 Good morning everyone for those of you in the back feel free to take a seat We have lots of seats throughout although not in the front for the first time, which is a rarity So welcome and thank you for coming to New America. We are very excited about today's event Communities overcoming extremism the after Charlottesville project New America's mission is that we are dedicated to renewing the promise of America by continuing the quest to realize our nation's highest ideals Honestly confronting the challenges that are being caused by our technological and social change and Seizing the opportunity that those changes are creating and it is with that mission in mind that we are really Excited to be a part of the project We are not where we are where we should be and can be as a country And we need work like the community's Overcoming extremism project to light a path for how we get better as a country and a community New America is delighted to be launching The final report and the podcast series for this project and we're proud to be a partner with Anne Marie Slaughter our CEO On the steering committee as well as Bobby McKenzie director and senior fellow here at New America who's been actively engaged throughout so thank you Bobby and Thank you for the scholarship that you bring for helping us to think about how to overcome extremism and Thank you to those who traveled in particularly Susan Brough mother of Heather Hyer and others who came in to be a part of this Very important conversation Particularly around the work of wood alliances and what we can all do as individual communities members to overcome extremism I Promise my panel that I would be brief Because in the interest of saving time to get to the substance of the project I want to just end by extending my thanks to the many partners who made this possible New America places enormous value on Coalitions because we believe that none of our most intractable Problems will be solved by one entity or one organization alone I challenge you to think of a significant problem that we face that you could say oh if it wasn't for that One entity or that one person and so because of that We know and we stand with these partner organizations to better understand violent extremism in all its various forms and Manifestations and with that I want to turn the mic over to Mike Signer who is former mayor of Charlottesville and Founder and chair of the project Mike She was too humble I think to introduce herself But that was Tyra Mariani who's the president and CEO here at New American. We're very grateful for your hospitality here And she's also gonna be moderating the next panel that we're gonna be doing after Susan bro speaks Thank you all so much for for being here today. We've obviously I'm Mike Signer. I'm the former mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia We have chosen this date for a reason a year ago There was a horrific massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in spin Pittsburgh by a white nationalist who had been radicalized online and We all wanted to see that as an act of pure insanity It was insane, but it was also ideological and a symptom of the deeper danger of extremism within American society today When I became the mayor of Charlottesville I never dreamed that our city would see a terrorist attack that would not only leave three people dead and Dozens injured, but that would ultimately mean so many things and so many people Locally statewide around the country and around the world But that's exactly what happened. It said that the violent unite the right rally in August through 2017 and Charlottesville became a hashtag But I believe that there were really two hashtags Hashtag one Hashtag Charlottesville was the nation saw in one weekend how utterly violent today's Extremism really is anybody who watched the vice news documentary or a lot of other footage. We'll see that Hashtag number two was very painful problems in federal state and local government that were revealed in One fell swoop. There was a security plan more state and local officers Didn't stop street fights. There was a federal intelligence system that did not provide specific evidence of planned violence that would meet the legal standards of The First Amendment to stop the event As painful as these experiences were they were also an opportunity for learning We know it from our private lives as well as the life cycles of many organizations public or private sector that struggles and setbacks are often the very best opportunities for learning and for growth as I and others reckoned with these experiences in Charlottesville We started thinking about what we needed next often. I just from my own experience I felt like we were alone like we were improvising We needed more resources. We needed more alliances. In short, we needed more capacity and As challenging as Charlottesville was though it also did produce many Steps of progress one example Airbnb the Reservations company took action to cancel the reservations of many people coming into town for the United Right rally Another example we worked with Georgetown University's Institute for constitutional advocacy and protection Successfully to sue the paramilitary groups that invaded the city using a 200 year old law and you'll hear more about this later To prevent them from entering the city again The thesis of communities overcoming extremism the after Charlottesville project is that just as extremism emerged from within democracy Democratic norms and institutions Can overcome it in the months after the unite the right rally I was fortunate enough to connect with a bipartisan set of organizations who were willing to support this project including the anti-defamation League which became the home of the project the Charles Koch Institute the Ford Foundation the Fetscher Institute the John Pritzker Fund Comcast Universal NBC the Kresge Foundation the Soros fund Georgetown University's Institute for constitutional advocacy and protection New America The Aspen Institute's Justice and Society program and defending democracy together I want to thank them all here today for their leadership and courage in joining a refreshingly bipartisan diverse coalition to work on this issue We have together held two summits leadership summits involving hundreds of leaders in the fall in November 2018 we held a summit of public sector leaders at Washington University in st. Louis and In July of this year. We held a private sector leadership summit at Airbnbs headquarters in San Francisco We are announcing today the final report and the podcast that draws on and marshals the insights the Highlights the key conversations from those two convenings a few words about both the final report Which is distributed around the room is a 60 page treasure trove of Conversations case studies lessons learned videos from the summits and best practices in both the public and the private sectors about this front-line work against Extremism it includes mayors and educators and educators nonprofit leaders Police officials tech executives sharing extremely candid insights from their specific work Just a few highlights. There's a discussion from the Department of Justice's Council for domestic terrorism about the trade-off between treating Terrorist attacks as hate crimes rather than as domestic terrorism There is a plan by the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island to declare his city a city of kindness to decrease Marginalization and radicalization among vulnerable groups. There's a case study of the national immigration forum successful and inventive coalition working with evangelicals to create a Campaign to diffuse what is called otherization of refugees and immigrants There is former senator Jack Danforth of Missouri talking about the role of leaders using their bully pulpit to decry extremists There's a conversation about how community policing will need to do a better job of reaching out to and embracing Vulnerable communities as extremists are also confronted by police There's a very candid discussion among preachers and nonprofit leaders about how successful anti-racism Will require alliances and the resources and privileges of white people to aid black and brown people Who are under assault today? There is a discussion among private sector tech company leaders talking about the need to collaborate and exchange best practices Their successes and their failures as they confront extremism to not just be isolated out on a limb But to do it together There's a discussion among gaming companies Who are one of the new? Platforms that extremists have become exploiting about how they have become a new target their challenges and rooting extremists from their platforms And how to build tools to enable users to flag dangerous content Our hope is that this becomes both a guidebook and a resource manual for leaders and organizations addressing extremism There's a lot here including many strong opinions and arguments For individual solutions a disclaimer that is right at the front not all Organizations involved in this coalition agree with all of the content Far from it and we see that as a strength of the project. It is up to you and the audiences for this Final report to find within it the content that answers your questions that helps you address them The report also includes four letters from the anti defamation League the Charles Koch Institute the Fedser Institute and the Institute for Consciously Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Expressing their additional thoughts and conclusions Along those lines I want to call your attention to an important section at the beginning of the report key Conversations and future questions written specifically to identify paths for other leaders and organizations Seeking to engage in this work Again just a few highlights for the public sector for the federal government Two future questions are whether and how best practices and laws from the context of international Terrorism can be applied to domestic extremism while avoiding civil rights concerns Another how the federal government can best interact with and support state and local governments in their own work against violent extremism State local governments a question how to draw a time place a manner restrictions Effectively to protect the public from violent groups bent on violence and intimidation Another how to design community policing programs that proactively provide Accountability and transparency including through acute community engagement that highlights responsiveness and approachability and for the private sector How the private sector can build effective teams to take vigorous action in Recognizing combating extremist activity online and provide their users with trust and safety from extremism and now self regulation on the model of approaches to spam and pornography which have proved successful can address crucial questions for viability in dealing with extremism Including the protection of unpopular speech Finally on gaming how to address the vulnerability of e-gaming platforms which have provided fertile ground for nurturing positive behavior and values But which are also open to exploitation It's a fascinating report that I think will stand the test of time I also want to announce today our podcast series titled overcoming extremism Just as we felt that making resources available Was at the heart of creating more capacity for anybody involved in this work We also felt that deep dive conversations with individual leaders would be invaluable And so with the help of our expert producer Elliot Majerzyk who's here with us today Give a wave We created a 10 episode series that goes deep with people who have been on the front lines Some of whom are here with us today Journalist Vegas Tainold describes being embedded with the alt-right during the Unite the right rally in Charlottesville Mary McCord of Georgetown describes her anti-militia litigation and why she believes we need a new federal statute criminalizing domestic terrorism Amy Spitalnik of integrity first for America describes a strategy of suing far-right Militia groups for money damages using laws originally designed to stop the Ku Klux Klan Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League Explains civic organizations role in strengthening American democracy's immune system against extremism Historian Nicolle Hammer describes the roots of today's conflicts and the present and future of extremism on the left and the right in America Berkeley Mayor Jesse Audegin describes his experiences and lessons from handling multiple white supremacist protests in 2017 Chatnuga's mayor Andy Burke describes handling a terrorist attack and why he founded the Mayor's Council Against Hate in that city Summer Alley who's also here with us today Describes being the subject of extremist harassment in Tennessee and why she founded the group millions of conversations Alvin Edwards the former mayor of Charlottesville and the founder of the clergy collective in the city Explains the role of that organization and faith institutions during Charlottesville's extremist events in 2017 Sarah Ruger describes why the Charles Koch Institute Supports work against extremism and the power of such alliances and the FOMA Zoma of Pinterest talks about that company's Efforts to push back against extremism on its platform through customer-driven trust and safety programs Podcasts is available at Stitcher and the Apple podcast store and our website, which is www.overcomingextremism.org and it just Went live today, so it's hot off the presses for all of you podcast addicts out there So there's a lot of pain in the pages that we're going to talk about today But there is also a lot of hope We end all of our podcast interviews with this question of whether folks are optimistic or pessimistic about democracy's Capacity to overcome extremism and the answer is as you listen to them might might surprise you They're not uniform and they're very honest, but for me the answer was clear. I Ended this project even more optimistic than before more committed to the idea that our democracy is More resilient than extremism that we will prevail by going back to our fundamentals to the principles of equality opportunity pluralism Tolerance and vigilance that got us here in the first place. I hope you agree and I'm now going to introduce my friend Susan bro Susan is a Charlottesville local whose daughter Heather Hire was tragically killed and unite the right rally during the memorial service for Heather the nation watched Transfixed as Susan defied the white supremacist and his followers who had Engaged in this act and terrorized the town and she promised and said that the assault would only magnify The causes that her daughter had stood for and her voice And she was right She later founded the Heather Hire Foundation and travels frequently speaking about the work She does and inspiring audiences around the country. I Am always amazed from the very beginning watching the memorial service by the combination of grit and vision and Compassion that she brings to her work. She was kind enough to come to our San Francisco summit and Inspire the tech leaders there with her message and the specific ideas that she had about resilience and creativity within their Sometimes hidebound ways of thinking and I'm so glad that she's with us today And I was a quick programming note. Keyser Khan was also scheduled to be here today the gold star parent from Charlottesville He had a medical Issue today that prevented him from being here with us, but he sends his best wishes So with that I wanted to introduce Susan bro I Pardon me the youngest grandson imparted a virus and Grandma hugged him anyway But I am recovering from a cold So the private tech summit happened in San Francisco right about the same time Southern Poverty Law Center was asking me to Join them in a campaign to Let Twitter know this is like a Middle school drama so-and-so said so-and-so said To let Twitter know that they should Follow their own policies on extreme speech that they should Have more rigorous enforcement At the time Southern Poverty Law Center asked me that I was a little hesitant because that's right when YouTube had done their fast clean up and In the process of YouTube trying to clean up they got rid of some stuff that was also valuable some historical documents some historical records, so I was really reluctant to Participate in the campaign. I was really reluctant even to participate in the Private sector thing, but I thought you know what these are the experts. These are the leading edge. Let me go listen so I Walked into the workshop and The private sector people shared some of their concerns and their issues and I said, okay, here's my concern Here's what's happening with me convince me So the issues that private sector faces are one Are they bound by the? same Institutional Freedom of speech issues that government is bound by the answer is No, it's optional now That can go good or that can go bad Depends on who's making that decision if you are a very particular religious group and you don't want anyone outside of your religion talking you have that right also to censor speech What we're hoping that private tech continues to do and what they seem to be struggling and working on how to best do is To find ways to define hate speech and then to eliminate it and many times It's in code. So there's a constant need to be meeting and rethinking and Readdressing the issue Generally hate speech among private sector I've learned is considered any speech that is going to marginalize or Threaten another group for any reason and I think that's a pretty standard Explanation that we could all live with Apparently what happened with YouTube was they used an artificial intelligence algorithm to decide which videos to do away with And the problem with that is there are judgment calls to be made I actually was trying to find footage of the tiki torch march to put in a presentation I was doing in Chicago at the beginning of the month and I had a really hard time finding some that weren't watered down And that's because a lot of those had been lopped off So there are advantages and disadvantages. We need to still of course use our own critical thinking We need to monitor what our Children and other people who might be radicalized are seeing that's still on us as citizens We can't depend completely on private tech to get it right, but private tech is interested They are trying very hard to figure out what's legal What's not legal What's ethical and what's not ethical and they're trying to do it in a personal and intensive way That is not going to lose them their business and yet still Reinforce values and you can understand from a business point of view that could be a very tricky thing to pull off But they are committed. I was very Excited to see how impassioned they were about it They're trying very hard to stay abreast of what the newest code words the newest symbols ADL of course just put out a new database that helps them sift through some of that, but they Are working very hard to try to bring that around So in the end I went back to Southern Poverty Law and said I think I can say to Twitter. Yes we need to Focus on how to Stick to standards While respecting freedom of speech now as Americans we value our freedoms and so Freedom of speech is one of our prime directives But yet we don't want to violate Safety we don't want to violate common sense values. We don't want to violate Caring for individuals So there's a lot to weigh here. There are not simple answers. There's not a straightforward path that you can just say Absolutely this this and this and I'm done it requires critical thinking I recently participated in a forum with the Economist magazine in Chicago and One of the questions that I participated in was Should free speech be limited? And the beginning a lot of the audience said yes After we talked a bit they thought a little differently about it and here's why the question was should we have any tolerance at all for Extremism yes and no I Think we need to know what other people are saying I think we need to know what their thought processes are So that we can address them if we don't know what they're thinking if we don't know what they are Believing and acting on then we can't counteract that and the question had been particularly about college campuses and I said what better time to have it than on a college campus because then you have the More likely power and ability to have other points of view who can help you sift through What's right and what's wrong sift through what your values are it's it's risky I'll grant you but democracy requires an educated and critical thinking population we require a free press and We require people adhering to the Constitution and As we do those things and as we teach our children and our young people to think critically to analyze to Value Themselves value their opinions value what they're saying they tend to come around We won't get it always right, but I think as we very carefully and thoughtfully Tread the path. We'll figure it out. We have done this as a country many times before. I Believe that we can still do this. I believe that we could navigate this very tricky path now She's telling me I still have two minutes. I Think I said all I need to say about it But let me ask you real quick Do you have any questions about what I just said because I I know that that's kind of a risky thing to say It would be safe for me to lie to you and say, oh, yeah, we've got this all figured out We know exactly what we're doing, but but that would be a lie Anyone have any questions about it? Yes, sir. I Have a semi history with President Trump that started during the funeral and I will say what I always say About President Trump and many others and that is the same things I used to teach fourth grade and I would tell fourth graders number one always tell the truth number two always be accountable for your actions and I Would like to add another thing here and that is recognize the power a Position can have with words that you use. I Suddenly acquired 15,000 Followers on Twitter through no design of my own somebody decided. Hey Heather's mom needs followers. Let's join in and So I have now found that whatever I say Even with only 15,000 followers has tremendous impact The same as magnified for the president and other people the bigger your power The bigger your reaction and I got my stop sign, so we're going to end there Thank you very much. I'll sit well sit. Thank you, Susan I Now ask my panelists to join me for our first panel working together and building bridges the power of Alliances if you could come up on the stage and join us we'll get started Reverend Alvin Edwards Robert McKenzie Adam Neufeld Sarah Ruger and Mike Signer So just to introduce the panelists from my immediate left all the way over we have Reverend Informer pastor Alvin Edwards of mayor of Charlottesville from 1990 to 1992 Robert Sorry, Mike signal Mike Signer mayor Charlottesville from 2016 to 2018 founder and chair of the project Adam Neufeld vice president of innovation and strategy with the anti-defamation League Sarah Ruger director of free expression the Charles Koch Institute and Robert McKenzie director and senior fellow of New America. Thank you all for joining us today Thank you. I want to start because this topic is is our panels about alliances I understand the most valuable part of the project was the partnership work So when you think about alliances for overcoming extremism How or what do you see as the value of alliances from your perspective? And I know that seems like an obvious question But yet I think the value of it is an ink is clear So I left from your vantage point to talk about that a little bit and Pastor Edwards you look ready to start Spoken like a pastor. We'll let you start. Well, thank you and One of the things that happened to me in Charlottesville, Virginia after mother Emanuel in the city of Charleston, South Carolina happened There were some questions and from other Faith communities and we got together with the few and I raised a question with them If this had happened here at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church, how many of you think I would have called you? my answer was none of you and so some of the Pastors lay people to ask well, why not? I said one. I don't know you to we don't have a relationship and three, there's no trust there and So if you're going to have and fight and deal with stuff like extremism You need to have relationships. You need to have some support You need to have do some collaborating work in order to be effective in a community Adam I know you had thoughts on the You thought there was a role for institutions as well and thinking about alliance so So alliance is I think people talk about them often as being for you're more effective together, right? It's easier to pass legislation and when it comes to fighting hate There is a handful of things that we at ADL believe you should do right increasing appropriations for fighting domestic extremism Cyber hate laws and the like but that it's also something Bigger when you think about alliances and the public message that it sends people and and the reason is that we actually know That sending signals to people with hateful beliefs in their heart actually changes their behavior And it's kind of depressing on one side and optimistic on the other So the depressing part is that when you look at data Across almost any group in in very different ways you see that Lots and lots of people way more than we want to admit have hateful beliefs So whether you want to look at the one out of a hundred people on the night of Obama's inauguration That had searched the word Obama and the n-word or Obama and KKK or the 25% of people in America who believe multiple Antisemitic tropes or the 40% I think this was your study Bobby that found that lots of Americans think that Muslims are generally sympathetic to terrorists right so that's super scary, right? On the flip side the reason that they are not acting on this and we don't have we have a horrible level But not the catastrophic level of hate in society is that people look to social norms they look to see if there's going to be consequences to their action and Studies have shown that everything from a school Playground to big institutions like what may or say makes a difference in whether or not those hateful beliefs are bottled up And so coming back to alliances the idea is that when you see lots of folks sending this signal and institutions doing things that don't have necessarily legal power, right? resolutions against Hate things like that or marches counter rallies They actually send a super powerful signal not only to those who don't hate but also even more important to those who hate to say You may have those beliefs in your heart But like you will be ostracized if you don't if you express them at all And so that's I think another exciting part of and why we're so excited about this effort Sarah your thoughts on the question So I've been fortunate up to been with coke for about a decade now and It's safe to say over the course of those ten years that we've learned a lot of lessons Many many of them the hard way about the importance of alliances and working across divides to drive positive impact in society if I was to Bucket the value of those alliances in a three major reasons why it's it's the driving force to to everything we do now It's that one you can have incredible breakthroughs through collaboration and alliances that you wouldn't have otherwise so You know, I think in particular of our work and experience on criminal justice reform where you know That was the space that we were working in for Well over over ten years, but it really wasn't until We started building relationships with people like Van Jones and the organizations that he brought to bear to have Conversations about how you didn't have to have to trade off between respect for human dignity and public safety and through those collaborations You see breakthroughs like what we saw through the first step act and everything that's occurred since then To though less tangible, but I think as important you elevate an issue when you come together across divides to work on it you you signal that there's a unique importance to that issue when when When Coke and Soros will work together on something even where we have many areas where we we disagree It tells you that one thing that we should be capable of agreeing on is that political Violence is unacceptable in society and we can show the world in these highly fractured times when it matters Most that it is possible to have that collaboration Where we agree despite disagreements elsewhere and then lastly whenever there's an issue this complex Where the solutions are are sticky and hard That's when it's all the more important to have diverse voices at the table challenging each other because the one thing We assume going in is that we don't have all the answers and that probably the assumptions that we're making are Uninformed or could be wrong and there's value to be had in surfacing solutions by engaging in that debate and engaging in that that dialogue and And Bobby so much of your work as you know what lots of New America's work is really built around connecting with other so much of your work is around Coalitions and connecting with different groups. How do you think about it in the context of this working more broadly? It was let me just one say it was great to be a part of this coalition and I think Mike has done a terrific job to pull Very disparate groups and voices together. This is not easy work at all So it's been great to partner with with Mike and and everyone that's been involved I've done some work with ADL and that's been terrific and and I think it's shown that there's scope for more work But I want to talk about one area that I think we really Need to do a whole lot more work and its alliances with some of the tech companies and this is my own perspective There's no question that the platforms are amplifiers and accelerators of some pretty bad stuff But they also sort of hold the keys to try and get at some of these things and pull it apart The zeitgeist is tech companies should do something but rarely can folks sketch out what exactly they should do And so the kind of alliances that I want to build more of and I'm building Are about scholarship and data because I feel like scholarship and data Allows us to move away from fear and intuition so that we can better understand how these how these hate groups function on Online and so trying to bring everybody together though is not easy I mean I thought what this project did so terrifically and it was I think the Airbnb event I mean, I don't know how many groups we had there Mike But I thought it was a terrific showing of the huge appetite From the tech companies to try and get their minds around some of these really hard issues Even if we don't all agree on how we should should solve them. So I guess My message here that I'm trying to drive home is that if there's one area where I think we can all work And do more work I should say is trying to build new bridges and coalitions with with some of the tech companies to solve these problems Like I want to build on Bobby's point I bet it was easy bringing hundreds of leaders together and and I bet coming up with the 60 page report. I think you said that was probably easy to write Why don't you can you talk a little bit just about the process some of your lessons learned as a leader doing this? Well, yeah So I this theme of allyship comes up in so many different contexts where I am I would about a year a year and a half ago I was asked to talk at a conference that the foreign ministry in Israel held on the rise of global anti-semitism and it was a very It was a remarkable experience to be in Jerusalem with so many people from all around the world who are addressing Anti-semitism rising in their respective countries with their institutions and the theme of allyship came up So often they're how valuable it is for an embattled marginalized population to have You know, it's in-group out-group stuff. So to have in-group members visibly vigorously supporting signaling support allying offering real resources it it is incredibly valuable and it's gotten harder because of how The online environment and the political environment work So it becomes very intimidating if some group that might seek to ally with some attacked Group who's the subject of extremism is themselves threatened with a boycott or or is trolled or and it really can only be a couple of people And a troll farm in Eastern Europe who can create a quite intimidating force to any organization seeking to ally with Somebody who is under attack so it becomes even more important because of how easy it is to intimidate them away from that work So I you know, I you know, I can there have been so many examples personally the first one of the first calls I had after the Richard Spencer came the founder of the term all right and did this big rally in Charlottesville And I was very visible and decrying The what this was which I said was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan and then soon enough the Ku Klux Klan was coming to Charlottesville But that put me on the radar of all of these Really brutal anti-Semitic Attacks that you get online and then one of the first calls I got was from the anti-deformation League saying we have a system to provide you public officials who are Jewish with resources and to understand this and To analyze it and what are best practices do you want to talk to the FBI? Do you want to really get a handle on it? What are the how do you conduct yourself? Very helpful, and it was not gonna happen on its own and a final thing I would say is one of the benefits of alliances, especially among perhaps unlikely bedfellows is I think it's similar to the You know when you do a diversity and inclusion training and any in a workplace or an organization a lot of the argument for Diversity is that it improves your ideas and improves your work product It improves your because if you subject whatever it is you're doing To diverse voices they will benefit from going through that process and I have the same feeling about alliances So this report and a lot of the ideas ended up having probably more attention to Libertarian concerns because the partnership with the co-constitute which I think is really beneficial because they represent a significant part of the country that May not be in this top-of-mind coalition, but it was really important to us to bring in alliances to really try and speak to More of everybody who is dealing with this around the country It's very disappointing when you look at hate crimes legislation on Capitol Hill And it's all members of one party who line up behind it and immediately the premise is that this is partisan or political in some Way and that should not be the case But especially in the political environment in the online environment and once something is polarized and defined Then all of a sudden you're playing defense on it. It's already It can too often be a lost cause so alliances can disrupt that and they can create a more robust connection of people that actually can Hold the line against these partisan assumptions. I think so I want to build on a point You just mentioned I think Sarah touched on as well Is that I find in the context of coalition building and not particularly unlikely bedfellows as you mentioned that Differences get in the way very real and meaningful differences and they they can stop Stop a thing in its tracks. How do you handle? How do you hold differences in the context of coalition building? I? Can tell you one that we had with the clergy collective when the Ku Klux Klan came I Thought immediately that we would I would encourage people not to go But the collective we had we took a three-prong approach. We had those who stayed at the church and prayed We had another Group who went down to yell back at the Ku Klux Klan and there was a third group that went down to the pavilion They sang songs they did they did a worship that was diverse in terms of faith Denomination and what was good about that is that even though I thought that as the chairman or president of it We addressed all three issues by going three different ways in good numbers Sarah just something yeah, something I'd add is I I don't think there's any substitute for the kind of visionary leadership that Mike brought to the project, and I'm not just blowing up but The the one thing we all have to have in common when there is so much Potential for disagreement amongst the group is a commitment to the vision of the project and clarity on what that vision is and a Tempormental willingness to disagree but with a respect for the dignity of the other individual and and everyone who was brought into this group Reflected that ethos and that's that's a product of the leadership and the cultivation of the coalition And and is something that you know when you're committed to up top really allows you to get through those inevitable moments of challenge throughout the throughout the process and I just wanted to you reminded me of another kind of benefit of Alliances and it's just that when you enter with that spirit genuinely trying to find the solution to a complex problem It it begets more collaboration like collaborating Continues to create versus cycles virtuous cycles of collaboration So just one example coming out of this project because we engaged in this this project together You know the Carnegie Endowment for international peace and the Hewlett Foundation came to us and said you know raising a lot of a lot of questions here We think there's a lot of wisdom that the international conflict resolution community could bring to bear and figuring out why we're seeing a rise in Political violence and extremism and and ways we might be able to prevent it based on learnings Abroad so that's that's a conversation that occurred just just weeks ago and that beget more relationships that will be able to To work with moving forward to try to prevent these kinds of acts of atrocities I just wanted to build on something sorry you said maybe unpack it which is a shared commitment to the vision, right? I think that we often particularly in today's time confuse the means with the ends, right? And I think that in order to have alliances you really need to have Focus on the ends, right? Which is as you said before like no political violence, right? Then you can then have interesting debates if you truly believe you all agree that that is actually important Well, you can you can have debates about should we be doing countermeasures should we be passing laws? Should we be suing but you can actually feel like the other person genuinely is trying to get to that result And I think that is frankly where What distinguishes maybe like partnerships or information sharing and meetings from alliances, right? And I think that one of the areas Bobby talking back to your point about not a lot of alliances with tech companies Like I don't think we're at the point of alliances yet, right with them, right? I think that we're at the point of conversations and there's been some attempts of information sharing but and we have those a deal has regular meetings with folks to focus on a couple areas and I think that we Probably agree with the vision, but I think that more needs to Time is needed or steps are needed to know whether there's a genuine commitment on both sides Because then we can move to the interesting conversations of means, right? Should you be kicking people off of a platform should you be doing countermeasures? And so I think that is where why I don't see as much on the alliances well I do see more and more alliances with the libertarian groups and civil rights groups criminal justice being the first a great example And this as well Yeah, I do think I'm up and I don't think you're defending tech companies I'm just saying that's why I think it's not here No, and I What I would say is that I when I agree with with Everything you've just said, but I think that there is there is a real need For for not just more engagement with the tech companies And I mean nobody engages better than ADL to try and push them on various specific areas where they need to improve But I mean the tech companies They are the amplifier and accelerators of these really horrible things I Will say and modestly that you know, I'm doing some work right now For example, I'm working with Google and we are doing a massive study looking at What sorts of things Americans search for online after jihadist attacks about Muslims in Islam? It took a year and a half to get that project off the ground and going But it's a starting place But I just to circle back to Sarah's point I I think that one leadership matters, but I also think these issues are so big and so important and we we continue to see one Spectacular and horrific attack after another and I think that frankly is is what kept us all moving forward I mean pulling together this report was a lot of effort and we had lots of different ideas about sort of what the shape Of the report should look like but I don't think any of us ever thought about abandoning the report not once Because we wanted to try and bring together these very diverse views on really hard topics Because we all Passionately and professionally believe we need to move the needle on these issues I just want to follow up on this one part very interesting discussion about the tech companies and call everybody's attention to a part of the report that That talked about the convening that we did in San Francisco There is a ton of value in getting very specific with these people at these companies who are engaged in this work and One of the things that surfaced from this gathering was the distinction between Even in talking about tech companies the big six or seven that we spend and DC spends all of its time thinking about that are basically So big they are like separate countries YouTube Instagram Facebook Twitter There are a host of so-called mid-level tech companies which are also big enough to be like Individual state, you know, American states that are doing a ton of work and are fully engaged and are working very hard on Extremism and we have case studies of a couple of them in the project patreon Airbnb there were a host of other ones who chose to come to the To the summit it was under Chatham House rules So we couldn't talk about specifically what individual participants said attributed to their name But I can talk about here who some of the companies that were there and there are general ideas in the in the report Pinterest PayPal Patreon I said I mentioned before There are companies event bright These are companies that are working hard to try and figure out How do they move the needle and how do they figure out? Within their own corporate compass and how they're evaluating free speech versus public safety and again This is something the private companies They're not under the mandate that the government is so they really have Decisions to make about how within their Corporate community and within their relation to their consumers. What are they doing? But all of them want to do something and they are in the process right now setting up and growing trust and safety teams and the mechanisms for how a trust and safety team Work sometimes it's user-driven Sometimes there's a whole team doing it this interview that we have on the podcast with Pinterest is Fascinating it's about how Pinterest has set up this Internal force basically that works with users to make Pinterest a safe environment where you don't have propaganda for extremists and violent causes taking over the site and you know, you think well Why would a site that's used for you know, like art projects and design Visualizing your kitchen. How could that possibly related to extremism? It's the same idea as how did a gaming platform like discord get used for extremism Or how did Airbnb get involved that are event-brite because you can plan events that become extremist events They're all because the way that the internet in meshes with society They all become touched potentially by extremism and I thought that was interesting is they are these mid-level companies Some of them are working very very hard and they do need to be connected with each other That was one of the things we talked about in the report was a need for Multi-platform collaborative work best practices information sharing Because when one is out there kind of on a cliff on their own It's different than if they're if they have each other's back And it really is an evolving best practice that you need to build trust and safety So it was phenomenal having them all together and it was it signaled a lot of paths to take I think But so we'll open it up for questions in just a few but I'm curious Particularly a pastor you've done the clergy collective. Have you seen a difference from this alliance like Would you call the folks now if something happened in your community? There are some that I would call some because I'm closer to Some individuals in the clergy collected than I am than I was before The other difference I've seen I've watched we've done a number of things that one thing we've done recently we provide Book supplies for children and families who cannot afford them. We did something. We called a journey to J town we've In the process of taking a trip up to the African-American Museum Smithsonian We meet on a regular basis we discuss issues on tomorrow night We will have another a third of three series of Conversations toward reconciliation and justice where we get around tables and people from different backgrounds and we talk about a particular question So there is a closeness that has developed We're not afraid to stand up together for issues once the right after the incident in Ohio with That's the synagogue up there We came to some of us came to the temple in Charlottesville to be supportive and one of the members in the temple said Who remembered the Holocaust said she remembered that no one stood with them But she was glad to find out that we was willing to stand with them And so that's helped to build community and whenever one person impacts another person that person can impact someone else And it becomes like a snowball rolling down the hill it picks up steam and it grows bigger and bigger Great. It's a great point to pause and open it up for any questions from the audience Yes, ma'am one in the back and there's a mic coming to you They recently attacked a gay Asian reporter and They also kind of tore up this town a little bit on an auguration day and also did some violence in Berkeley And so your question is target. All right. Well, is there's any of these kind of applications being applied towards them? Yes In particularly Antifa, I'll talk about I would encourage anybody to listen to the podcast Interviews all of them. There's one with the mayor of Berkeley Jesse out again who had Who talks very candidly about the difficulties in that city of handling the extremes both on the left and the right and He had some very provocative Proposals about how to address violence on all on all sides including using gang designations and in the introduction to the whole series in the or in the in the summit in St. Louis and you can we have video links in the report that's online So you can see the remarks that I made I talked about having a definition of extremism that was broad enough for people to identify with it but have disagreements within it and I talked about using violence or extremism for political ends that those are extremist groups and You know, you can have lots of disagreements about about it But the main argument is that when you're using violence or intimidation to in the political sphere You are replacing what democracy is about with other and and it's all Problematic and it all should be overcome. So that I hope that's one way of answering that question Yes, sir Thanks In your research on extremism To what extent is it have you found that it's rooted in economic grievances? I Can speak to this generally because one of the the projects that we've launched in the 18 months since we began getting involved in the community's overcoming extremism project is is called courageous collaborations And it it supports academic research from a variety of fields into where Intolerance comes from where what the roots of otherization are hopefully in pursuit of the cure and All we we have figured out at this point from the breadth of kind of lit reviews that we're doing is that there's no one cause except for this Unprecedented level of dynamism that we're seeing in society today So there's there's rising inequality in a rapidly shifting job market that is causing the kind of of Insecurity that can can trend in this direction, but there's also Massive shifting and how people consume information and how knowledge flows in society since the advent of the Internet and the rise of social media There's significant demographic changes in society at summer Celebrated in her remarks of the public sector summit that we are about to be a majority minority country for the first time and all of These things are incredibly exciting Most of them are going to lead to good Down the line but cause a degree of uncertainty that psychologically humans are wired to React with with fear when they encounter that degree of the unknown so I think we've just got a climate of of anxiety caused by all kinds of complex issues that makes individuals particularly susceptible to this ideology and that that's why when we say the The solutions have to be complex. It's because the causes are just as complicated I was gonna just build on that which is you know There's you know, there's Research on where you look at extremists and you go back into their lives And the like and Mary probably knows that better than anyone here You know, I would say that for every example you can think of and say this is what causes extremism You can think of 99 others where that situation was present and it didn't cause extremism, right? And I think that is that that is the overall challenge I do think we can say that there have been certain systematic changes that may increase the probability that somebody, you know The average person right instead of you know expressing their dissatisfaction or their need for in group In one way they are a little bit more in the extremism So I think I do think that technology is playing a general role in Showing that extremism is out there that your hateful beliefs are not alone and all the rest But what are the core underlying things that are driving it? I think is a mystery Just to follow up on that a very specific kind of extremism jihadist Activity I mean lots and lots of research has been done and there is no single journey And it's why so many of our countering violent extremism programs have not done so well because one we have we struggle to on Identify a common journey. We struggle to identify Even defining violent extremism and then when we can't do those two things Trying to then think about programs to get at it makes it super hard and that's just very that's one specific You know form of extremism and I think the one in the back mentioned sort of far left So I mean I I don't think there is a single journey and I don't think there's any research out there that suggests that there is You can measure Interventions though and whether or not they're effective once somebody does begin the path to radicalization like what actually moves them Back to humanity versus what pushes them farther To the extreme and ADL and others are doing a lot of that work Great. So last question we just got I Was like we got the two-minute morning. I got the stop sign I'm just curious for those of you I'm thinking in some ways you've highlighted that this work is difficult, but also made it sound easy I'm curious what lesson learned you'd want to impart with the audience in And doing this coalition building work of alliances. What what would it? What have you learned? That's most salient The thing I've learned the most is to learn to talk through your differences and not give up I think we go to what Sarah it's it's about people ultimately So you're creating trust and relationships between people and certain people are gonna connect We're gonna connect or resonate more about this set of issues how it than others and those are the people that you want to work with Practically you probably only have the resources as an individual or organization to do a few of these alliances so choose well That this is hard, but worth it and it's it's worth it because of the difficulties and what those those can surface And I just leave everyone with the thought that this is gonna get harder before it gets easier. We're heading into 2020 It's not gonna be a more peaceful less polarized time But it's gonna it's gonna make it matter all the more that we're capable of having these conversations I agree with all of that The people theme is definitely the most salient resounding one from this group. Thank you all for your leadership and expertise Welcome everybody, my name is Bobby McKenzie. I'm a director and senior fellow here at New America And I'm gonna be moderating the second panel initially. It was supposed to be Hannah Lam from NPR I'm standing in for her because something came up at the last minute the title of this panel is is Taking action interventions against extremism and I'm told that these four panelists are gonna help me figure it out in about 30 minutes Mary McCourt has assured me of that So I'm just gonna introduce my panelists from my right Onward Vegas Tenult is author of everything you love will burn. He's also an investigator at ADL Center on extremism Next up is Amy Spitalnik She's the executive director at integrity first for America Then we have Mary McCourt who is the legal director and visiting professor of law at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University And next to her is Samar Ali who is president and founder of a million millions of conversations Let me start with you Samar Ali. You've built a bipartisan national campaign or you've done your your Best to try and build one. Can you just tell us a little bit about why you did this and and sort of what you're seeing from this campaign that you've built Sure, so I did it and at first one of the one of the main reasons is because I myself was a victim of Hate the rise of hate in Islamophobia in America and I saw this actually when I worked in President Obama's administration as a White House fellow Because I became target a target of vicious attacks calling me a terrorist which only intensified when I moved back home to my home state of Tennessee I'm from a rural area called Waverly, Tennessee in Humphreys County I moved back home to Nashville and I found myself the target one of the main targets actually of a multi-million dollar national campaign to demonize me and unfortunately for a period of time was effective and I found myself basically having to go underground for a period of time and it was unsafe for me to speak in public as I'm doing right now and As someone who's committed to this country and to our values and and who's a lawyer who studied the Constitution for very significant reasons I found that and As we're becoming a majority minority society that this was a critical time in our country of where we could not afford this we never We should never afford this kind of hate But in particular from a systemic standpoint that it was a critical time period in our history for us to show leadership in a way that would bridge these divides so that we could become a functioning society and so it took years actually and and and for us to get to this point to launch millions of conversations and We decided that the only way we'd be we would be effective Is if we made the strategic decision to not speak to ourselves Which means that we in order to transcend tribalism and in order to Transcend partisanship we had to be a bipartisan campaign and That we have to be both a national campaign Headquartered in Nashville and one that's focused at the grassroots level and by grassroots I mean county by county. We are 3,142 counties in this country. That's how we're structured That's how we're organized and that's how this campaign is focused and you talk a little bit about your Work in this space. You've been doing this for quite some time both before and now that you're ADL sure Yes, I've been a I've been a journalist for years and I started embedding with these various white supremacist groups in 2000 and 2010 and so I was kind of there when it was the the the old guys in the movement the boots on the ground and when it turned Into the alt-right and my last event with the groups I embedded with was was Charlottesville, so If you look at white supremacist mobilization in America throughout history, it's a it's a history of sort of ebbs and flows and to kind of Keep on that nautical metaphor a little bit Charlottesville was like the crest of that wave, right and and afterwards It seems like it has receded a little bit a Lot of the groups who were in Charlottesville aren't with us anymore a lot of the people who march in Charlottesville have sort of receded into the woodworks and And what does that tell us about radicalization? What does that tell us about what's going on? It kind of tells us that There are certain things you can do but the movement is still very much there the people who are at Charlottesville the people Who have been mobilizing its white supremacists are still Very much there. They're just not as as organized as they used to be They're still there's more violence than ever coming from this movement, but again, they're not as organized So, you know, we touched on The tech companies and all that sort of thing and we're seeing a Very scattered movement right now. We're seeing an extremely violent and a very dangerous movement But it's a it's a it's a different movement. So sort of my background of this has been trying to Keeping tabs on a very changing Fluid movement just a quick follow-up question because I suspect many people in the room and also online have not embedded with Extremist groups before could you just just tell us quickly sort of we haven't all done that Yeah, how you did that? What what that entailed? Um, all right. So I mean if you look at me, I could pretty easily sort of Fit in with these people, but my thought was always that I wanted to for my own sanity I wanted to be able to push back. I wanted to be able to fight and argue. So I'm Norwegian. I'm born and raised. I voted socialist all my life. So I decided to try to use that to my advantage Here's a socialist. Here's a here's a communist. This is what one looks like if you listen to me I'll listen to you we can sort of try to fight about this and hash it out And also I have a tendency to come across as a complete idiot That people and people enjoy that people like to seem smarter than others. So when I can barely sort of write my own name the Nazis Were enamored with this with this dummy from Norway. So they kind of let me in for a bit Did you tell them what you were doing? Always always that way and that was just because you know again I want to be able to fight back. I don't also I don't think anyone sort of owes me their story So I wanted to be upfront with who I was and for a personal security There were times when when they didn't know who I was and when things got somewhat scary and violent these are very violent people and if you're showing up as a quote-unquote spy Then that's not always the best idea Amy could you talk a little bit about your work? suing the far right and and some of the lessons learned from that So integrity first for America, which is the nonprofit. I run is backing a landmark federal suit against the two dozen neo Nazis white supremacists and hate groups that were responsible for organizing the violence in Charlottesville I think many Americans when they look back at what happened might assume that the violence was spontaneous that these extremists went down They're simply to protest the removal of the Confederate statues and violence broke out somehow But in fact it was the opposite what happened was for months in advance before August 2017 These groups and these leaders were on a social media site called discord Which is typically used by video gamers where they planned everything from what to wear what to bring for lunch How to sew a swastika onto a flag? Which weapons to carry and whether they could hit protesters with cars and then claims self-defense Which is of course exactly what they went on to do And so our plaintiffs are a number of Charlottesville community members friends of Heather and a number of others Who were injured in that violence some during the Tiki torchlight March on Friday night where they were surrounded had fuel thrown on them Lit torches thrown on them were beaten up and others during the car attack itself or the surrounding violence on August 12th We're using a statue. We're using a few civil rights statutes But I think one of the most interesting is something called the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 first passed nearly a hundred and fifty years ago By the reconstruction as Congress to protect recently freed slaves from clan vigilante violence And it was is one of the few statutes that exist to protect against Private conduct as it relates to violations of civil rights. So many of our civil rights statutes have to do with governmental conduct But by creating this statute The reconstruction as Congress allowed private citizens who were the victims of violent racially motivated Conspiracies like these to actually have a form of recourse in the courts And I think what's particularly poignant about this is that besides for some details? They organize not in clans dens or in the woods or something like that, but rather online and Nowadays they're so emboldened that rather than wearing white hoods. They're just marching with their names and their faces out on our streets There aren't many other major differences between the violent racially motivated conspiracies We saw a hundred and fifty years ago that inspired this act and the ones we see nowadays So our suit is aggressively moving forward. In fact while I was sitting here during the previous panel We've got two additional orders from the court one compelling neo-nazi defendant national socialist movement to Sit for a deposition and hand over key evidence and requiring every single defendant to turn over their social media credentials Within the next two weeks, which is key to our discovery process We expect trial next year in 2020 exact trial date is in the works. Hopefully soon And this case is important. It's about it's important because it's about justice and accountability for Charlottesville It's about accountability for the two dozen other individuals who have not yet seen Justice in court for what they did for the violence that they planned But it also really has the ability to much more broadly take on and hopefully Bancropt those leaders and groups that are at the center of this violent movement that have connections to so many of the other Awful violence and attacks we've seen in recent years and send a very clear message that if you participate in these Conspiracies if you are part of this hateful violence, we will take you on We will take you to court and there will be very real financial consequences for what you did and so Happy to discuss more, but I will leave it there for now Mary would you like to talk about some of your work in the space? sure so it's It's great to come after Amy because she kind of gives a great lay down of what happened before the Unite the right rally and my Organization at Georgetown brought a very different kind of lawsuit a very complimentary But with a very different focus and our our suit concluded a year ago more than a year ago right before The one-year anniversary of Unite the right our suit was not about the money damages for the people injured That's important components important to use these civil rights Statutes in this manner ours was about preventing a similar event from occurring in the future So not looking for money damages looking for court orders to prevent the groups from coming back and engaging in that type of behavior and probably all of you are Your heads are exploding saying but wait what about the first amendment? What about the second amendment aren't don't they have a right to come back to Virginia and Protest what they see is a violation of their civil rights in the taking down of the of the Confederate war statues But the first amendment doesn't protect violence It doesn't protect intimidation and threats and an imminent and incitement of imminent violence and the second amendment doesn't protect organizing together as militias armed militias It protects an individual right to bear arms for self-defense. So our lawsuit relied on the anti-militia Provision of the Virginia Constitution which also exists in 48 states And anti-paramilitary activity statutes in Virginia and was brought in state court as opposed to federal court It resulted in court orders against 23 different defendants individuals and organizations that comprised not only for example Jason Kessler and Elliott Klein who were organizers But also and their organizations organizations like Vanguard America and Nationalist Socialist movement. It's a defendant in the integrity first suit as well as League of the South and the traditionalist Workers Party, but we also had as defendants a large number of self-professed militias so the Pennsylvania Lightfoot the New York Lightfoot the 3% people's militia of Maryland, etc And I want to bring that up in particular today because I think what we're seeing going what we've been seeing since Charlottesville And what we're seeing more and more of going into 2020 is the enablers of hate groups, right? So there are a large number of militias operating across the country that have operated for years But a lot of times just kind of training in the woods and preparing for end of days and things like this But what we're now seeing more and more is them coming out of the woods and actually Defending the hate groups the violent hate groups and defending them with AR-15s full battle gear Army fatigues flak jackets, etc. And Portraying to the public that they have some authority that they don't have we saw this in Charlottesville where these groups came They came out earlier even then the police and the local and state police and they set up a perimeter With their AR-15s full battle gear walkie-talkies to according to them to protect the rights of the Unite the right protesters that were there, but they have no authority to protect those rights And we're seeing this more and more and more since our lawsuit I and my organization we've consulted with cities small and large Across the country from places like Portland and Berkeley to smaller towns like Dilanaga, Georgia Where there was a recent rally and helped them to use their own state anti-militia laws to Have Mike mentioned this earlier time place and manner restrictions at rallies that assure that people have to go through checkpoints and stay separated protesters from counter protesters and not bring in Things that can be used as weapons although there's a challenge to that because a lot of states don't allow cities to prohibit Open-carey states don't allow cities to prohibit people from carrying their weapons So it becomes a challenge for cities to even do what's reasonable for public safety But even those laws in most states don't allow militias And so there are ways that that local jurisdictions local public safety officials can use these anti-militia Provisions to help protect public safety and it's important to get that message out I cannot tell you how many times I speak to organ to groups like this and say There is no second amendment right to be an armed private militia and people say really I thought there was there Let me say it again There is no second amendment right to be an armed private militia The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that as recently as district of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and as we go into the Upcoming election cycle. I get calls about militias showing up at farmers markets militias showing up down at the state house I'm sure the next is going to be militias showing up at voter registration drives, right? This word needs to get out when you do because these are enablers of Intimidation and hate just a quick follow-up questions. There's no second amendment right for these militias to organize our militias to organize Why do we see this so much then all over the placement? I've mentioned you I've been to Houston a bunch of times and they have our militias in front of Hakeem Elijah one's mosque every other month And I'm not talking about a small number of people. We're talking about 10 20 individuals Well, I think there's been incredible disinformation Really, you know much of it coming from the NRA over the years and I don't know where you stand on I mean, there are people that are very gun rights who still believe that private militias are very dangerous because they're not Operating under any sort of governmental authority. They're operating and irrigating on to themselves Where and when to use lethal force, but I think it is just widely Not realized that there are actually laws and not only constitutional provisions that prohibit this but also laws in the on the books Of most states that prohibit this now There's a question of what exactly is militia is five people with guns a militia is three people is 20 You know that's those are some things that aren't answered if you have a right in an open carry state to carry a gun for your own self Protection then at what point if you're with three other people who are carrying guns Are you militias and I think part of what we saw in the Charlottesville case and part of what concerns me because what I get More and more calls that we're hearing is it's not just that a person is coming to something with a gun and two or three other people have guns it's this portrayal of some authority recently in Richmond at the The day of the special session when the when the legislature was going to take up gun safety legislation militias including militias that were Subject to our court orders in Charlottesville, which didn't extend to Richmond militias showed up to sort of stand guard at the group of Citizens who wanted to position petition their elected representatives about their positions on gun safety legislation They had no authority to do that But they're standing there like at intervals next to the line of people waiting to talk to their legislators You know with their AR 15s with their flag jackets and at one point someone asked why are you here? And he said to protect you I've got a question for the panel here We've talked about specific groups these sort of constellation of hate groups known hate groups neo-nazis KKK groups How should we think about those that don't fall neatly or fit neatly into a group? Because this to me seems like a really tricky problem Let me make me some I was just I was gonna say I think we we lump all extremism in one category and we think of it as just one block and we actually don't see that it's it's it's a spectrum that people fall on and We actually we did a report last year Sponsored in partnership with the Democracy Fund and also MNC Sachi who are in the room I'm so we can take questions afterwards for those who have it of where we studied a hundred people across We did ten focus groups across five different cities of where we worked and and listened to people who were sympathetic or vulnerable to extremist messaging against the other and So they weren't yet Extremists and what I mean by that is they weren't yet when they received extremist messaging They weren't ready to pick up arms But they were sympathetic to those who were and they and then some were sympathetic and some were vulnerable So they were on this what we call the slippery slope They were on they were sliding towards that direction and the more that you expose people who are sympathetic and vulnerable to extremism To messaging like that the more extremists they become and then they eventually will become if there's not a strategic intervention Extremists and so just by way of background a little bit on my own work before I started this work This millions of conversations campaign here domestically I worked as a third-party mediator on the Syrian conflict and also worked a lot on how we De-radicalized people around the world and so in looking at those best practices that we learned to People are people all over the world and this is what we've seen And so if you only expose people to just one narrative and that narrative demonizes the other Over time what will happen is that they will go down the slippery slope and it will lead most likely to extremism And to political violence so there I think there are two types of interventions here that we need to be focusing on There are the interventions for people who are vulnerable and sympathetic to extremism and then there are the interventions That we have to have for people who have already Radicalized and the way in which we we counter and so I think that is very important We're talking about here is about the interventions for once people have become Extremists but on the side of when people are sympathetic and vulnerable One of the best interventions that we can do is to change the narrative and how we change the narrative is through a media campaign That exposes and that shows people and that relates to people in a way that they trust With messages that counter the demonizing narrative and we tested this with people and we saw it works We saw people who walked into the room and we have worked with people who were Even outside these focus groups most recently people who have held very Dehumanizing thoughts about the other who we've worked with them And then we've seen after we expose them to certain messages and certain people the right messengers if you will they changed They moved they began to empathize they began to humanize they began to feel with the other And I think it's through those types of strategic interventions that we're going to find ourselves united Rather than constantly divided So I'm all for suing Nazis. I You know, I think that's I think that's a good idea But if your goal is to to end white supremacist violence, then obviously it's only part of the solution The vast amount of white supremacists in this country and indeed the world Are unaffiliated they don't belong to any group They don't particularly belong to any sub-movement if you look at the people who have been perpetrators of mass violence in this country and others They don't belong to a group indeed It's often frustrations with group dynamics that leads them to this Browder before he a year ago when and and shot up the Tree of Life synagogue Posted on the social network social media network gab that screw your optics. I'm going in which was a reference to an ongoing sort of fight within within established groups on what to do so I Think we should sue the crap out of the NSM out of Richard Spencer and it has been effective, you know, we There's been a number of clan groups the Aryan nations all these groups But if if you really want to get at the core of of white supremacist violence Then I think we need to have a many pronged approach which which you mentioned I don't have any solutions to this I just spend my days looking at white supremacy and how it manifests in in the darkest corners of the internet I mean we talk about deep platforming Deep platforming is a good idea. We don't want them on Twitter. We don't want them on YouTube But that just in turn leads them to go into darker spaces on the internet where it's harder for us to track them Where they can get away with where they can get away with more stuff The the white supremacist movement in America has always been on the vanguard of technological technological, I'm sorry innovation in the 80s White supremacist were the early adopters of the internet when seeing that today. They're finding new ways to congregate They're finding new ways to mobilize and to radicalize so I don't have a solution for you guys on this, but It needs to be a Many-pronged approach to get to this Just to add another piece of context there I think you know I agree that a legal strategy is only one piece of a multifaceted effort. That's necessary here There's a social media component that's been discussed a law enforcement and policy Component and so much more sort of this broader societal component as well The one thing that I do want to note that sort of brings together some of those pieces is that I think you're totally right that these groups are Certainly amorphous in certain ways and more so that the people responsible for some of the worst incidents of violence We're not affiliated with a specific one But where are these groups and these leaders really come into play is the way in which they Co-opt and use social media to really amplify promote and inspire others to action so What we know is that for example Bowers before Killing 11 people at Tree of Life a year ago Communicated on gab with some of the Charlottesville leaders and other extremists before his attack What we know is that the Christ Church shooter painted onto his gun a symbol known as the fast tag that has been popularized by Leaders like Matthew Heimbach another defendant in our suit And we know that Poway and El Paso shooter was inspired by the Christ Church shooting and the and the live-stream video that he put out So understanding the ways in which these leaders whether they are individuals or groups are co-opting and using social media To not only promote their hate, but really inspire others to action and create this cycle is really important to breaking it follow question because you mentioned the platforming and I Remember quite well in The months following the rise of the ISIS caliphate There was something like 75,000 ISIS fanboys on Twitter And the tech companies were twisting themselves and the Pritz and the pretzels saying should we leave this should we leave these accounts up? Should we not and in the end they decided to pull them all down and the argument was That you don't want to curious 13 year old to happen onto this content And I guess this is a question for everybody and maybe a specific question for you Mary that you can come in at the end about because we don't have any domestic legislation It means that for these sorts of hate groups or individuals that are connecting with hateful content We think about them differently. So I guess the question for for Vegas Amy and Samara's Do you think we should be pulling this content down? Should we be pulling down accounts? Well, where do we draw the line? I mean, this is this is the sixty four thousand dollar questions Who's the arbiter of this and then maybe Mary you come in at the end and talk a little bit about lack of legislation We're focusing on countering the narrative And so we really are I like to think about in America a successful campaign has five M's The first is that you have to have really good management You have to you really have to manage you have to have really good partners You have to be information sharing and managing that process like it's like like it's your job The second thing is that you have to have a really sharp message that resonates with people that you're trying to connect with And you have to have messengers that are that are giving that message that people trust The fourth is that you have to build momentum so that you can build the momentum that so that it really actually connects with people Encounters the negative messaging because I don't actually know how long it's going to take to be able to Litigate decide if they're going to take those messages down that are already there and then fifth and I'll just end on this I think you actually have to have money And that's the five M because what's happening with these hate groups and what's happening with these hate hate messages Is that and this is what I've what I've seen There's a lot of money behind it and there's not a lot of money yet That's being invested in countering those negative Messages that are on the internet so you might be able to take them down and they might be replaced because we've seen this in other parts Of the world with softer messages that are still filled with labeling and hate and demonization They just don't cross that line those messages also are still bad And we have to counter those messages with an effective campaign I Agree with all of that and I think you know on the money point in particular. It's one of the reasons why we think our case is so Important and potentially useful and shedding light on what some of that money might be and getting to the root of How these individuals and groups are being supported? The thing I will also say to build on that is is we can't play a game of whack-a-mole in which we're simply De-platforming one from one side and moving them to the next we've seen amongst our own defendants and many of these other Extremists how when they are de-platform from certain sites they go to the deep dark web like Telegram and 4chan a Chan gab where they are even they're having to even more extreme groups of people and look quite literally doing things Like threatening our plaintiffs and threatening our legal counsel And so there needs to be sort of a broader ecosystem-wide approach to how we deal with this It can't simply be De-platforming and we're done I want to try a new sentence that I just came up with The similarities between kids and Nazis So so they're they're platform agnostic, right? They go where their friends are Nazis go where their friends are and and so do kids I guess so I mean I'm all for again kicking them off Twitter I don't you know, it doesn't matter. They'll just go elsewhere We try to keep this out of the eyes of our our kids but I had a good point I was gonna I was gonna I was gonna end on Again, I think we need to take a super broad approach My point was that deep platforming that works is the payment platforms payment platforms have been really really important The other day it was funny Joey Gibson who leads a group called Patriot Prayer up in Seattle sent out like a message on telegram to his followers asking them to send him cash in envelopes because that's the only way They can get money so Deep platforming doesn't always help but it helps to not for not them to be able to monetize their content anymore That's been a huge thing some of our defendants have done the same thing excellent stuff and And I will say we saw various go fund me and other colorfully named Fundraising efforts to try to defend the lawsuit that we brought as well So to D to to go right at the money even even more than the message can be equally important The other thing we haven't talked at all about is sort of other law enforcement tools to try to prevent acts of violent extremism otherwise known as terrorism and That's what we saw in Charlottesville terrorism. That's what we saw it realize life synagogue synagogue That's what we saw in El Paso, and there's no question I come from a lengthy career in the Department of Justice prosecuting terrorism cases that were almost entirely Prosecutions of Islamist extremist terrorism and there's no question that if any of those attacks had been done by somebody who had pledged buyout to the now Presumably dead Abu Bakr al-Bakdadi before engaging in their attacks They would be charged and they and if they survived they would be charged with multiple counts of terrorism But we don't have a similar statute in the US code that applies to Acts of terrorism not done in furtherance of the goals of a foreign terrorist organization like ISIS or al-Qaeda But when done with the most commonly used weapon in the United States, which is a firearm It's like a gun loophole if you if you use a bomb or if you use a nuclear device You can still be charged with a terrorist crime But if you commit a mass shooting or use a vehicle as your weapon as we've seen Islamist jihadist terrorists Using throughout Europe Southeast Asia and elsewhere including here in the United States if you if you do it Based on white supremacist ideology animal rights ideology Anything other than foreign terrorist organization ideology you won't be charged with a crime of terrorist Terrorism and to bring some moral equivalency to these terrorism crimes The Congress should at least be considering and and does have in front of it now a variety of Pieces of legislation to consider potential new new crimes that would also allow for platforms for not platforms for Law enforcement to use investigative tools a little more aggressively and I'm not talking about Foreign intelligence surveillance just normal criminal investigative tools under cover operations sting operations things like that To try to prevent some of the kinds of attacks that we've been seeing I Think we're gonna turn it to a few questions right now I just asked about the de-platforming because I I know when ISIS was up on the internet There was very little pushback from either side of the aisle about what to do Whereas right now we're in this politically fraught place where there's huge debate about should they be allowed on Facebook? Should they be allowed on Twitter? And I know you mentioned whack-a-mole, but I was I listened to a fascinating interview with the founder of 8chan And he said I I think they should absolutely take take down 8chan and his argument Is that it takes a long time to build up the ecosystem that exists there doesn't mean that it won't reappear somewhere But and I'm not proposing that that's what once you do. I'm just It's the reason I flagged it so they all have backups now by the way though Like they're all anticipating being taken down so they all have like backup networks waiting in the wings Sure I mean I just yeah, I think the argument before I want to get to questions I mean the argument with in terms of the ISIS fanboys is yes They're gonna find some place in the deep or dark web, but that's fine Let's not make sure that they're up on Facebook trying to engage with young kids. So questions so if these militias are not allowed to Be out there with the guns. Why are they not preventing them from I? Mean, why are they not stopping them if they're not allowed to be out there to illegal and a second question is I These people have been around forever and what has bolded them so much to come out of the woodworks So on the first question, I think Partly that a lot of law enforcement and Governors and state attorneys general have not really been paying attention to laws that have been on their books for hundreds of years So the 48 states that have it baked into their constitution that there and shall not be private militias Don't think about like what does our Constitution say and how am I gonna go out and enforce that right? And that's one of the things occasionally I'm writing and talking about to say, you know You as a as an estate attorney general you could send a letter to the militia saying you're operating in violation of the state Constitution you need to cease and desist and if you don't you know, we'll bring us a lawsuit to force you to I've talked to law enforcement about statutes in their own states in Virginia the Anti-paramilitary statutes and people came up to me said I had no idea that statute existed Some of these statutes date back all the way to reconstruction Some are of more recent vintage and date to the 70s and 80s when the KKK was opening training camps around the country But they just have been very rarely used and so part of it is just a lack of information and I think an incredible campaign of You know by by the NRA and others to make people think that you know Walking around carrying a gun organizing as a militia is a perfectly legal thing to do Can I just add to that? They're also like on a logistical thing They're very good at for example in Charlottesville when they showed up and they made the little perimeter They walked up to the law enforcement officers first and said hello. Nice to meet you. You know we're fans of your work They're very good at sucking up at law enforcement when they show up They're very sort of servile whereas anti-fascist protesters tend not to go up to police and say thank you for your service so much That's part of that the the way they work. I would also add you asked what's emboldening them I think in part political environment I think that that's when we use the term political violence and that's why I've been Sarah was saying on the panel before us 2020 It's gonna get worse before it gets better unfortunately We are seeing if you just look at the political campaign videos You can even see that in my own home state of Tennessee. Just look at the political videos that are out there right now It's very dangerous. It incites violence and it demonizes the other How you don't up chest and color change. Thank you Two questions I want to make sure I want to ask if we're not Lapsing into some techno determinism right whereas like if we change the technology then we can change the the way in which people are acting And I think these kind of gets to your like very multi-pronged approach as far as addressing this because you know The technologies amplifying was there right and then I also want to ask just in particular Do you think that a terrorist designation would be the best way to address these domestic incidents? Would you especially given the amorphous nature of these groups? You know as we've discussed do you think something that maybe on the books as far as like these folks? Committing something of a civil rights violation Kind of getting towards the outcome of the actions rather than the organization of their actions may be more useful And require a little bit less legislative lifting and have less room for Slippery slope when it comes to like designating hate speech Can I go ahead and start with the second question first To be clear. I do not think that we should be designating Domestic organizations as terrorist organizations. I mean we do have First Amendment rights We have First Amendment rights to gather with others and express viewpoints Even if they're really abhorrent viewpoints and First Amendment rights to associate with each other the reason the government Designates foreign terrorist organizations is they're foreign they don't have any First Amendment rights And so the government does that it turns them into poison, which is a very effective law enforcement tool And we just don't have that in the US I am concerned and civil rights and civil liberties groups are concerned about whether the creation of a terrorism offense that would apply Domestically to all types of terrorism no matter what the ideology Would be misused by the FBI and other law enforcement to target vulnerable populations people of color communities of color Organizations like that and I think I take that very seriously because that's happened historically But there are ways I think that we could try to Ameliorate that through oversight through regular reporting public reporting and reporting to Congress about the types of investigations being opened under new authority And who were they targeted at are they talking target at right white racially motivated violence, you know animal rights violence abortion Related violence and you can measure that up with the threat, right if the threat we know from the data and and FBI director Christopher Ray Recently testified about this that the and ADL has great data on this too that the majority of deaths from Terrorism in the US have been from white racially motivated Extremism or far-right extremism as opposed to Islamist extremism in recent years And so we know that's where the threat is so if the Bureau or any other law enforcement is using its resources You know on pipeline sitters and not on white supremacists and they're reporting that at the end of the year I think that's that's a powerful deterrent for them to to put their Resources where the threat actually is and there are other organizations the bipartisan privacy and civil liberties Oversight board for example and others that could actually do almost audits or deep dives into How law enforcement would is actually approaching this that I think would also hopefully assuage some of the concerns of the the right the the legitimate concerns of civil rights and civil liberties communities Hello Adam Kaplan with a US agency for international development. I do some more work abroad I just like to pose the question That was raised on the earlier panel regarding norms values and whether or not you think that there is a place work that you do for Public advocacy around these issues to set a new benchmark for what might or might not be reasonable I'll be very brief. I think absolutely. Yes, and I think what we call it the terminologies We need to avoid authorize authorizing environments for cruelty So what we're finding is we're slipping into these authorizing environments for cruelty and that's because norms are moving in that direction So we absolutely have to cultivate the culture around us and change those norms so that we avoid That authorizing environment for cruelty and if I could add one thing I think you know something that's so particularly powerful about both the cases that you heard about today is that they use long-held Democratic norms and statute and long-held and literally very old statutes There's something particularly important about using our justice system and using these historical Statutes to actually take on this modern-day violence It speaks to the fact that what about first of all what's at stake here But second of all that this really is about this this question of what is the rule of law? What are the norms that we're adhering to and how are our systems going to protect us against extremism that threatens it? And so I think the fact that these both of these cases are rooted in such a sort of a long history there Or rather statutes with such a long history there speaks to that in a particularly powerful way We have time for just two more questions, and we'll take them together and we'll respond Does anybody else have a question you can put your hand up now? This will be the final one Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. My name is Melissa Salik for come with new America's international security program I have two quick questions one Mary for a follow-up to your last response. We know the cons against having you know Designating some domestic terrorist organizations. I'm wondering if there are any I guess pros to having Domestic terrorist organizations that are affiliated With foreign terrorist organizations So are there any pros and cons that we can talk through for those for any that are the US allies have designated as one example? And then for somewhere I had one question. What are the tools that you've used and tactics to disseminate your counter messaging? so Right now the State Department is the agency that is charged with designating foreign terrorist organizations There are 68 foreign terrorist organizations designated the overwhelming majority of them or Islamist Extremist organizations. There is the FARC and some Colombian organizations and some Irish organizations. There is not one single white supremacist organization on that list There are Organizations in Vegas might know a little bit more about them. There are other groups that study them I don't have great details, but there are certainly some we know in Western Europe and elsewhere that are Harbor extremist white supremacist and white nationalism and ethno nationalist views We know they are some that engage in violence and we know that there are some that even have training camps the criteria are foreign engage in active acts of terrorism or has the capability and intent to engage in active terrorism and Is a threat to the US national security or US nationals, right? So I am hopeful that there are people within the State Department that are looking actively at some of the foreign organizations that engage in these because if you designated a foreign white supremacist Organization as an FTO that Organization becomes poison to groups here who might want to support them Financially with equipment with themselves you can independently advocate Supreme Court's been clear about their extremist views and their ideology That's okay, but you can't otherwise provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization Could you just quickly explain for folks here in the room what it means once an organization is designated as a foreign terrorist organization? What that means for us citizens that may want to talk to them or give the money or I mean just so folks know what that Sure, so I just mentioned you cannot give material support or resources to a foreign terror terrorist organization That means you know US companies can't provide them with services like bank accounts or Technic, you know social media they can't like they can't come in in their name beyond social media others can you can't make financial Contributions as an individual you can be quote-unquote a member depending on what that means But you can't offer even yourself as Personnel to support their extremist causes So for example with when ISIS and Al-Qaeda have been declared as foreign terrorist organizations The FBI has made a number of arrests of individuals at airports who were seeking to travel to join them to either fight with them Or do other things with them not necessarily fight right other provide other services that attempt to provide one's own self To the FTO violates the law so it really does create kind of like a poison pill that US citizens Can't support in any way through services through money through tangible assets The one thing you can do because of the First Amendment rights is independently advocate so a person can say for example I support, you know, or you know, I am in favor of An Islamic Caliphate the Islamic State for example you can do that, but you can't go offer yourself to join Very briefly and we can talk a little bit more afterwards It's it's I mentioned those five m's one of them is messenger one of them is message the third is momentum It's really important to do really a three-fold Engagement one is through small group settings that is in a safe and trusted space where you're introduced By someone who is trusted through a trusted mechanism. The second is to reinforce that through digital media and through Trusted social media channels and that's part of what our focus groups showed us was that what is trusted with the different Audience members that we're trying to reach and engage with and the third then is after that is to invite them to a community activity Where they feel a part of that community that is diverse and where they also feel themselves Plugged into and inspired by which then makes them feel like they are a member themselves and then you repeat We're gonna close up right now, and I just want to thank my panelist For for joining me But I I should just note that the reason you want to pick up and read the report and if you don't get a physical copy You want to get online and read it is because these are the kind of conversations that were taking place over the last year hundreds of people brought together for both summits Ten podcasts that came out of that So it's really a rich dialogue that you can engage with online with a report in the podcast So so please do and I just you know I'd like to finish by saying we don't we're not all Of one mind about how to deal with these issues But we are of one mind that we need to be working together We need to be collaborating to try and one better understand violent extremism and to how to combat it So thank you very much, and please join me in thanking the panel