Security experts: More outreach, surveillance key
Increased outreach at mosques and more digital surveillance hold the keys to heading off lone-wolf terror attacks inspired by Islamic extremism, experts and officials say.
Former Boston police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said prevention of the attacks “goes back to our work to do more outreach to mosques ... to identify people who have these grievances to try to address them.
“Quite frankly, if we can’t de-program them, like we would in a cult, then we have to surveil them more,” Davis said. “I think there’s a lot of solutions in big data that haven’t been even thought of yet ... but the privacy people have a real concern there, and rightfully so. There has to be a balance when you’re looking at the threat.”
Authorities are combing New York and New Jersey bombings suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami’s digital footprint for signs that he was seeking out radical material. A native of Afghanistan, Rahami reportedly made several trips to the country in recent years.
U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, who has traveled to Afghanistan as a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the conditions that breed such attacks are “very pernicious” and “tough to get at.”
“I know we’ve tried to have counter-radicalization efforts in trying to show the truth about what ISIS is all about. But in some cases, young people especially are susceptible to that,” Lynch said.
Lynch said he’s encouraged by increased cooperation from websites and social media platforms to monitor chatter for signs of radicalization and attacks fomenting, but that only goes so far.
“We can’t shut them down fast enough,” Lynch said. “They keep popping up in other locations.”
U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said a big challenge lies in how easy it is to construct the kind of bombs set off in New York and Jersey.
“Unfortunately, these are relatively simple technologies,” he said. “These are hard to prevent from being constructed, and that’s why law enforcement has to be given the tools to identify the criminal, identify the terrorist, before they ever engage in these activities.”