I think domestic extremism is a particularly challenging issue, number one, from an intelligence perspective.
Remember, our intelligence community doesn’t typically or statutorily look at U.S. citizens, so you don’t have the advantage of that craft in the way you might for other threats, to just our Constitution, the rights of citizens.
And then, if law enforcement is the lead, law enforcement needs some sort of predicate. You have to have done something. And so if nothing is manifest, it’s difficult.
Do I think that we need a moment of considering how we’re going to deal with this threat that looks like it’s going to be with us for awhile? Yes, I think you almost need a 9/11 Commission kind of activity. It’s got to be a combination of FBI. It has to include DHS. And you have got to find a way to bring intelligence or the craft of intelligence into it.
And I done think that’s in one organization right now. You know, as an old intelligence hand, there are elements of this that remind me of the rise of Islamic extremism and what it looks like. And there are probably a fair number of lessons that we learned in the fight against foreign terrorism that can be applied here and some lessons that we probably don’t want to apply.
Remember, our intelligence community doesn’t typically or statutorily look at U.S. citizens, so you don’t have the advantage of that craft in the way you might for other threats, to just our Constitution, the rights of citizens.
And then, if law enforcement is the lead, law enforcement needs some sort of predicate. You have to have done something. And so if nothing is manifest, it’s difficult.
Do I think that we need a moment of considering how we’re going to deal with this threat that looks like it’s going to be with us for awhile? Yes, I think you almost need a 9/11 Commission kind of activity. It’s got to be a combination of FBI. It has to include DHS. And you have got to find a way to bring intelligence or the craft of intelligence into it.
And I done think that’s in one organization right now. You know, as an old intelligence hand, there are elements of this that remind me of the rise of Islamic extremism and what it looks like. And there are probably a fair number of lessons that we learned in the fight against foreign terrorism that can be applied here and some lessons that we probably don’t want to apply.
Now would be a very good time for everybody to go back and reacquaint themselves with what Edward Snowden revealed about US intelligence and surveillance capabilities. Here is a short list.
Every one of us should be aware that nothing we do electronically — not our phone calls, not our e-mails, not our non-cash transactions, not our texts, nothing — is private. In Citizenfour, the documentary Laura Poitras made about Snowden, All of it is scooped up by the NSA and stored for future mining using artificial intelligence. It may never be accessed, but it’s there if they feel the need to get at it.
