccination goals, infrastructure package negotiations, voting rights legislation, and gun violence. jen: hi, everyone. ok. so i know some of you are going to have to leave for the pool call which is absolutely fine. we also keep you honest on when the president is getting ready to speak, so there are a couple of mechanics.