House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) unveiled a counterterrorism strategy on Tuesday that he said takes U.S. policies into the digital age of security, as threats from violent extremists continue to evolve with technology.
McCaul’s plan was released just days after multiple terror attacks occurred on U.S. soil, including bombs that exploded in New York and New Jersey and nine people who were stabbed in Minnesota.
“We have this new generation of terrorists who are very savvy on the internet. They know how to exploit it, to recruit, to train and to radicalize from within,” McCaul said at an American Enterprise Institute event where he discussed the report. “We’ve seen through the internet they’ve been able to recruit 40,000 foreign fighters from 120 different countries – something we’ve never seen before.”
The new strategy consists of more than 100 policy recommendations that were developed by McCaul in consultation with both Republican and Democrat national security experts.
McCaul said that he wants his plan to serve as a guide for Congress and the next president. He plans to submit the report to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, an adviser to Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Previous strategies to combat terrorism are outdated, McCaul said. President George W. Bush released a strategy in 2003, while President Barack Obama released one in 2011.
The new plan proposes ways to fight terrorist propaganda online, counter radicalization developed within the United States, improve efforts to crack terrorists’ use of encrypted technology, and help communities better protect against improvised explosive devices, active shooter plots, and other tactics.
Terrorist threats have evolved since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and the United States needs to adapt, McCaul said.
“The idea of hijacking airplanes, in a spectacular event, is probably not a likely scenario anymore. What is more likely is an active shooter, an IED going off or a suicide bomber,” McCaul said.
The strategy focuses on defeating the entire Islamist terror movement, not just one group. McCaul argued that the nation’s last official counterterrorism strategy focused almost exclusively on al Qaeda, and, as a result, left the nation unprepared to detect the rise of ISIS.
“We haven’t had a military strategy in about four years,” McCaul said. “We had a policy of containment essentially, not to defeat ISIS.”
Federal authorities currently have at least 1,000 open ISIS-related terrorism investigations across all 50 states.
“I try to not inflame things, but the numbers keep going up,” McCaul said. “This movement is expanding globally. It is not shrinking, even though we’re having some limited military success now against them.”
The new strategy proposes better screening of foreign visitors, immigrants and refugees, using new technologies, including social media, to keep terrorists out of the country.
“If applicants have pledged support for a terrorist group online, we cannot afford to detect it after they have entered the United States,” the report said.
The report also calls for DHS to expand its Visa Security Program to conduct security reviews of visa applicants earlier in the process and in greater depth. Additionally, it said that DHS and the State Department must pilot the use of deception-detection technologies in the visa interview process and hire more native speakers to conduct interviews.