|
 |
FBI
Testimony:
Threats to the Homeland
James B. Comey, Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Statement Before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs
October 08, 2015
Good afternoon Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and members of
the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today
to discuss the current threats to the homeland and our efforts to
address new challenges, including terrorists’ use of technology to
communicate—both to inspire and recruit. The widespread use of
technology propagates the persistent terrorist message to attack U.S.
interests whether in the homeland or abroad. As the threat to harm
Western interests evolves, we must adapt and confront the challenges,
relying heavily on the strength of our federal, state, local, and
international partnerships. Our successes depend on interagency
cooperation. We work closely with our partners within the Department of
Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center to address
current and emerging threats.
Counterterrorism
Counterterrorism remains the FBI’s top priority, however, the threat
has changed in two significant ways. First, the core al Qaeda tumor has
been reduced, but the cancer has metastasized. The progeny of al
Qaeda—including AQAP, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—have become our focus.
Secondly, we are confronting the explosion of terrorist propaganda and
training on the Internet. It is no longer necessary to get a terrorist
operative into the United States to recruit. Terrorists, in ungoverned
spaces, disseminate poisonous propaganda and training materials to
attract troubled souls around the world to their cause. They encourage
these individuals to travel, but if they can’t travel, they motivate
them to act at home. This is a significant change from a decade ago.
We continue to identify individuals who seek to join the ranks of
foreign fighters traveling in support of ISIL, and also homegrown
violent extremists who may aspire to attack the United States from
within. These threats remain among the highest priorities for the FBI
and the Intelligence Community as a whole.
Conflicts in Syria and Iraq continue to serve as the most attractive
overseas theaters for Western-based extremists who want to engage in
violence. We estimate approximately 250 Americans have traveled or
attempted to travel to Syria to participate in the conflict. While this
number is lower in comparison to many of our international partners, we
closely analyze and assess the influence groups like ISIL have on
individuals located in the United States who are inspired to commit
acts of violence. Whether or not the individuals are affiliated with a
foreign terrorist organization and are willing to travel abroad to
fight or are inspired by the call to arms to act in their communities,
they potentially pose a significant threat to the safety of the United
States and U.S. persons.
ISIL has proven relentless in its violent campaign to rule and has
aggressively promoted its hateful message, attracting like-minded
extremists to include Westerners. To an even greater degree than al
Qaeda or other foreign terrorist organizations, ISIL has persistently
used the Internet to communicate. From a homeland perspective, it is
ISIL’s widespread reach through the Internet and social media which is
most concerning as ISIL has aggressively employed this technology for
its nefarious strategy. ISIL blends traditional media platforms, glossy
photos, in-depth articles, and social media campaigns that can go viral
in a matter of seconds. No matter the format, the message of
radicalization spreads faster than we imagined just a few years ago.
Unlike other groups, ISIL has constructed a narrative that touches on
all facets of life—from career opportunities to family life to a sense
of community. The message isn’t tailored solely to those who are
overtly expressing symptoms of radicalization. It is seen by many who
click through the Internet every day, receive social media push
notifications, and participate in social networks. Ultimately, many of
these individuals are seeking a sense of belonging.
As a communication medium, social media is a critical tool for terror
groups to exploit. One recent example occurred when an individual was
arrested for providing material support to ISIL by facilitating an
associate’s travel to Syria to join ISIL. The arrested individual had
multiple connections, via a social media networking site, with other
like-minded individuals.
There is no set profile for the susceptible consumer of this
propaganda. However, one trend continues to rise—the inspired youth.
We’ve seen certain children and young adults drawing deeper into the
ISIL narrative. These individuals are often comfortable with virtual
communication platforms, specifically social media networks.
ISIL continues to disseminate their terrorist message to all social
media users—regardless of age. Following other groups, ISIL has
advocated for lone offender attacks. In recent months ISIL released a
video, via social media, reiterating the group’s encouragement of lone
offender attacks in Western countries, specifically advocating for
attacks against soldiers and law enforcement, intelligence community
members, and government personnel. Several incidents have occurred in
the United States and Europe over the last few months that indicate
this “call to arms” has resonated among ISIL supporters and
sympathizers.
In one case, a New York-based male was arrested in September after he
systematically attempted to travel to the Middle East to join ISIL. The
individual, who was inspired by ISIL propaganda, expressed his support
for ISIL online and took steps to carry out acts encouraged in the ISIL
call to arms.
The targeting of U.S. military personnel is also evident with the
release of names of individuals serving in the U.S. military by ISIL
supporters. The names continue to be posted to the Internet and quickly
spread through social media, depicting ISIL’s capability to produce
viral messaging. Threats to U.S. military and coalition forces continue
today.
Social media has allowed groups, such as ISIL, to use the Internet to
spot and assess potential recruits. With the widespread horizontal
distribution of social media, terrorists can identify vulnerable
individuals of all ages in the United States—spot, assess, recruit, and
radicalize—either to travel or to conduct a homeland attack. The
foreign terrorist now has direct access into the United States like
never before.
In other examples of arrests, a group of individuals was contacted by a
known ISIL supporter who had already successfully traveled to Syria and
encouraged them to do the same. Some of these conversations occur in
publicly accessed social networking sites, but others take place via
private messaging platforms. As a result, it is imperative the FBI and
all law enforcement organizations understand the latest communication
tools and are positioned to identify and prevent terror attacks in the
homeland.
We live in a technologically driven society and just as private
industry has adapted to modern forms of communication so too have
terrorists. Unfortunately, changing forms of Internet communication and
the use of encryption are posing real challenges to the FBI’s ability
to fulfill its public safety and national security missions. This real
and growing gap, to which the FBI refers as “Going Dark,” is an area of
continuing focus for the FBI; we believe it must be addressed given the
resulting risks are grave both in both traditional criminal matters as
well as in national security matters. The United States government is
actively engaged with private companies to ensure they understand the
public safety and national security risks that result from malicious
actors’ use of their encrypted products and services. However, the
administration is not seeking legislation at this time.
The FBI is utilizing all lawful investigative techniques and methods to
combat the threat these individuals may pose to the United States. In
conjunction with our domestic and foreign partners, we are rigorously
collecting and analyzing intelligence information as it pertains to the
ongoing threat posed by foreign terrorist organizations and homegrown
violent extremists. We continue to encourage robust information
sharing; in partnership with our many federal, state, and local
agencies assigned to Joint Terrorism Task Forces around the country, we
remain vigilant to ensure the safety of the American public. Be
assured, the FBI continues to pursue increased efficiencies and
information sharing processes as well as pursue technological and other
methods to help stay ahead of threats to the homeland.
Intelligence
Integrating intelligence and operations is part of the broader
intelligence transformation the FBI has undertaken in the last decade.
We are making progress, but have more work to do. We have taken two
steps to improve this integration. First, we have established an
Intelligence Branch within the FBI headed by an executive assistant
director (EAD). The EAD looks across the entire enterprise and drives
integration. Second, we now have special agents and new intelligence
analysts at the FBI Academy engaged in practical training exercises and
taking core courses together. As a result, they are better prepared to
work well together in the field. Our goal every day is to get better at
using, collecting and sharing intelligence to better understand and
defeat our adversaries.
The FBI cannot be content to just work what is directly in front of us.
We must also be able to understand the threats we face at home and
abroad and how those threats may be connected. Towards that end,
intelligence is gathered, consistent with our authorities, to help us
understand and prioritize identified threats and to determine where
there are gaps in what we know about these threats. We then seek to
fill those gaps and learn as much as we can about the threats we are
addressing and others on the threat landscape. We do this for national
security and criminal threats, on both a national and local field
office level. We then compare the national and local perspectives to
organize threats into priority for each of the FBI’s 56 field offices.
By categorizing threats in this way, we strive to place the greatest
focus on the gravest threats we face. This gives us a better assessment
of what the dangers are, what’s being done about them, and where we
should prioritize our resources.
Cyber
An element of virtually every national security threat and crime
problem the FBI faces is cyber-based or facilitated. We face
sophisticated cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for
hire, organized cyber syndicates, and terrorists. On a daily basis,
cyber-based actors seek our state secrets, our trade secrets, our
technology, and our ideas—things of incredible value to all of us and
of great importance to the conduct of our government business and our
national security. They seek to strike our critical infrastructure and
to harm our economy.
We continue to see an increase in the scale and scope of reporting on
malicious cyber activity that can be measured by the amount of
corporate data stolen or deleted, personally identifiable information
compromised, or remediation costs incurred by U.S. victims. For
example, as the committee is aware, the Office of Personnel Management
(OPM) discovered earlier this year that a number of its systems were
compromised. These systems included those that contain information
related to the background investigations of current, former, and
prospective Federal government employees, as well as other individuals
for whom a federal background investigation was conducted. The FBI is
working with our interagency partners to investigate this matter.
FBI agents, analysts, and computer scientists are using technical
capabilities and traditional investigative techniques—such as sources,
court-authorized electronic surveillance, physical surveillance, and
forensics—to fight cyber threats. We are working side-by-side with our
federal, state, and local partners on Cyber Task Forces in each of our
56 field offices and through the National Cyber Investigative Joint
Task Force (NCIJTF), which serves as a coordination, integration, and
information sharing center for 19 U.S. agencies and several key
international allies for cyber threat investigations. Through CyWatch,
our 24-hour cyber command center, we combine the resources of the FBI
and NCIJTF, allowing us to provide connectivity to federal cyber
centers, government agencies, FBI field offices and legal attachés, and
the private sector in the event of a cyber intrusion.
We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems
seriously and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those
who pose a threat in cyberspace.
* * *
Finally, the strength of any organization is its people. The threats we
face as a nation have never been greater or more diverse and the
expectations placed on the Bureau have never been higher. Our fellow
citizens look to us to protect the United States from all of those
threats and the men and women of the Bureau continue to meet—and
exceed—those expectations, every day. I want to thank them for their
dedication and their service.
Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and committee members, I thank
you for the opportunity to testify concerning the threats to the
homeland and terrorists’ use of the Internet and social media as a
platform for spreading ISIL propaganda and inspiring individuals to
target the homeland, and the impact of the Going Dark problem on
mitigating their efforts. I am happy to answer any questions you might
have.
|
|
|
|
