Reply #5: Who's Watching the Watcher? [View All]

ROCKEFELLER: And I understand that. What I'd like to get you to focus on
for a minute or so is that which is carried on by people who have become
disaffected, either through unemployment, which now presumably will grow,
through the example of a cause, the attraction to a cause, and it may not be
that they actually go to al Qaeda or they get their training in Afghanistan,
but they simply decide to create malevolent actions within the United States
for purposes which can either be twisted or which reflect their fundamental
unhappiness within the American society as it's held before them in many
ways.
MR. MUELLER: I think that is a possible explanation for certain
actors who would take the dissatisfaction, the disenfranchisement in the
United States, and couple it with the radical Islamic ideology, and the two
would reinforce each other.
What you also see in a number of these instances around the globe,
well-educated, relatively well-off individuals who also have subscribed to
this ideology, who undertake such attacks. The most recent one that comes to
mind is the doctors in the UK who, not last summer -- I think it was the
summer before -- attempted to bomb a nightclub in London. That did not work,
but then drove a car into the airport at Glasgow.
These were doctors. These were not persons who were unemployed.
They are not persons who lack skills. And consequently, while you can look
at some individuals who may have motivation, given their current financial
circumstances, you cannot rule out others who would undertake attacks for
other reasons but do not suffer from the same disadvantages.

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: In 30 seconds if you can, do you see the trend
within the United States -- let me say this. Are we not paying enough
attention to this, not referring to the FBI, but referring to the American
people, to the American news media, to the discussion? The discussion is
always attracted, you know, to fire bombs and destruction overseas and loss
of life.
And yet the Robert Reid situation indicated that things can happen
in other ways also. And I think there are -- and that was very early,
therefore maybe not less relevant. But people become attracted to a cause.
People have to have some meaning in their life. They're disenfranchised
economically or in their own minds, and they want a cause to give their life
meaning, even though it's malevolent meaning. It's a very powerful factor.
And I would think that America is no less immune to that than, let's
say, parts of Africa, although it may not be as developed. And I want to
hear you talk about that, unless you find my question inappropriate.
MR. MUELLER: No, I would agree with the premise of the question in
terms of persons who fall prey to that malevolent ideology as being
something that we are tremendously concerned about. There can be any number
of causes. Do we pay enough attention to that?

My concern is that we're several years away from September 11th, and
inevitably there is a complacency that begins to take hold when there is
nothing immediately happening. And I do worry about complacency. I do worry
about early intervention, early identification of individuals who fall prey
to the ideology.
I can tell you, we, our counterparts, DHS and state and local law
enforcement through our joint terrorism task forces, are alert to this. But
it also takes representatives of the communities in which this can occur to
be alert to it and not turn a blind eye towards it and to alert us when there
are the signs that somebody is becoming radicalized and getting to the point
where it is beyond the discussion stage and to the point where they take an
overt act pursuant of a particular plot or conspiracy.

The precedent is set!
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