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COUNTERING THE VIRTUAL CALIPHATE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 23, 2016

Serial No. 114–192

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Seamus Hughes, deputy director, Program on Extremism, Center for 

Cyber and Homeland Security, George Washington University ...................... 5

Aaron Lobel, Ph.D., founder and president, America Abroad Media .................. 13

Peter Neumann, Ph.D., director, International Centre for the Study of 

Radicalisation, Department of War Studies, King’s College London ............... 26

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Seamus Hughes: Prepared statement ............................................................. 7

Aaron Lobel, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................................... 16

Peter Neumann, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ......................................................... 28

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 42

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 43

The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New York: Prepared statement ...................................................................... 45

(1)

COUNTERING THE VIRTUAL CALIPHATE 

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2016

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m., in 

room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. This hearing will come to order and the subject here is combating what we call the virtual caliphate on the 

Internet. 

Unfortunately, there is an irony in the effort to combat ISIS recruitment online and that is that the United States, which is the 

world’s leader in technological innovation, is hardly in the game. 

To protect Americans at home and abroad, this has to change. So 

great has been the explosion of slick and professional ISIS videos 

online that, as I indicated, a lot of people are referring to this as 

the virtual caliphate. Because within seconds, ISIS can reach a 

global audience using popular social media sites, disseminating 

hateful propaganda to recruit new fighters and promote its extreme 

ideology. 

And more and more, the virtual caliphate is calling on its followers not necessarily to go to Syria or Iraq or Libya now but to 

take up arms and attack where they are at home. 

‘‘The smallest action you do’’—in their words—‘‘the smallest action you do in their homeland is better and more enduring to us 

than what you would if you were with us.’’ That is the refrain. That 

is the message being pounded into would-be jihadists and it is a 

message that is being pounded into many Americans and we know 

that terrorists consumed Islamist propaganda over the Internet. 

The attacks in Brussels, San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, those are 

tied to ISIS’ online efforts based on the sites visited by those undertaking these terrorist attacks. 

Indeed, ISIS’ online dominance is just as critical to that organization as the large amounts of territory that it controls in Iraq or 

Syria or Libya or other training bases that they have set up. 

Unfortunately, the pace of our ‘‘cyber bombs,’’ as we sometimes 

call them—the counter battery work that we do, that we are dropping on ISIS’ virtual sanctuary to take out these Web sites—is like 

our campaign on its physical territory. It is slow and it is inadequate to this task. 

The State Department’s efforts to respond to extremist content 

online are woefully inadequate. Its Center for Strategic Counter 

2

Terrorism Communications was designed to identify and respond to 

extremist content online. Yet because its communications were 

‘‘branded’’ with the official State Department’s seal, they fell on 

deaf ears. It is not effective to use the State Department seal when 

you are doing a counterterrorism narrative. 

In March, the President issued an Executive order to revamp 

this effort, renaming it the Global Engagement Center and giving 

it the mission to lead the government-wide effort to ‘‘diminish the 

influence of international terrorist organizations,’’ as we said. The 

committee will soon hear from the administration how this effort 

differs from past failures. 

But unfortunately, in public diplomacy as we know—and this is 

pretty widely the view—our public diplomacy efforts on electronic 

media, on social media have really been pretty much a bust—dysfunctional in the analysis of former State Department personnel 

who have taken a good long look at this. 

At a basic level, key questions remain, including the type of message that would be most effective in the face of this virulent ideology. Some suggest that the voices of disaffected former jihadists 

are particularly potent in deterring future jihadists. These are individuals who quickly discovered that life under ISIS is not the utopia they were promised. Or the voices of former radicals—Ed 

Husain with his book ‘‘The Jihadist.’’ I read that lively account and 

it is clear that it is having quite an impact with young people, creating a lot of second thoughts about where this ideology is leading. 

But if this is the message, how should it be delivered? Should the 

Federal Government produce and disseminate content? Is the Federal bureaucracy equipped for such a fast-moving fight? Does any 

association with the State Department mean this message is dead 

on arrival, as we found with the, you know, State Department indicia or the State Department title put out there as part of the narrative? 

A more effective approach could have the U.S. Government 

issuing grants to outside groups to carry out this mission. This 

would have the advantage of allowing the U.S. Government to set 

the policy, but put those with the technical expertise and credible 

voice in the driver’s seat here in delivering the message. After all, 

such separation and distance from the U.S. Government have 

helped our democracy promotion programs through the National 

Endowment for Democracy work in areas of the globe where official 

U.S. support just isn’t feasible. 

We also want to make use of emerging technologies that can 

automatically detect and remove extremist content online. I am 

aware that the private sector is working quickly to develop these 

types of programs, and admittedly, all this isn’t easy. If it was, 

we’d be much better positioned going forward. But if we don’t come 

to grips with the virtual caliphate now, this long struggle against 

Islamist terrorism will extend even longer, with great loss of life. 

So I now turn to our ranking member, Mr. Brad Sherman from 

California, for any statement he may have. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are events going 

on the floor yesterday and today. It is not the House at a high 

point of bipartisanship and order, and we can argue about who’s 

to blame. 

3

But when we come into this room, Mr. Chairman, we do see a 

high point of bipartisanship and order and the credit, clearly, goes 

to you and the ranking member. The ranking member cannot be 

here, at least at the beginning of this hearing, and I have an improvised opening statement. I had nothing prepared walking in so 

let us see whether any of these comments are helpful. 

First in this issue we face the issue of whether to take down the 

terrorist message or leave it up and monitor, and I want to say almost always take it down. 

First, the theory of fast and furious, let them take the guns and 

we will monitor what happens with the guns did not work then and 

the idea of let them leave the dangerous site up and let us monitor 

what happens may not work in the future. 

But in addition, the terrorists know we are watching and they 

have decided—and they have been pretty good at this—that putting their message up publically is helpful notwithstanding the fact 

that we are monitoring it. 

We ought to take it down. That means we need the coordination 

and cooperation of the industry. It was just about a year ago that 

Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Eliot Engel, Ted Poe, and I 

called upon Twitter to update its terms of service and take the terrorist message off Twitter. 

Twitter was reluctant a bit at first but in April 2015 Twitter announced changes to their terms of service, added a new language 

to its stance on abusive behavior and adding the words ‘‘threatening or promoting terrorism’’ and they have substantially improved. 

I should note that since Twitter changed its policies the terrorists have been forced onto other systems. Their tactic now involves 

direct messaging. I view that as a step forward. We closed off an 

efficient way to reach many people and now they have to try to use 

a less efficient system. But we now have to stop these direct messages. 

We also have to focus on their encrypted chat apps—Telegram, 

Surespot, Theema—which seemed to have been created precisely 

for the market of people who want to evade law enforcement and 

I wonder why such products exist. 

Next issue, and one that I have talked in this room an awful lot 

about, is the need to have people who know the language of the 

people we are trying to influence and I don’t just mean studied Arabic in college. I mean a cultural understanding and an understanding of Islamic theology, Islamic jurisprudence, and Islamic 

history. Again and again the State Department has testified in this 

room that they don’t have anybody who they have hired specifically 

because that person has the expertise in those areas whereas they 

have dozens of experts in arcane European diplomatic law as if the 

Austro-Hungarian Empire is the greatest concern of American foreign policy. 

I am not saying that we should be issuing fatwas out of the State 

Department but we ought to have somebody who has read 1,000 

fatwas working in the State Department and someone who knows 

the difference between what is accepted as a good hadith and what 

is not. 

4

And the reason for this as our target audience is people who 

think they might want to kill innocent women and children. These 

are people who start from a very bizarre mindset. They are thinking of becoming terrorists. 

They don’t necessarily see the world the way we do translated 

into Arabic or translated into another language. These are people 

for whom evil consists—the word evil may not include killing a 

Yazidi family or torturing people or throwing gay people off of tall 

buildings. 

They may live in a world where they think the Koran says that 

is what you’re supposed to do. We have to have people that can go 

into that world. Not just the cyber world but the psychological 

world, and demonstrate to them that this is a perversion of Islam 

that has been focused by the terrorists. 

For staffing, we need to look at whether it should be uniform 

military or civilian or some new status that is in between. And finally, Mr. Chairman, what happens over there comes over here. 

What happens in Raqqa doesn’t stay in Raqqa. 

An important part of turning back the cyberterrorist threat is to 

deal with ISIS on the ground and that will require changing and 

the administration is beginning to change the rules of engagement 

so that we can hit strategic targets, doing our best to avoid civilian 

casualties but not with the view that a single civilian casualty—

the possibility of one stops any particular attack. 

The ranking member has a statement prepared for delivery and 

I request that we make it part of the record. 

Chairman ROYCE. Without objection. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you very much. 

This morning we are pleased to be joined by a distinguished 

panel. We have Mr. Seamus Hughes. He is the deputy director of 

the George Washington University Program on Extremism. Mr. 

Hughes previously served at the National Counter Terrorism Center. 

We have Dr. Aaron Lobel. He is the founder of America Abroad 

Media, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the exchange of ideas to 

critical thinking and to self-government worldwide. Prior to founding this organization, Dr. Lobel was a research fellow and professor 

at multiple institutions. 

Dr. Peter Neumann is professor of security studies at the Department of War Studies at Kings College London. He served as director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization since 

its founding in early 2008. 

So without objection, the witnesses’ full prepared statements will 

be made part of the record and members will have 5 calendar days 

to submit statements and questions and any extraneous material 

for the record. 

Mr. Hughes, we will start with you. If you could please summarize your remarks in 5 minutes. 

5

STATEMENT OF MR. SEAMUS HUGHES, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, 

PROGRAM ON EXTREMISM, CENTER FOR CYBER AND HOMELAND SECURITY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member 

Sherman, distinguished members of the committee, it is a privilege 

to be invited to speak here today. 

There are at least 900 active ISIS investigations in all 50 States. 

An estimated 250 Americans have attempted to or have travelled 

to Syria and Iraq to join groups like ISIS. The program in extremism has identified 91 people who have been charged with ISISrelated offenses in the last 2 years. 

Homegrown terrorism is an apt description, as the overwhelming 

majority of these individuals are U.S. citizens born and raised here. 

There is no typical profile of an ISIS recruit. They are old. They 

are young. They are rich. They are poor. College educated and they 

are high school dropouts. 

The United States, with its notable exceptions, does not have extremist organizations providing in-person ideological and logistical 

support to individuals drawn to the jihadi narrative. 

As a result, American ISIS sympathizers are forced to find likeminded communities online. ISIS sympathizers use the online environment in a variety of ways. 

First, of course, they use it to push the propaganda. Second, ISIS 

recruiters act as spotters to identify and groom would-be recruits. 

Third, they provide logistical support for would-be recruits. Finally, 

they encourage Americans to commit attacks here in the homeland. 

ISIS supporters are very active and persistent online. Despite repeated removal from social media sites for violating terms of service, sympathizers routinely return to these platforms with new accounts. 

A prime example of that is a recently arrested American woman 

who operated at least 97 Twitter accounts before her arrest. 

There is a well-used but decentralized system that provides a 

level of resiliency to these online social networks. Using Twitter as 

an example, there is an ISIS shout-out account that announces 

newly created accounts of previously suspended accounts, allowing 

a person to essentially build back their network online. 

However, it is important to note that ISIS network on Twitter 

has declined substantially since 2014 as a result of sustained suspensions. An overt English language ISIS-support network is nearly gone from Facebook but they still use it occasionally to mount 

campaigns and for person-to-person communications. 

The English language ISIS echo chamber is now mostly concentrated on Telegram where they can more easily congregate. ISIS 

radicalization is by no means limited to social media. In-person relationships still matter a great deal. 

It is an over simplification to say that Internet radicalization is 

the main factor driving American ISIS supporters. Rather, in most 

cases online and offline dynamics complement one another. 

In 1998, Osama bin Laden faxed his declaration of war to the 

West. It would rightly be seen as naive to contend that fax machine 

radicalization was a key driver for al-Qaeda’s early recruitment. 

A similar dynamic plays out 18 years later. The State Department and USAID have released a countering violent extremism 

6

strategy. The State Department has also expanded the mission of 

the Bureau of Counter Terrorism to now include proactive CVE 

programs. 

While a step in the right direction, time will tell whether this 

new focus on preventative programming will result in a tangible 

shift in resources and personnel. 

Recently, the State Department also reorganized to address the 

changing nature of ISIS vis-a-vis the Internet. The newly-formed 

Global Engagement Center—the GEC—represents a recognition 

that previous efforts needed to be adjusted. However, the bureaucratic and structural issues that hampered and plagued GEC’s 

predecessor are still present. The GEC may be limited in its online 

engagement by legal restrictions on collecting personal information. 

Working with civil rights and civil liberties groups, the committee 

should consider legislative fixes that allow the GEC some limited 

exemptions from the Privacy Act requirements. 

There is also a noticeable push to empower local partners to provide counter messaging. In conversations with these partners, 

many have expressed a concern that engaging with known or suspected terrorists online may unduly place them under law enforcement suspicion. 

The administration should consider providing the legal guidance 

to potential counter messengers, religious leaders around the country so they can make informed decisions on whether and how to engage online. 

And technology companies have in the past been pushed by Congress and the public to expand and enforce their terms of service. 

That is right. 

But the U.S. Government should use its convening authority to 

bring together civil society partners who want to perform counter 

messaging but don’t understand the technology with social media 

providers who understand their platform but don’t understand the 

nuances of counter messaging. 

Thank you for an opportunity to testify. I welcome your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hughes follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Hughes. 

Dr. Lobel. 

STATEMENT OF AARON LOBEL, PH.D., FOUNDER AND 

PRESIDENT, AMERICA ABROAD MEDIA 

Mr. LOBEL. Thank you, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Sherman and distinguished members of the committee for inviting me 

to testify today, and thank you for your leadership and the example 

of bipartisanship you set on this committee. 

It is so critical because in the long run America will only be successful in countering the ideology of Islamic extremism if our policies have bipartisan support. 

As the founder of America Abroad Media, I have spent almost a 

decade and a half developing partnerships with major media channels in the greater Middle East. Based on my experience, I would 

like to summarize my written testimony and underscore two main 

points today. 

First, the focus of U.S. strategy should be on enabling, supporting, and amplifying the indigenous voices for progress in the 

greater Middle East. This approach will yield far better results 

than trying to manage a counter messaging campaign from Washington. 

Second, the best way for the U.S. Government to support those 

in the Middle East who share a vision for positive change is by mobilizing the creative power of America’s leading institutions—Hollywood, Silicon Valley, our philanthropy, our NGOs, and our universities—so they can collaborate directly with their counterparts in 

the region. 

From my own experience, I can tell you there are many people 

in the Middle East today pushing for greater progress and pluralism and there is a critical mass of them in the media. 

The most popular TV channels in the region reach tens of millions of people and have the highest credibility with their audience. 

Several of these channels are producing programs that seek to promote the values of pluralism and counter extremist narratives. 

For example, one of our partners is the largest Pan-Arab channel—the largest—the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC). It is currently developing a large scale, 20-plus episode, 

anti-ISIS drama series based on real stories of young men and 

women who left their homes to join ISIS only to discover the reality 

behind their propaganda. 

Last year, MBC aired a hit anti-ISIS comedy called ‘‘Selfie’’ 

which used the power of satire to expose ISIS hypocrisy. It was the 

number-one Ramadan show in the Gulf and had an audience exceeding 25 million. 

Simply put, no U.S. Government channel or program in the Middle East, no matter how well intentioned or well produced, can 

come close to delivering this kind of reach or impact. 

Young people in the Arab world today watch all the Hollywood 

movies and Turkish soap operas. But what they really want are 

more of these MBC-style shows, original Arabic language drama 

and comedy that reflects their own cultural storylines and meets 

the highest international standards. 

14

And the creative community there have told me directly they 

want Hollywood support and guidance in order to develop more 

shows that meet their audiences’ expectations. 

They are asking for Hollywood writers to help them hone the storytelling and script writing skills that make American shows so 

successful. They want to learn from Hollywood’s experience in 

order to develop world class Arab television and film. 

My organization has already begun to help with this effort. I recently returned from a trip to Abu Dhabi with three of Hollywood’s 

best storytellers, the award-winning producers and writers Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, and Howard Owens. Happy to tell you more 

about them. 

They led workshops with Arab TV and film writers and met with 

more than 100 of their counterparts in the creative community to 

share ideas for producing world class Arab drama and entertainment. 

With more collaborations of this kind, we can unleash the creativity of Hollywood to help the Middle East develop a transformative entertainment industry that reaches tens of millions of 

people—of their people—with stories of hope and aspiration and 

advances the values we share. 

In fact, the State Department has already taken some promising 

initial steps to catalyse greater Hollywood involvement in the Middle East. Last month, under the leadership of Under Secretary 

Rick Stengel and Assistant Secretary Evan Ryan, the State Department convened a meeting of high-level Hollywood talent, including 

our partners Ben Silverman and Greg Daniels, to discuss these 

very issues. 

In addition to this convening power, catalytic funding from the 

U.S. Government could also make a tremendous difference. Due to 

low advertising rates, the entertainment market in the Middle East 

today is not commercially sustainable. 

The U.S. Government could play a vitally important role by providing significant funding through grants and contracts that will 

enable the best creative content to succeed and become commercially sustainable. 

With high-level attention, our Government can also inspire 

America’s best philanthropic institutions to play a key role. For example, the John Templeton Foundation is already engaged in the 

Middle East through its well-respected Islam Initiative. 

Several of our other leading foundations, such as Carnegie Corporation and the MacArthur Foundation, could all join together 

and have an enormous impact. 

The vision I am outlining here is not new. In 2002, the Advisory 

Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, 

chaired by former U.S. Ambassador Ed Djerejian, wrote,

‘‘An attractive, less costly alternative or supplement to U.S. 

Government broadcasting would be the aggressive development 

of media programming in partnership with private firms, nonprofit institutions, and government agencies both in the United 

States and the Arab and Muslim nations.’’

This programming can then be distributed through existing 

channels in the region. In the aftermath of the horrific Orlando atVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:25 Aug 30, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\062316\20531 SHIRL
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tack, our country sorely needs a nationwide effort catalysed by our 

Government to counter the ideology of extremism. 

But rather than trying to fight this ideology on our own, we 

should be empowering and amplifying voices that speak to the 

Muslim world more authentically and more directly. These voices 

exist and the media of the Middle East are ready to broadcast 

them. The United States should reach out to support and catalyse 

such programming. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before your committee 

today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lobel follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thanks, Dr. Lobel. 

STATEMENT OF PETER NEUMANN, PH.D., DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF RADICALISATION, 

DEPARTMENT OF WAR STUDIES, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON 

Mr. NEUMANN. Thank you, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member 

Sherman, distinguished members of the committee. I appreciate 

the opportunity to talk about countering the propaganda of groups 

like I saw on the Internet. 

My team and I in London have dedicated the past 4 years to understanding why young Muslims from Western countries are fighting with the jihadist groups in Syria and also why some of them 

are staying home, becoming inspired by jihadist propaganda, and 

end up attacking their own countries. 

Based on this research and based on our accumulated knowledge 

about these people, some of whom are very dangerous, let me use 

this opportunity to make a couple of points each on the way that 

ISIL is using the Internet, how to counter their narrative, and finally what government needs to do to be more effective in this 

space. 

Let me start by addressing how ISIL is using the Internet. ISIL 

has been more successful in exploiting the Internet than any group 

I have seen in 17 years of researching terrorism. 

As many have pointed out, the sophistication of some of its products, the range of platforms it uses, the way it segments according 

to audiences, and how it has succeeded at times in dominating the 

conversation, all of this is unprecedented. 

But—and that is my second point—the online ecosystem of ISIL 

goes beyond the group itself and includes more than just the videos 

that we are always talking about. What gives ISIL so much punch 

online are also, for example, individual fighters who facilitate oneon-one conversations. 

It is also what we call the cheerleaders and fan boys and 

wannabes—people who aren’t actually members of ISIS who are 

not based on Syria but are essentially freelance supporters often 

based in the West. They are the ones who are giving the group its 

online oomph. As far as online is concerned, what we are taking 

about is not just a group. It is what one of my colleagues, Dr. Nico 

Prucha, described as a swarm. 

So how do we counter this swarm? I want to focus on the question of counter narratives. First point, there isn’t one counter narrative and there isn’t one counter narrator. Just like ISIL is segmenting its message according to audiences, you need to recognize 

that people are becoming attracted to ISIL for different reasons, 

have different interests, and are different points along the path of 

radicalization. 

Some will indeed listen to a Salafi sheikh. Others are more receptive to a former jihadist and yet others are receptive to a movie 

star. Credibility, though, ultimately comes from authenticity and 

that is why the most credible messengers, in my view, are young 

people who are just like the ones whom ISIL is trying to recruit. 

We need more of them online. 

27

And that brings me to my next point. To counter a swarm, you 

need a swarm. What’s needed is scale. Scale, in my view, is more 

important than message. 

Even if we found the perfect message, the perfect messenger—

even if we managed to produce the perfect video, it would still be 

a drop in the ocean. There still wouldn’t be enough oomph. 

This is the Internet. People are exposed to thousands of things 

every day. To get your message through, you need to be loud, you 

need volume and you can’t be on your own. 

Rather than getting every single thing right, the emphasis 

should be on getting stuff out. I want to close with two quick observations on how government can be more effective in this space. 

First, government alone will never be able to create the volume 

that is needed. It is not a credible messenger in this space and, 

worst of all, government is by definition risk averse, which is the 

opposite of what you need to have—what you need to be online. 

For that reason, I wholeheartedly support the change of approach that’s happened earlier this year—away from governmentcentered messaging toward empowering and working with partners—industry, NGOs, media companies, grassroots organizations, 

maybe even philanthropists who, by the way, haven’t been doing 

enough in this space to sponsor hackathons, competitions, training, 

campaigns or setting up an independent online fund where people 

can go for small grants and lots of them. 

Facebook recently set up an organization in Germany called 

OCCI, the Online Civil Courage Initiative, which has been designed precisely to counter extremist speech online. We need more 

of that and whatever government can do not to run them but to 

help them bring about it should do. 

My final point—we need more data. It is almost an embarrassment. It is an embarrassment for everyone who works and is interested in this area. But we really still do not know what works. The 

initiatives that have happened have been so small scale and few in 

number they haven’t generated enough data to make meaningful 

assertions. 

This must be a priority for industry, for government, for NGOs 

running programs, and for all of them together. 

Many thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neumann follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, panel. Thank you very much for 

your testimony here and Mr. Neumann, thank you for coming a 

long way for that testimony. 

So I have a couple of questions just in terms of this radicalization 

process. How important is religion as a motivating force here? Is 

this a situation where ISIS recruits are often nonreligious or somewhat religious, moderately so, and then they are converted and indoctrinated through a process on the Internet over the course of recruitment? 

Or is it more often a case where you have radical young men? 

I remember talking to one of the French officials after the attack, 

telling me that 30 percent of their people were French converts, 

often in prison, that didn’t even know Arabic but get converted and 

sort of the concept here that they were people disposed to violence 

in the first place, simply susceptible or actively accepting anything 

that was a rationalization to carry out violence. What are some of 

the perspectives here? 

Mr. HUGHES. The short answer is it depends. We have seen cases 

in the U.S. where an individual essentially converts to ISIS, not 

Islamism, and there is a distinct difference between Islam and 

Islamism. 

I think it is important to say that. But when you look at—we’ve 

also had cases of people that are, you know, Hafiz and have grown 

up in the faith and are steeped into it and then decide to join ISIS. 

So each case is very different on it. 

The U.S. context, we’ve had 91 individuals arrested for ISIS-related activities. Of that data set, 38 percent were converts to the 

faith, which is a higher percentage than the general population of 

American Muslims, which are about 23 percent, depending on how 

the data shakes out. 

So there is a phenomenon there that is worth looking at. We 

have seen from our research of the program on extremism a number of individuals who are recent converts to the faith that are 

reaching out on Twitter and asking questions and ISIS spotters are 

realizing they are naive and they are answering those questions in 

a very innocuous way on religion. And over the course of a few 

weeks they are answering that and then they slowly introduce Islamic ideology into the conversation. So they have already built in 

there authenticity in these conversations. 

So there is a dynamic in play there and it also in terms of deradicalization or disengagement the role of religion depends on the 

individual. 

Sometimes it may be, like Peter said, the Salafist imam who’s 

the most useful there but it also may be the soccer coach. It really 

depends on the individual. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, my other question is, how important is 

the existence of the caliphate itself as an example, as a sort of a 

vision to their recruiting efforts? 

If we were to defeat ISIS on the ground, take out their terrorist 

training grounds everywhere from Raqqa in Iraq to Libya and east 

Africa where they have set these things up, if you reclaim those cities, if you occupied with those that were in deep camps now, if they 

came back and denied them the safe havens would they lose their 

appeal? Dr. Neumann. 

31

Mr. NEUMANN. Yes. I think it matters, but it matters not on its 

own. What happened in the summer of 2014 was, of course, that 

ISIS declared a caliphate. 

But whilst it was declaring the caliphate, it was basically running over the Middle East. It was conquering a different province 

of Iraq every week. 

And so a lot of the people who were sitting in Europe or in other 

countries who were receptive to this were thinking wow, it is actually happening—it is not just a formula—it is not just a matter of 

words—it is actually action that meets the formulation of words. 

And so that is what ISIS has always been about. It has been 

about the combination of a religious justification, however hollow 

we may think it is, in combination with the projection of strength 

and power and success. And I would argue the reason why so many 

people went in the summer of 2014 is because during that period 

ISIS really was projecting strength, power, and success and all 

these young people who were sitting in the suburbs of Paris or in 

disenfranchised parts of Brussels they were thinking, I can go from 

zero to hero in nothing if I join that group. 

I do think that if the U.S. and the coalition managed to retake 

Mosul and Raqqa it would be a big blow for ISIS. I don’t think it 

will be that easy to just transfer everything over to Libya or to another place. 

Chairman ROYCE. I know, but they have—we were up there in 

Tunisia talking to the Libyan Ambassador and our Ambassador in 

Libya. They’ve got 6,500 or 6,700 fighters that are training there 

now and then there are other training centers they are setting up. 

So they have sort of branched out in the interim. But if we could 

attack the training centers or some coalition could take out those 

training camps, my thought or my argument has always been we 

should have done this at the outset with air power to deny them 

the opportunity to message that they were on the march and 

unstoppable. 

Let me ask you about emerging technologies out there that could 

be used to weed out extremist content online, if that offers some 

hope and maybe throw in for Mr. Hughes here—he made one statement here that seemed contradictory. 

You noted in your testimony that State Department employees 

should have greater interaction with ISIS supporters online. Yet 

we’ve—our past experience with that was one that was a disappointing outcome because they didn’t have credibility among 

would-be jihadists. So if I could throw those two questions out to 

the panel. 

Why would that model work now? What should they do differently to make it work? 

Mr. HUGHES. A couple reasons why I think that model didn’t 

work before. One was that it wasn’t interactive, meaning it was 

one-off kind of events. 

So if you actually want to introduce, you know, some seeds of 

doubt, what you’re doing on that is building a relationship or a rapport back and forth. That takes time. 

The reason why that wasn’t successful before is because it had 

to go through six, seven, eight layers of bureaucracy to say, can I 

32

tweet this 140 characters to this individual, right? That’s just not 

how the online environment works. 

There’s two reasons why I think that the U.S. Government 

shouldn’t completely get out of the game when it comes to interactive back and forth. 

One is, again, you need to essentially not cede the space, and 

two, is there is some benefit when you’re talking about hardened 

ISIS supporters spending their time focussing on the State Department as opposed to focussing on creating content, videos, and 

things like that. It muddies their time up a little bit and we do see 

that dynamic play out. 

So I would focus the State Department’s overt messaging on the 

guys that raise their hands and say they are ISIS supporters and 

then there is a whole spectrum of other options between, you know, 

white overt, State Department to gray, delayed attribution that 

DoD can do and then the black that CI can do to counter messaging. And we need to make sure those are coordinated a little bit 

better than they had in the past. 

Chairman ROYCE. Quick question to you of the assessment of Dr. 

Lobel’s thesis there because they—what he’s doing is televising cinema that challenges extremist ideology and Pakistan—they are 

doing that, I guess, now in the Middle East trying to promote religious tolerance, trying to hit on this theme of political moderation 

and pluralism, I guess, and disseminate democratic culture, basically. Your assessment on that? 

Mr. HUGHES. I have seen Aaron’s work. It is phenomenal. There’s 

a spectrum in terms of communication. You have the targeted messaging just on this issue, right. But there is also broad based messaging that is more in tune and more useful to come from partners 

that Aaron works with, right, because governments by their very 

nature are very hesitant to get into this idea of religion, establishment clause, things like that. 

It makes everyone very uncomfortable. That’s where civil society 

and partners can play a role. Let’s address the mood music that 

causes people to want to be drawn to the ideology itself and then 

let us slowly move down the spectrum. 

Chairman ROYCE. I am going to ask the panel in writing just for 

emerging technologies. You can give that to us later. I am out of 

time and I need to go to Dr. Ami Bera of California. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Chairman Royce. 

You know, fascinating testimony and something that we’ve 

talked about in this committee quite a bit. You know, we are—we 

do feel like we are losing the counter propaganda war. We’re losing 

that battle on social media and on the Internet. 

You know, I think—Mr. Hughes and Dr. Neumann, you both 

touched on how, you know, ISIL and other radical jihadists are 

able to create this conversation in an ongoing, almost organic way. 

Dr. Neumann, you used the term creating the swarm, and the 

way to counteract that swarm is to have a swarm that is putting 

a counter narrative out there—that is, dispelling some of these 

myths, using technology. 

Now, Mr. Hughes, you talked about the importance of this—you 

know, fostering the environment for this to happen but some of it 

being organic, coming out of the community and, you know, 

33

partnering that with—you know, the community members may not 

know how best to use technology but partnering that with the technology support so they can get that counter narrative out. 

You know, I think a fundamental thing that is breaking down 

is—I talked to, you know, in Sacramento our homeland security 

folks, our local law enforcement—is there has to be a partnership 

between, you know, the Muslim community locally and the folks 

that are charged with trying to identify folks that may be on a path 

to getting radicalization but so you can intervene quickly and that 

seems to be breaking down right now and, you know, some of the 

rhetoric that we hear out there does not help the Muslim community reach out to others. 

You know, perhaps some thoughts on how best we can start to 

repair that because, again, in my sense if we want to counteract 

this narrative it is going to take the community that understands 

our culture, that understands the word and so forth. 

Partnering with, you know, whether it is technology support, 

whether it is local law enforcement, whether it is our homeland security folks, you know, Mr. Hughes, your thoughts. 

Mr. HUGHES. Sure. I would just—my previous job was to community engagement with Muslim-Americans around the country. So 

for about 3 years I would go to mosque community centers and 

have very difficult but important questions and conversations 

about radicalization. Sacramento is an interesting case. I have been 

to Sacramento a number of times working with your local MuslimAmerican communities and a telling example of that was last year 

I was there and we were talking about the need to counter ISIS’ 

propaganda. 

An imam of a local mosque raised his hand and said, you know, 

Seamus, I would like to do counter messaging and I would like to 

do that. And I said well, that is great, sir—what are you going to 

do. I am going to hold my phone up and I am going to record a 

lecture of me saying it and I am going to post it online. 

Sir, no one’s going to watch that. It is going to be 6 minutes long 

and it is not very interactive. But I tell you what, maybe I can connect you with the guys at Twitter or the individuals at Facebook 

and let us figure out a way where you have the message, it is very 

timely, and let us tie your video so it tags next to an ISIS video 

and things like that. 

You have this groundswell of people that want to do counter messaging but don’t know how to work the system in a way that I 

think Congress and DC policymakers can help traverse that. 

And then the larger question about community engagement—

that is a difficult thing. You know, you don’t build relationships 1 

day at a time. It takes a very long process and I think the way that 

the administration is moving on this is that this idea of one-on-one 

interventions for individuals so instead of just arresting an individual because that is the only choice you have right now. I think 

if we bring in a third option in interventions you’re going to see 

levels of trust built in between governments and communities. 

Mr. BERA. What is that third option of interventions? 

Mr. HUGHES. And I would defer to Peter to talk a little bit about 

the European experience because they have had years of this. But 

this idea of an intervention space. 

34

So in the U.K. they have a channel program that has been revamped a number of times but it essentially connects the kid they 

are worried about with a mentor and Germany Hayat with social 

workers who help kind of train parents on how to talk to their kids. 

What we’re essentially looking for is a non-law-enforcement approach, right. You bring a social worker, a mental health professional, a religious leader, any number of things—you bring them to 

the table and say this is a kid we are worried about—I don’t have 

enough to arrest him or I don’t want to arrest him because he’s 

under the age of 18—you know, what are other options and everyone kind of gets around the table and figures it out. 

Mr. BERA. So we have actually had some of that conversation in 

Sacramento both with homeland security folks as well as our—the 

Muslim community locally because it is not just law enforcement 

approaching them. 

It could be that parent who is noticing changes in behavior in 

their child and, you know, doesn’t want to go to law enforcement 

because they are worried, but they need someplace where they can 

go and someone who is trusted in the community who can intervene or it could be, you know, an imam. Dr. Neumann, if you want. 

Mr. NEUMANN. If I can just add one thing from the European experience because these intervention programs have run in different 

European countries with mixed successes. I think one lesson you 

can draw is that it is very important that it is not principally law 

enforcement and that is because parents will not call that hotline 

if they think that it is the police that is answering the phone and 

arresting their kid. 

They will call but they will leave it to the very last minute when 

it is usually too late. If you want them to call early when something can still be done you need to give them the confidence that 

their kid is not going to be immediately arrested and that is why 

it is important that in this early phase law enforcement is not involved, as hard as it is for law enforcement to let go. 

Mr. BERA. So it has to be someone who’s trusted in the community that has that confidence because, you know, it could be a mental health issue that you have to intervene quite early on which, 

you know, could lead to some consequences down the road. 

Mr. LOBEL. Congressman, let me go to a broader point, if I may. 

You know, when they looked at the radicalization process of one of 

the San Bernardino killers, her friends said, you know, when she 

was in college she wouldn’t socialize. She spent all her time watching extremist television channels—24-hour television channels. I 

just want to echo some of the points made here that we should not 

focus exclusively on the online, and just two factors there. 

One, I just want to quote from the Crown Prince of Bahrain who 

was referring to both Sunni and Shi’a channels. He says, extremists spread their ideological message through a multitude of channels old and new. 

Satellite channels unseen by Western audiences and free of either its restrictions or regulations broadcast with far greater impact than the Internet, an almost continuous message of intolerance and venom to the ignorant and the susceptible. Some of the 

biggest social media successes—sustainable successes are television 

stars in the region who are on these channels. 

35

So I just wanted to make the point that I think there is a 

complementarity here between the different types of media and we 

need to be looking at all of it together. 

Mr. BERA. Fantastic. Thank you, and I am out of my time. Thank 

you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Dr. Bera. 

We now go to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher from California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

have watched your career for a number of years and you seem always to have gravitated toward fighting the intellectual battle and 

making sure that the United States was fighting that part of the 

battle of ideas and concepts rather than just the battle of who can 

shoot and kill the enemy. 

We have experienced—this is fascinating. Thank you for your 

testimony from each of you today. We have lived through this before. I mean, it seems that fanaticism and which then accepts violence as a means to achieving fanatic goals is not new to this era 

of human history and we have—during the French Revolution we 

had people, you know, all of a sudden things went haywire and the 

struggle for liberty became the, let us say, guillotine anybody who 

speaks against the revolution, which then meant anybody who was 

just in some way opposing some of the concepts that were being 

discussed. Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, you name it—we have had these 

people who for some reason were able to mobilize large numbers 

of people to slaughter people who were basically innocent people. 

This is—not to mention Hitler and his ilk, and how do we deter 

that in this modern age. I will tell you that, being a writer myself 

I especially—is it Lobel? 

Mr. Lobel’s concepts were very—I had not heard your presentation before. Who actually is paying for these things that you are 

doing already with this, sending groups of writers and things like 

that? Who’s financing that? 

Mr. LOBEL. Over the years our organization has had a range of 

funders, largely private foundation supporters and we have also received some U.S. Government funding as well. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So that’s—well, that is to be commended, I will have to say. But either we are going to change—

what we are up against is, as I say, another type of fanaticism that 

has emerged and where you have fanatics who are willing to commit violence in order to achieve their ends what you end up with 

is terrorism and it takes a real fanatic to be able to murder someone who doesn’t have a gun and someone who is just there and just 

a human being who happens to be in the middle of a situation, especially if the ideas you’re going to promote what you believe is the 

truth—the ultimate truth—by terrorizing populations into submission to that truth. 

And it seems to me that’s what we have here. So I thank you 

very much, Mr. Chairman, for this. You have been very provocative 

today. I don’t really have any specific questions. That one question 

is who financed it—can we count on private financing to fight this 

battle? 

Mr. LOBEL. Well, I think the government can play an important 

role by catalysing that, by—it can mobilize the private sector. It 

can mobilize patriotic individuals in this country who I think recogVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:25 Aug 30, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\062316\20531 SHIRL
36

nize the danger and are willing to step up and I think there are 

some who feel like they haven’t been asked. 

So that’s why I think there is an important role that can be 

played here in Washington by our Government in helping. So I 

think the short answer to that is yes. 

But sometimes you need that initial start, that venture capital 

funding, if you will, particularly because of some of the commercial 

challenges in the region. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You know, at times when the government 

takes over jobs like this they have to reach so many compromises 

within an editorial concept that everything comes out mush and 

they are not able to really hit the points that need to be hit. 

So I would think that we should be encouraging, Mr. Chairman, 

as many people in our private sector and throughout academia and 

elsewhere to actually get directly involved in this effort to reach 

out to those fanatical elements in the world today that threaten the 

rest of us and perhaps reach out to them in a variety of different 

ways. So I sure appreciate your testimony and——

Mr. LOBEL. I would just say quickly, Congressman, that if you 

look—it is striking when you read the history of the Cold War is 

how often projects were launched that really directly involved the 

best of America’s private sector and civil society. 

That is striking. I don’t think we have achieved that equivalent 

in the 15 years since 9/11. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. One last thought on that. 

I remember very well when I thought that we were going to at 

that point win the Cold War. I mean, at one point in my life I 

thought—I was sure that Communism would end up dominating 

this planet including the United States. 

But at that moment, Mr. Chairman, when I realized that we 

were going to win is when they started doing commercials making 

fun of Russia—of the Soviet Union. 

And remember the babushkas were coming out in their swimming suits and then it was their dress suits and it was all the 

same suit, right? And what we need to do is perhaps reach that 

point with the fanatics—with religious fanatics—whatever they 

are, but Islamic in particular because it’s there and engaged with 

that violence as making sure that violent fanaticism is ridiculed—

that we ridicule it rather than try to confront it intellectually. 

Maybe both. 

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Ridicule took down the KKK, or helped take 

it down. 

Mr. Brad Sherman of California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. A couple of points I would want to 

make from the ranking member’s opening statements. 

The administration has created the Center for Strategic Counter 

Terrorism Communications. In assessing its success, we have to 

turn to experts and your guesses because there is no way to count 

the number of people who might have joined a terrorist organization but for the fact that they were persuaded not to do so. 

The CSCC is—the administration now is turning that into the 

Global Engagement Center. The counter messaging provisions of 

37

Speaker Ryan’s new national security action plan echo the administration’s efforts and I think demonstrate bipartisanship. 

The budget is policy. Since 2013, the budget of this effort has 

grown from $5 million to a 2017 request for $21.5 million. Is that 

enough money, realizing that this is just one part of our 

antiterrorism effort? 

So I will ask all three witnesses. Is $21.5 million enough? Anybody think it is too much? 

Mr. HUGHES. It depends on how they spend the money. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Obviously. 

Mr. HUGHES. Yes, I——

Mr. SHERMAN. Give me a quantitative answer. We have to move 

on to another question. Anybody have a quantitative? 

Mr. LOBEL. We should be spending a lot more money on all of 

these efforts. I think when we look at the ideological challenge and 

the importance of quote, you know, ‘‘soft power’’ in addressing it, 

I think it would be clear that there is a great mismatch between 

the challenge and the resources being allocated overall. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. I am going to go back to this theme that 

we need to understand Islam at the State Department and the organizations that it funds. Just as one example, I was teaching my 

young daughter the Gettysburg Address, four score and seven. 

Now, you can translate that. Any Chinese scholar could translate 

four score and seven as meaning 87. But only someone who understood Christianity and as it was practiced in the United States at 

that time and the King James Bible would hear the echoes of religious thought in calling it four score and seven rather than 87. 

Are there people engaged in this effort, funded by the State Department, that can really hear the allusions to the similar echoed 

cadence of Islamic theology in the message that’s going out? Or are 

these people who, when they hear four score and seven, translate 

that as 87 and figure that’s the number between 86 and 88? Dr. 

Lobel. 

Mr. LOBEL. I agree wholeheartedly that not only our Government 

but our country as a whole has not invested nearly enough in the 

kind of regional knowledge and expertise required to address this 

challenge. That includes an understanding of Islam. 

So that, to me, is the State Department and the rest of us. So, 

you know, when we look back at what was invested in Soviet studies probably in the first 15 or 20 years of the Cold War and compare it to where we are today we are failing and that is an important cause of the fail. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I want to go—I think both Dr. Neumann and Dr. 

Lobel have alluded to the idea that we need to get individuals involved and I would say even volunteers involved. 

The State Department needs 14 levels of review to send out a 

tweet. If you’re an officially funded by the State Department grantee you only need six levels of review before you can send out a 

tweet. 

If you’re a volunteer, you do a tweet. There are many millions 

of Muslims and people from Muslim countries—Christians, Yazidis 

and others—who understand the culture who would like to be engaging. 

38

We need to give them the tools and the encouragement. I am not 

aware of any effort that said, you know, not just if you see something say something but dedicate 5 hours a week of your time. 

The other thing that’s missing here is if you look at my Web 

browser and you see that I visited Islamic terrorist chat rooms, I 

probably don’t go on the no-fly list. I am a member of this committee. 

My Muslim friends, their browser history has all—so we need a 

system by which people can register the fact that they are on our 

side, that they are trying to engage the terrorists, even provide a 

copy of what they are doing to some agency of government so that 

they feel free. 

Because I assume that any Muslim-American who engaged creatively one on one in a chat room would say some things that a 

prosecutor could put him in jail for. 

You’ve got to start with the idea of saying well, gee, maybe—I 

understand that maybe you’re thinking of going to Syria and killing lots of people. 

Well, I know where you’re coming from but have you thought 

about this? That might be an effective argument. It might also get 

you in front of a jury saying why did you tell somebody it is reasonable to even consider going to——

So is—I assume our witnesses will confirm there is no organized 

way for someone who wants to volunteer in this cyber war to make 

sure they don’t go to jail. Dr. Neumann. 

Mr. NEUMANN. No, there isn’t, and one thing I wanted to highlight is the contrast between what I think needs to be done and 

what happened in the past with CSCC. 

So when CSCC said let us counter ISIL online propaganda they 

would produce a film, it would take a long time, a lot of people 

would have to approve and then eventually there would be a film 

coming out. 

Now imagine that instead YouTube was launching a competition 

and was saying, what’s wrong with ISIS? You have 1 week. The 

prize is an internship with Google. I can guarantee you there 

would be 5,000 student projects, volunteers, classes from across the 

country and beyond producing little videos. 

Now, of these 5,000, 80 percent would be really awful. Twenty 

percent would be okay and maybe 2 percent would go viral. That 

would still be a multiple of the output that CSCC has ever produced. 

It would not say State Department and it would be a lot more 

authentic and it would cost nothing. That’s why $21 million is an 

abstract figure. If those $21 million are being used to foster——

Mr. SHERMAN. Google could just do this on their own because I 

will tell you right now whoever wins that contest is somebody 

Google wants as an intern. 

So maybe a few of us—maybe you could draft a letter for a few 

of us to endorse not only to Google but 10 others and let us try to 

get some internships. 

Mr. LOBEL. I would just add very briefly that the 14 layers of review is exactly when you think about yes, there needs to be more 

money but how that money is spent, you wouldn’t want to be 

spending it on 14 layers of review. 

39

You want it to be going to entities around the country that can 

really make a difference and are not as risk averse. 

Chairman ROYCE. We need to go to Daniel Donovan of New York. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It has not been credited to anyone yet but as we sat here within 

the last hour when the chairman gavelled in there has been a mass 

shooting in a movie theater in Germany where at least 25 people 

have been injured. No one has taken credit for that but it is remarkable that we are speaking about this issue now and this occurred during our hearing. 

I want to talk a little bit—my friend Brad Sherman spoke about 

prosecutors. I was a prosecutor for 20 years before I came to Congress and I remember in the days when gangs—street gangs used 

to recruit prospects for their gangs. And they could visualize—they 

could see the loner in the school yard. They could see the young 

person who had low self-esteem. They knew their target. 

How do the recruiters for ISIS and other violent extremists find 

these individuals on the Internet? Because you can’t visually see 

this person in their basement who is on their computer and doesn’t 

have any friends and is a loner, unlike the street gangs. 

How does this actually occur? How are they finding these individuals who are susceptible to being recruited? And I leave that to 

anyone. 

Mr. HUGHES. Sure. The same way they do recruitment of gangs 

online actually nowadays, which is they are looking for individuals 

who have raised their hand only slightly so much, saying oh, well, 

what’s going on in Syria or what about the Assad atrocities?—

things like that. 

They realize they have—there is a well-established system of essentially spotting individuals to be drawn into it and once they are 

drawn in they are in essentially an ISIS echo chamber where they 

don’t hear dissenting voices. 

So the conversation runs from the boringly benign banter of everyday life to the violent images that we see on the nightly news. 

So they get a sense of community on there and so they talk on 

mainstream sites, on Twitter and places like that and then they 

move onto this one-on-one communication whether it be on Telegram or other platforms where they can have a more discreet conversation, figure out how that person’s day was. 

It is a grooming process online, and a lot of these individuals are 

also asking for help, right. They are coming to known or suspected 

terrorists—people on the ground in Syria and Iraq—and saying, I 

am thinking about joining—what do you think about this?—what 

do I need to do when I get to Turkey?—what are the four numbers 

I need to call?—what do I put in my backpack?—what do I not put 

in my backpack?—how do I cross Customs? 

It is essentially allowing a level of interactivity that we hadn’t 

had in the past where if you’re three girls from Denver like we had 

last year, three girls under the age of 18, and you want to figure 

out how to go to Syria, you’re going on to Tumbler, you’re reading 

about it and then you’re connecting with a facilitator online who’s 

working that process for you. 

Mr. DONOVAN. So the individual has to kind of let the recruiters 

know that I am a person who has curiosity? 

40

Mr. HUGHES. It depends. So like I said before, we saw a case 

where a young woman was naive about her faith and was asking 

questions online and ISIS supporters realized she was naive and 

answered those questions in an innocuous way. 

So each case is particularly different. But there is a concerted recruitment effort online. Now, that has shifted in recent months 

away from the so-called caliphate and more toward maybe go to 

Libya or maybe do what you can where you are because of various 

reasons. 

Mr. DONOVAN. I understand it is a romance and it takes time to 

nurture these individuals. You hit on something I wanted to speak 

about in my remaining few minutes—the dark space, when they 

find someone who may be susceptible, who feels they want to belong to something that is greater than they, to have a purpose in 

life where they never had a purpose before. 

And once that recruiter realizes they have someone of that 

mindset they go into these dark spaces where we can’t even follow 

them. Do you have any insight or any opinion of what government 

could do about that? I am on Homeland Security too and we struggle with that on a daily basis. 

Mr. HUGHES. The issue of encryption and going dark is something that the FBI Directors talked about in numerous occasions. 

We do see that dynamic play out online and increasingly so. 

So think of the evolution of Internet recruitment radicalization 

this way. We used to have the good old days 5 or 6 years ago where 

you had password-protected forums, about 12 of them, and everyone raised their hand, you knew who they were and then went in 

there. 

That was—we could collect against that. Then they moved to 

Twitter and Facebook and places like that, more mainstream sites 

where you’re able to get the fence sitters who—and able to push 

out the propaganda a little bit more. 

Now they have almost reversed course back over to more discreet 

platforms like Telegram, which allows for end-to-end encryption 

and other places like that and doesn’t give law enforcement that 

view of it. It is a difficult dynamic. 

I don’t have policy recommendations on an approach port. I 

would say that any approach that you did develop needs to be 

mindful of the technology evolving, meaning that if you asked me 

2 years ago about Telegram I would have said don’t worry about 

it right now—let us focus on Twitter and now here we are with 

Telegram. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Anyone else have a comment? Thank you very 

much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the time that I no longer have. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, let me just thank our witnesses here. We 

are going to be contacting you. There are some additional questions 

that we want to ask that we’d like your answers to. 

But I—returning to the observation made by Mr. Brad Sherman 

in terms of the necessity of the collaborative endeavor here I am 

sure that dialogue will continue and so you’ve got a second for your 

motion. 

But thank you all and we thank the members. We stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:07 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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