[Senate Hearing 109-954]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-954
PRISON RADICALIZATION: ARE TERRORIST CELLS FORMING
IN U.S. CELL BLOCKS?
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
__________
Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
30-597 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2007
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Jennifer C. Boone, FBI Detailee
David K. Porter, Counsel
Melvin D. Albritton, Counsel
Michael L. Alexander, Minority Staff Director
Eric P. Andersen, Minority Professional Staff Member
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Collins.............................................. 1
Senator Carper............................................... 3
Prepared statement:
Senator Lieberman............................................ 35
WITNESSES
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Frank J. Cilluffo, Associate Vice President for Homeland
Security, and Director, Homeland Security Policy Institute, The
George Washington University................................... 6
Gregory B. Saathoff, M.D., Executive Director, Critical Incident
Analysis Group, and Associate Professor of Rsearch, School of
Medicine, University of Virginia............................... 9
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Consultant, Gerard Group
International, and Co-Chairman, Counterterrorism Foundation.... 13
John M. Vanyur, Assistant Director, Correctional Programs
Division, Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice 22
Donald N. Van Duyn, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism
Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of
Justice........................................................ 24
Javed Ali, Senior Intelligence Officer, Office of Intelligence
and Analysis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security............. 27
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Ali, Javed:
Testimony.................................................... 27
Prepared statement........................................... 79
Cilluffo, Frank J.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Gartenstein-Ross, Daveed:
Testimony.................................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 57
Saathoff, Gregory B., M.D.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 46
Van Duyn, Donald N.:
Testimony.................................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 74
Vanyur, John M.:
Testimony.................................................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 66
APPENDIX
Excerpts from Islamic Guidelines for Individual and Social Reform 83
Out of the Shadows: Getting Ahead of Prisoner Radicalization..... 86
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from:
Mr. Cilluffo................................................. 119
Mr. Saathoff................................................. 123
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross......................................... 128
Mr. Vanyur................................................... 131
Mr. Van Duyn................................................. 147
Mr. Ali...................................................... 157
PRISON RADICALIZATION: ARE TERRORIST CELLS FORMING IN U.S. CELL BLOCKS?
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Collins and Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS
Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order.
For the past 5 years, the Federal Government has attempted
to prevent terrorists from entering our country from abroad.
Our homeland security efforts have made it increasingly
difficult for foreign terrorists to infiltrate and operate in
the United States. Increased border security and screening of
overseas airline passengers, while critical to help keep out
foreign terrorists, do not, however, protect us from home-grown
terrorists. The rise of domestic terrorist cells inspired by
but not linked directly to al Qaeda is an emerging threat to
our national security.
This morning, the Committee will examine a deep pool of
potential homegrown operatives, American prisons. Our
corrections facilities, Federal, State, and local, provide
fertile grounds for radicalization and recruitment efforts. We
have seen this problem in the formation of such prison gangs as
the Mexican mafia and the white supremacist group, the Aryan
Brotherhood. And we see it in the focus of our hearing today,
the spread in prison of an extremist form of Islam dedicated to
committing acts of terrorism.
Let me be clear. Our concern is not with prison inmates
converting to Islam. For many converts, this religion brings
the direction and purpose their lives previously lacked. Our
concern is instead with those who would use prisons as places
to indoctrinate inmates with a hateful ideology that incites
adherents to commit violent acts.
We need to learn more about the process of radicalization.
For some inmates, the conversion to Islam sets their lives on a
lasting path that shuns violence and criminality. What is it,
then, that leads other inmates to adopt the extremist
interpretation that teaches violence against those of different
beliefs? How can prison authorities identify the teachings that
incite violence while respecting the right of inmates to have
access to religious materials? What training and skills do
corrections officers need to be able to recognize
radicalization and recruitment efforts?
A current case demonstrates that these concerns are not
hypothetical. Kevin James is an American citizen incarcerated
in California for armed robbery. A convert to Islam in prison,
this self-styled Imam founded an organization called JIS, the
Arabic initials of the Assembly for Authentic Islam. Based upon
his radical interpretation of Islam, Kevin James preached that
it was the duty of JIS members to target his perceived enemies
of Islam, including U.S. military personnel and Jewish and non-
Jewish supporters of Israel, for violent attacks. Kevin James
recruited JIS members among his fellow inmates.
One of Kevin James' radicalized converts, upon being
released from prison, allegedly recruited other members at a
Los Angeles area mosque. His group reportedly sought to acquire
automatic weapons, firearms with silencers, and explosives.
They conducted surveillance on military installations,
synagogues, and the Israeli consulate. Allegedly, they financed
their operations by committing at least 11 armed robberies
throughout Southern California.
Kevin James and his accomplices now face trial on terrorism
charges. This terrorist plot was only uncovered when a JIS
operative inadvertently dropped a cell phone at one of the
crime scenes. The data retrieved from that phone allowed the
FBI-led investigators to trace the crimes from the gang
committing the robberies back to the prison and ultimately back
to Kevin James. It was only then that prison officials learned
the true nature of JIS and the scope of the conspiracy that had
developed within the prison walls. We have to wonder how many
other such conspiracies are taking shape under the radar in
other prisons.
During our first panel today, experts from the George
Washington University and the University of Virginia will
release a report by their Prisoner Radicalization Task Force.
The report, titled ``Out of the Shadows: Getting Ahead of
Prisoner Radicalization,''\1\ is one of the first to address
religious radicalization in American prisons. I am pleased that
we have the two chairmen of this task force with us today.
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\1\ The report appears in the Appendix on page 86.
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We will also have a witness who will give us the inside
view based on his experience in working for an Islamic charity
that has ties to terrorist groups and that has been listed as
supporting terrorism financially. This individual will tell us
about a prison literature program run by this charity.
We will then look at the government's response to
radicalization with a panel of Federal experts who will
discuss, among other things, the Correctional Intelligence
Initiative, a positive program at the Federal level. But we
have to remember that most prisoners are held at the State
level, not in Federal prisons.
We will discuss with this panel the challenges that we
face. For example, how can we, while preserving civil
liberties, track released inmates identified as radicalized as
they move from one jurisdiction to another? How can one State's
corrections system, having identified a particular chaplain,
volunteer, or inmate as a teacher who incites others to
violence, effectively share that information with other systems
should that clergy member move to another system or if an
inmate be transferred to another prison?
This is an issue with profound national security
implications that reach into virtually every State and a great
many cities throughout America. We must find a way to bring
every level of government with a corrections system into a
unified effort that addresses our national security while
respecting the autonomy and authority of the individual
jurisdictions.
I would note that the criminal gang that sprang from Kevin
James' teaching of violent jihad was centered in Torrance,
California. Hence, the investigation that resulted was given
the code name ``Torrancial Rain,'' a code name that well
describes the storm of terrorism that could result if the
radicalization of prison inmates goes unchecked.
We are very pleased today to have the distinguished Senator
from Delaware, Senator Carper, acting as the Ranking Minority
Member at Senator Lieberman's request. Welcome, Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks, Madam Chairman. I said to Senator
Lieberman, this is a little bit like Pee Wee Reese pinch-
hitting for Mickey Mantle. But I got up early this morning to
catch the train and was driving to the train station this
morning in Wilmington. I turned on NPR, and there you were.
Chairman Collins. Really?
Senator Carper. There you were, in living color. It is a
pleasure to sit here and to pinch hit for Senator Lieberman.
I had a busy weekend. You probably did, too. Among the
folks I met with, I met with a number of people whose faith is
Islam, and we talked about radicalization and how in my own
faith, I am Protestant, but we have some people in our faith
who have tried to hijack it in order to meet their own ends. We
have seen Catholic priests abuse young people, but that doesn't
make Catholicism bad or wrong, in the same way we have seen
folks that have taken the major faith of Islam and tried to
pervert it for their own means.
I think as we start today's hearings, it is always
important to remember that most of the people who are Muslim
and whose faith is Islam are good. In this country, they are
good, law-abiding citizens, and they really just want the same
things that the rest of us want. So as we approach this
hearing, I think it is important maybe just to remind us all of
that.
Having said that, I thank you for the chance to be here. We
appreciate our witnesses coming today, and we look forward to
their testimony as well.
This is obviously an important and timely hearing as we
commemorated just last week the fifth anniversary of the
September 11 attacks and the loss of 3,000 people. Those
attacks, as we know, were perpetrated by 19 hijackers who grew
up and were indoctrinated with their radical views overseas.
Last week, we had Secretary Chertoff before us and some
homeland security experts who came by to testify, and some of
the discussion focused on the threat of home-grown terrorism
and whether the next terrorists who seek to do harm to us might
actually come from within our own borders.
While home-grown Islamic terrorism might not be as much of
a threat here as it is in, say, Europe or some other places, we
ignore the threat that does exist at our peril. We need to look
no further than the experiences of our allies in Great Britain
to see the danger we could be facing down the road or down the
railroad track. I understand that many of those arrested this
past summer in the plot to blow up planes on the way to the
United States were British citizens. British citizens also
played a role in the deadly transit attacks that took a number
of lives in London last July.
So I think it is important that we address what contributes
to the spread of radical or violent views before we have major
problems on our hands, as well.
I was disturbed, as I am sure many of us were, as I
prepared for this hearing to learn how extensive of a problem
we may already have, at least in some communities within our
country. Islamic radicalism and other extreme ideologies prey
on the minds of the angry and the dispossessed. America's
crowded prison systems are full of that type of person,
unfortunately, and are probably the ideal place for someone
with dangerous views to attract and foster new recruits. At
least some people have figured that out.
As a former governor who was once very much involved in our
own corrections system in our State, I know that religion and
other diversions, like job training, are an important part of
keeping prisons safer and helping to ensure that when inmates
are released, and most all of them will be, they come out of
those prisons as better people, not as better criminals.
In our prisons, Madam Chairman, we used to say that we seek
to focus on a variety of inmates' needs--their educational
needs, as many of them had little if any education, their
substance abuse problems that they faced, their needs for job
training so they would have a job skill when they walked out of
there, working with them on life skills, just knowing that they
had a schedule and had to get up in the morning and have
breakfast and go to work and have people who expected something
from them. We sought to meet their spiritual needs, as well. We
tried to touch all of those bases before we let 95, 96, 97, 98
percent of them go, to leave and to go back out into the
community.
I am certain that the vast majority of those who go to
prisons to preach or to seek converts are good people quite
literally doing the Lord's work. I know a number of them in my
State, and you probably do, too, and that is certainly the case
in most instances. I understand that the Federal Bureau of
Prisons and other agencies have done some work aimed at keeping
Islamic radicals out of the Federal prison system and
attempting to ensure that extreme versions of the Qur'an and
other writings don't make their way into the hands of
impressionable prisoners, and that is good news. But the vast
majority of prisoners at risk of being influenced by dangerous
ideologies are serving their time in State or local
institutions.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about
steps that we need to take and steps that those who run our
prisons need to take to prevent prison systems from becoming
even more susceptible than they currently are to the spread of
the kind of thinking that leads to tragedies like September 11.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks as well to our witnesses for being
here today and for helping us shed some light on this important issue.
This is a very timely hearing. Just last week, we commemorated the
fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the three thousand
lives that were taken that day.
Those attacks, as we all know, were perpetrated by 19 hijackers who
grew up and were indoctrinated with their radical views overseas.
Last week, we had Secretary Chertoff and some homeland security
experts in to testify and some of the discussion focused on the threat
of homegrown terrorism and whether the next terrorist who seeks to do
us harm might come from our own shores.
While homegrown Islamic terrorism might not be as much of a threat
here as it is in Europe or elsewhere, we ignore the threat that does
exist at our peril.
We need look no further than the experiences of some of our allies
to see the danger we could be facing down the road. I understand that
many of those arrested in recent months in failed plots in Great
Britain and Canada were actually British and Canadian citizens.
Homegrown terrorists also played a role in the deadly transit attacks
that took hundreds of lives in attacks in London and Madrid.
It's important, then, that we address what contributes to the
spread of radical or violent views before we have a major problem on
our hands as well.
I was disturbed as I prepared for this hearing to learn how
extensive a problem we may already have, at least in some communities.
Islamic radicalism and other extreme ideologies prey on the minds
of the angry and the dispossessed. America's crowded prison systems are
full of that type of person, unfortunately, and are probably the ideal
place for someone with dangerous views to attract and foster new
recruits. At least some people have figured that out.
As a former governor who was once responsible for running my
state's prison system, I know that religion and other diversions like
job training are an important part of keeping prisons safer and helping
ensure that inmates are better people once they get out. I'm certain
that the vast majority of those who go to prisons to preach or seek
converts are good people quite literally doing the Lord's work. That's
certainly the case in Delaware.
I understand that the Federal Bureau of Prisons and other agencies
have done some work aimed at keeping Islamic radicals out of the
federal prison system and ensuring that extreme versions of the Koran
and other writing don't make their way into the hands of impressionable
prisoners.
That's good news, but the vast majority of prisoners at risk of
being influenced by dangerous ideologies are serving their time in
state or local institutions. I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses today about steps we need to take and steps those who run our
prisons need to take to prevent prison systems from becoming even more
susceptible than they currently are to the spread of the kind of
thinking that leads to tragedies like September 11.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
I would now like to introduce the witnesses on our first
panel. We are very pleased to have each of you here today.
Our first witness, Frank Cilluffo, is the Associate Vice
President for Homeland Security and Director of the Homeland
Security Policy Institute at the George Washington University.
He currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Prisoner
Radicalization Task Force, which as I mentioned was jointly
sponsored by George Washington and the University of Virginia's
Critical Incident Analysis Group. Mr. Cilluffo joined GW from
the White House, where he served as Special Assistant to the
President for Homeland Security.
Our second witness, Dr. Gregory Saathoff, serves as the
Executive Director of the Critical Incident Analysis Group and
is an associate professor at the University of Virginia. He
currently serves as the other Co-Chair with Mr. Cilluffo of the
Prisoner Radicalization Task Force. He is also on the Research
Advisory Board for the FBI's National Center for the Analysis
of Violent Crime. Over the past 15 years, he has provided
psychiatric consultations to inmates in more than 10 Federal
and State prisons in the United States.
Our final witness on this panel, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross,
is the Senior Consultant for the Gerard Group International and
Co-Chair of the Counterterrorism Foundation. He converted to
Islam in his early 20s and eventually went to work for the head
U.S. office of the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a group
later designated by the U.S. Government as a financier of
terrorism.
I welcome all of you here today. We very much appreciate
sharing your expertise, and Mr. Cilluffo, we will start with
you.
TESTIMONY OF FRANK J. CILLUFFO,\1\ ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR
HOMELAND SECURITY, AND DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY POLICY
INSTITUTE, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Cilluffo. Madam Chairman, Senator Carper, thank you for
the opportunity to testify before you today. Your initiative in
pushing to the fore the issue of prison radicalization is
crucial. Proactive consideration of this challenge and a
carefully calibrated response will place the United States
ahead of the curve and bolster national security. We simply
cannot wait until we are faced with the need to manage a
crisis.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Cilluffo appears in the Appendix
on page 37.
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In today's context, radicalization is ``the process by
which inmates adopt extreme views, including beliefs that
violent measures need to be taken for political or religious
purposes.'' This is a subset of a more general phenomenon of
radicalization that has manifested itself in a series of
terrorist attacks and activities, including the bombings in
Madrid, in London, as well as the thwarted terrorist activities
in Canada earlier this year.
The larger terrorist threat is the tapestry by which
prisoner radicalization must be studied, but that fabric is
ever changing. Al Qaeda in its classic form is now a degraded
entity, with many of its remaining key figures on the run.
However, it has franchised itself across the globe with its
franchises prepared to act locally and largely independently,
in effect, a network of networks. We have also seen the
emergence of a leaderless movement, marked significantly by
self-enlistment and taking its inspiration from al Qaeda
classic to join the global Salafi jihad.
The Internet has fueled this development, building in
essence a virtual umma, wherein chat rooms have replaced the
smoke-filled bars of le Carre novels. Ironically, it is when
home-grown groups attempt to reach out to al Qaeda that they
have been caught in key instances. Fortunately, these groups
have not yet attained a higher level of competence.
Whether beyond prison walls or inside them, it is essential
to better understand the life cycle of a terrorist,
specifically, the process by which an individual becomes
motivated to listen to radical ideas, read about them, enlist
oneself or respond to terrorist recruiting efforts, and
ultimately act upon those ideas. This transition from
sympathizer to activist will be addressed in greater detail by
my colleague, Dr. Saathoff.
Prison radicalization is not a new threat. To the contrary,
prisons have always been an incubator for radical ideas, in
part because there is a captive audience. Recall that Hitler
wrote Mein Kampf while in prison, and Stalin while himself
incarcerated recruited inmates to power the Bolshevik
Revolution. The founder of Arkan's Tigers, who took part in the
ethnic cleansing of Bosnia in the 1990s, was just a petty
criminal until he spent time in Western Europe prisons. The
spiritual philosopher of al Qaeda, Sayyid Qutb, wrote the
radical Islamist manifesto Milestones Along the Road while in
an Egyptian prison. Al-Zarqawi, initially merely a petty
criminal, rose to leadership while imprisoned in Jordan.
Of course, religious radicalization is not unique to Islam
and remains the exception rather than the rule, irrespective of
the faith at issue.
Five months ago, GW's Homeland Security Policy Institute
and UVA's Critical Incident Analysis Group convened a dedicated
all-volunteer task force encompassing a variety of subject
matter experts to do a deep dive into this issue, some of whom
are here today--Abdullah Ansary, Steve Herrick, Thurgood
Marshall, Jr., and all of whom should be thanked for their time
and insights. Our goal was to examine radicalization in prisons
from a multi-dimensional perspective rather than studying the
issue through a single lens or solely from a law enforcement or
intelligence perspective.
During the course of our work, we heard from imams and
chaplains and brought together officials at all levels of
government with scholars of religion and behavioral science
experts. The aim was to integrate insights from each of these
professions and recast their distinct lenses on this issue as a
prism. Our study led us to conclude that an objective risk
assessment is urgently needed in order to better understand the
nature of the threat. Although we have snippets of data, we
still don't have a sense of how these various pixels fit
together as a mosaic in the big picture. Simply put, we don't
know what we don't know.
We urge you to establish a multidisciplinary commission to
investigate this issue in depth and to advance our
understanding of the nature of the threat and lay the
groundwork for effective and proactive prevention and response
measures.
To date, select cases from the well known, such as Richard
Reid and the New Folsum Prison case and Sheik Rahman, to the
lesser known, such as El Rukn or the extremist Christian group
Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord, have revealed connections
between former prisoners and terrorism. Each held the potential
to be a high-consequence event, and authorities have attested
that these cases would appear to be just the tip of the
iceberg, though they cannot discuss ongoing investigations
publicly in great detail.
The potential scope of our challenge is considerable.
America's prison population is the world's largest, at over 2
million. Our incarceration rate is the world's highest. Ninety-
three percent of U.S. inmates are in State and local prisons
and jails. The figures for California alone are staggering.
Facilities are hugely overcrowded, operating at 200 percent
capacity. Wardens understandably have their hands full dealing
with day-to-day operations and safety issues alone. And
prisoners with radical Islamic religious views often conduct
themselves as model prisoners, so wardens and other prison
staff who are already overburdened may have little incentive to
focus on these inmates.
Despite such overstretch, California officials have
demonstrated an impressive level of resolve and commitment to
countering prisoner radicalization. Arizona and New York also
have been forward-leaning in their approach. However, even in
these proactive jurisdictions, publicized successes may be due
in no small part to luck, as you mentioned earlier, Madam
Chairman.
In short, strides have been made, but disconnects remain.
Crucially, local information has yet to fully find its way into
regional and national intelligence processes and networks, and
strategic analysis is not yet fused with investigatory efforts.
The old adage, do you string them up or do you string them
along, still has not been 100 percent resolved.
Complicating the matter, there is currently no database, as
you mentioned, Madam Chairman, to track inmates after release
or to identify inmates associated with radical groups and no
comprehensive database exists to track religious service
providers who are known to expose inmates to radical religious
rhetoric.
Compounding the threat by Islamic radicalization is the
established presence of violent gangs and extremist Christian
groups in prisons. Some of these groups have found common cause
with extremist Muslim groups who share their hostility toward
the U.S. Government and Israel, the enemy of my enemy is my
friend effect.
It should go without saying that religion may have a
tremendously constructive impact upon inmates, imbuing them
with a sense of discipline and purpose, among other things.
Prisoners have a legal right to practice their religion, and
prisons are legally bound to provide for inmate worship.
Unfortunately, a shortage of suitably qualified Muslim
religious service providers has opened the door to under-
qualified and radical chaplains to enter prisons. In fact,
prisoners often take on this role themselves. Their converts
may in large part have had no prior exposure to Islam and have
no means to put the radical message into context. The only
version some may ever learn is a cut-and-paste version of the
Qur'an that incorporates violent prison gang culture, known as
jailhouse Islam or Prislam.
Currently, prayer leaders and religious service providers
only require endorsement by local organizations, and there is
no consistently applied standard or procedure to determine what
reading material is appropriate to enter the prison system.
Radical literature and extremist translations and
interpretations of the Qur'an have been distributed to
prisoners by groups suspected or known to support terrorism.
The threat posed by prisoner radicalization does not end
when inmates are paroled or released. Former inmates are
vulnerable to radicalization and recruitment because many leave
prison with very little financial or social support. By
providing for prisoners in their time of greatest need, radical
organizations can build upon the loyalty developed during the
individual's time in prison, and this is an oft-used tactic by
gangs and white supremacist groups.
The challenge of prison radicalization is by no means
unique to the United States. The problem is a global one, and
moving forward information sharing between and among the United
States and other countries will be crucial. Others' experience
offers us an opportunity to stay ahead of the curve by
learning, adapting, and applying the lessons of what has worked
elsewhere and what has not.
Moving forward, the most fundamental imperative in my view
as well as that of the task force is for Congress to establish
a commission to investigate this issue in depth. Only then will
we better understand the full breadth and depth of the threat
and hence respond accordingly and better prioritize our
resources. All relevant perspectives must feed into this
endeavor. No one profession alone is equipped to analyze and
recommend change. And throughout, the practice of religion
should be given fulsome consideration and weight while means of
preventing the spread of radical ideology in a religious
context are studied.
We would urge that the commission accord the following core
issues priority status: Information sharing between and among
agencies at all levels of government involved in managing
inmates and monitoring radical groups; steps to ensure the
legitimacy of Islamic endorsing agencies so as to ensure a
reliable and effective process of providing religious services
to Muslim inmates; steps to effectively reintegrate former
inmates into the larger society; development of a comprehensive
strategy to counter radicalization, drawing upon the lessons
that can be learned and adapted from other efforts to combat
gangs and right-wing extremists in prisons; and the evaluation
of existing prison programs from all levels of government and
internationally designed to prevent radicalization and
recruitment or to disrupt radical groups. Knowledge must be
translated into action across the board. Awareness, education,
and training programs must be developed for personnel who work
in prison, probation, and parole settings.
Finally, broader avenues of dialogue with the Muslim
community should be identified and pursued to foster mutual
respect and understanding and ultimately trust. To confine the
discussion to issues of terrorism alone is bound to encourage a
defensive posture and impede constructive dialogue.
Prison radicalization is but one subset of the battle of
ideas, and it is only by challenging ideas with ideas, both
within and beyond prison walls, that hearts and minds may
ultimately be changed and radical ideas moderated.
Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I am sorry for going a
couple seconds overtime.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much for excellent
testimony. Dr. Saathoff.
TESTIMONY OF GREGORY B. SAATHOFF, M.D.,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
CRITICAL INCIDENT ANALYSIS GROUP, AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
RESEARCH, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
Dr. Saathoff. Chairman Collins, Senator Carper, and the
staff members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs, I would like to thank you for inviting me
to testify before you today on this subject of national
importance. It has been a privilege to serve as Co-Chair with
Mr. Cilluffo on the Prisoner Radicalization Task Force that has
released its report today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Saathoff appears in the Appendix
on page 46.
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Throughout the last decade, I have assisted in the
coordination of briefings between behavioral science experts in
the FBI and an international group of religion scholars
associated with the American Academy of Religions. During the
last 15 years, as a member of the faculty of the University of
Virginia's School of Medicine, I have provided consultation in
more than 10 State prisons, Federal prisons, and jails. Through
this work, I have had an opportunity to witness the importance
of the media, the power of social networks, the changing role
of information technology, and the often vital role that
religion plays in rehabilitation, if not redemption.
In my brief remarks today, I will speak to the issue of
radicalization from a behavioral science perspective.
While the Federal prison system has made great strides in
addressing the issues of religious radicalization and
recruitment within prisons, our level of awareness and
understanding is still quite limited, particularly at the level
of the State prisons, community corrections, and local jails.
Research on the characteristics of terrorist recruits abroad
has identified youth, unemployment, alienation, a need for a
sense of self-importance, and a need to belong to a group as
common factors, all of which are present among U.S. prison
populations.
The landscape of prison life has also changed dramatically
in that the 24-hour news cycle available within prisons acts as
a force multiplier. Now, why is this important? Behavior is
contagious, whether it occurs in exuberant fans crowding onto a
sports field after a victory or angry inmates who riot within a
facility.
I learned this myself when I was called to see an inmate
who had set his cell on fire. It was only after I treated him
that I realized that the image of a raging fire on television
had provoked him to torch his cell.
This can also occur on a macro level. Two days after the
World Trade Center attack, I consulted to a prison that I
thought I knew well. Anxious inmates informed me that the
televised images of the September 11 attack were cause for
celebration among many of the inmates. In fact, they estimated
that perhaps a third of the inmates praised the attacks, and
their cheers could be heard in cellblock after cellblock. I
would like to emphasize that the cheering inmates shared not a
single religion, but a vulnerability to radicalization.
Of course, access to radio and television can have a
significant positive impact within prisons. However, one of the
byproducts of our smaller, more information-connected world is
the globalization of grievance. Images of distant conflicts are
burned into the memories and identities of impressionable
inmates. Television transmissions of bombings and group
violence have immense power, and their impact within the prison
environment cannot be overstated.
When there has been little exposure to organized religion
in the community, the inmates' understanding of religion is
dependent upon the religious leadership and materials at their
facilities, and this is complicated by the fact that the vast
majority of inmates are located not in the Federal, but in the
State prisons and local jails, 1.7 million inmates in a
diverse, dispersed system, or set of systems, actually. Radical
rhetoric may therefore exploit the inmates' vulnerabilities and
lack of grounded religious knowledge by providing validation to
the inmates' disillusionment with society and by creating an
outlet for their violent impulses.
Psychological factors that increase vulnerability include a
high level of distress, cultural disillusionment, lack of
intrinsic religious beliefs or values, dysfunctional family
systems, and dependent personality tendencies. Inmates may also
be drawn to radical groups out of the need for protection or to
gain status among other prisoners.
Occasionally, I am asked to describe the typical
radicalized inmate. While it seems a reasonable question, I
would suggest that focusing only on individual inmates is not
an appropriate solution. In fact, terrorism is a team sport.
Social bonding is not only the magnet, but also the glue that
holds these groups together, rather than concepts like
brainwashing that are simple, attractive, and wrong. The most
effective terrorists are team players who play different
positions on a radicalized field. Our overcrowded prisons
provide an opportunity for a deep bench.
Even more importantly, para-radicalization and recruitment
occur in prison. In this exploitative environment, inmates,
visitors, and even prison employees can be unwitting players
who can be cajoled, bribed, or coerced into transmitting
messages and materials without being aware of their real
purpose.
It is not enough to understand terrorism in prison by
learning only about inmates. One must also have an
understanding of those who visit and volunteer in prisons.
Studies have suggested that terrorist recruitment methods are
not always expected to yield a high number of recruits. Even if
the radical message resonates with only a few inmates, they
could then be targeted for more intense one-on-one instruction.
The impact and destructive potential of a prison-directed
terrorist cell is enormous.
There is a difference between a radicalized prisoner who
holds radical religious or political beliefs and a prisoner who
has been recruited by a terrorist group and who has chosen to
commit violence. An important resource for combatting terrorism
might be to determine which factor or factors influence some
radicalized prisoners to make that specific leap from radical
beliefs to violence in the name of those beliefs.
Because radical religious violence can occur within
prisons, we have an obligation to inmate populations,
certainly, but also to those who are charged with maintaining
safe prisons. Just as we seek to protect our soldiers by
providing them with the most up-to-date intelligence, we are
also obligated to use our enhanced knowledge to safeguard the
lives of our correctional officers. A compelling case can be
made for a review of our prison system, particularly at the
State and local levels.
Chairman Collins, in order to defeat a networked opponent,
our prisons need to be networked through information technology
systems that are truly integrated.
When serious symptoms present, it is tempting to try to
reach for a treatment before we have a diagnosis. History
reveals that government works best when it first shines light
rather than heat upon concerns that involve religious questions
and conflict. Government must be proactive. We must base our
operations on real intelligence rather than gut reactions.
Unless we understand the nature and extent of the problem of
religious radicalization in prison, we are likely to first
neglect it and then overreact in a way that unnecessarily
antagonizes and polarizes our prison population.
In addition to being an assault on civil liberties, an
aggressive overreaction by government in the absence of good
intelligence would lose hearts and minds to radicalization and
recruitment, playing into the very hands of those who would
want to subvert our system. Our briefings revealed that while
the New Folsum plot in California was discovered in the
community accidentally by virtue of a dropped cell phone, the
response of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Los Angeles was
superb. Expecting, though, that a Joint Terrorism Task Force
should be a primary force for dealing with this complex problem
is like expecting emergency rooms to provide all medical care.
Proactive, integrated, intelligence-sharing systems are
critical to identify and connect the dots before they become
plots.
In my role as a consulting psychiatrist to prisons, I also
teach the medical students who accompany me. Prison can be a
humbling place where teachers once again find themselves to be
students. I will never forget one of the first religious
challenges that faced me in prison. A suicidal inmate was to be
placed in a stripped cell without any possessions. As he was
led from my office, he begged me to allow him to keep just one
possession, his Bible. At such a time, it appeared obvious to
me that this request could easily be granted, and without
hesitation, I instructed the officer to give him his Bible.
Before doing so, though, the officer flipped through the pages,
reached into the Book of Revelations, and pulled out a razor
blade. ``Doc,'' he said, ``do you want him to have this, too?''
The inmate smiled weakly and said, ``I guess I don't need my
Bible after all.''
Unfortunately, we are living in more complex times. An
officer who can easily identify and remove a razor blade from a
Bible will most likely not be able to identify the razors of
radicalization, such as jihadist material that advocates
violent measures against innocent civilians, gangs who are
willing to masquerade their violence as religion, and
radicalized individuals who are willing to take the last step
toward terrorism.
In closing, I would like to recognize the Committee and
staff for their professionalism and the School of Medicine at
the University of Virginia and its resources within the
Critical Incident Analysis Group. I would also especially like
to thank Frank Cilluffo and the Homeland Security Policy
Institute at the George Washington University for their
dedication to this process, and, of course, the task force
members.
I would like to extend to you an open offer to continue to
work closely with them, thank you, and I would be pleased to
try to answer any questions you may have.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Doctor. We very much
appreciate your testimony and your offer to continue to work
with the Committee as we pursue this issue.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Gartenstein-Ross.
TESTIMONY OF DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS,\1\ SENIOR CONSULTANT, THE
GERARD GROUP INTERNATIONAL, AND CO-CHAIRMAN, THE
COUNTERTERRORISM FOUNDATION
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Chairman Collins and Senator Carper,
thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. The
Committee is to be commended for tackling an important issue
like prison radicalization.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Gartenstein-Ross appears in the
Appendix on page 57.
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In this testimony, I will provide an inside look at how
access to the prison system can be used and exploited by an
Islamic charity, radical in orientation, that is intent on
fostering its vision for the faith. The core of this testimony
is based on my time working for the Al Haramain Islamic
Foundation, which was an international charity devoted to
Wahhabism, the austere form of Islam that originated in what is
now Saudi Arabia. While I now work in counterterrorism, I
entered the field in an idiosyncratic manner. My introduction
came as an employee of a radical Islamic charity that is now
designated as a sponsor of terrorism by the Treasury
Department.
I grew up in Ashland, a small town in Southern Oregon. As
my name suggests, both of my parents are from Jewish
backgrounds, but they weren't happy with traditional Judaism,
so they encouraged me to find my own spiritual path. I found
this spiritual path in college when I converted to Islam. My
first job after college was with the U.S. headquarters of the
Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, which happened to be located in
my hometown.
I worked for Al Haramain from December 1998 until August
1999. I had a number of responsibilities during this time, but
the most directly relevant one is that I was responsible for
overseeing the charity's prison dawa program, dawa being the
Islamic form of evangelism. It was designed to educate U.S.
prisoners in what Al Haramain considered to be true Islam.
To cap off the story before getting to the specifics of the
prison dawa program, I left the Islamic faith for Christianity
prior to September 11, and by the time the FBI's investigation
of Al Haramain kicked into high gear in February 2004, I was
ready to assist the Bureau in investigating the charity
organization. I write about the experience in a forthcoming
book coming out in February 2007 called My Year Inside Radical
Islam, copies of which have been provided to staff members of
the Committee.
At the outset, I would like to explore the Al Haramain
Islamic Foundation's connections to international terrorism in
order to demonstrate the charity's ideological orientation. The
international Al Haramain organization was originally formed in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1992. At the time I worked for the
group, it had offices in more than 50 countries and an annual
budget of $40 to $50 million. Today, however, Al Haramain no
longer exists as a separate entity. It was eventually merged,
along with other charities, into the Saudi National Commission
for Relief and Charity Work Abroad.
Al Haramain's terrorist connections begin with the branch
that I worked for in Ashland, Oregon. It was designated as a
terrorist sponsor by the Treasury Department. Two of the
directors of this group were indicted for their roles in a
complicated money laundering scheme that Federal investigators
believe funded the mujahideen of Chechnya.
Beyond the branch I worked for, Al Haramain had a number of
other connections to international terror. The U.S. Treasury
has designated Al Haramain offices in Kenya, Tanzania, and the
Comoros Islands as sponsors of terrorism for their role in the
1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The Treasury
alleges that the attacks were funded by a wealthy Al Haramain
official, that a former Al Haramain director helped prepare the
advance party that planned the bombings, and that these offices
were used as a staging area and exfiltration route for the
perpetrators.
Al Haramain's Indonesia office was also designated by
Treasury. That office was reportedly a conduit for funds to
Jemaah Islamiyah, the terrorist group responsible for the
October 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, primarily
foreign tourists.
Other Al Haramain offices that were similarly designated by
Treasury for connections to terror include the branches in
Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Pakistan.
Now, Al Haramain's international terror connections provide
a backdrop for understanding its prison dawa program, for
understanding both the radical literature that the group
distributed and also the potential for the program to be used
in far more nefarious ways than it was actually used. I turn
first to the group's literature, which was undeniably radical.
At the heart of any concerted Islamic literature program is
distribution of the Qur'an. Al Haramain distributed a Wahhabi/
Salafi version known as the Noble Qur'an that was translated
into English by Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Muhammad
Muhsin Khan. This version was known for containing numerous
bracketed interpolations that were not present in the original
Arabic script of the Qur'an. Although ostensibly designed to
explain the verses, these interpolations, in fact, pushed the
meaning in a radical direction, one which was suffused with
contempt for non-Muslims and one which openly advocated the
global jihad.
One example of this occurs in an early footnote in the
translation, which states, ``Al-Jihad (holy fighting) in
Allah's Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is
given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars.
By Jihad, Islam is established, Allah's word is made superior,
and His Religion is propagated. By abandoning Jihad, Islam is
destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their
honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority
vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim,
and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his
innermost heart wish to fulfill this duty, dies with one of the
qualities of a hypocrite.''
This passage thus rules out non-military interpretations of
jihad by insisting that it occur with full force of numbers and
weaponry, and it also endorses jihad as a means of propagating
the Islamic faith, specifying that it is required of every
Muslim.
But most chilling in the translation of the Qur'an that Al
Haramain distributed was a 22-page appendix. This appendix,
written by former Saudi Arabian Chief Justice Abdullah bin
Muhammad bin Humaid, was entitled ``The Call to Jihad in the
Qur'an.'' The appendix was nothing less than an exhortation to
violence. In it, bin Humaid argues at length that Muslims are
obligated to wage war against non-Muslims who have not
submitted to Islamic rule. He explains, ``Allah commanded the
Muslims to fight against all the Mushrikun as well as against
the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do
not embrace Islam, until they pay the jizyah (a tax levied on
the non-Muslims who do not embrace Islam and are under the
protection of an Islamic government) with willing submission
and feel themselves subdued.'' Mushrikun, referred to in this
passage, is describing all non-believers who are not classified
as the people of the scripture, i.e., those who are not
Christians and Jews, and thus bin Humaid advocates war with the
entire non-Muslim world. The appendix also appeals to the
reader to join the jihad.
Nor was the translation of the Qur'an the only piece of
radical material that Al Haramain distributed to prisons.
Another widely distributed volume was Muhammad bin Jamil Zino's
Islamic Guidelines for Individual and Social Reform. Like the
translation of the Qur'an that Al Haramain distributed, one of
the themes of Zino's book was jihad. At one point, he instructs
his readers that their children should be indoctrinated in the
glories of jihad.
Moreover, virulent anti-Semitism and hatred of non-Muslim
governments were recurring themes in Al Haramain's literature.
On a page headed, ``Act upon these Ahadith,'' the hadith being
the sayings and traditions that were attributed to Prophet
Muhammed, Zino's first injunction reads, ``The last hour will
not appear unless the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.''
More sweepingly, Zino denounces belief in manmade
destructive ideologies, such as secularism, as nullifying an
individual's adherence to Islam. This is in keeping with the
views of another writer whose works Al Haramain sent to
prisons, Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips. In The Fundamentals of
Tawheed, Philips describes acquiesence to non-Islamic rule as
an act of idolatry and an act of disbelief.
But beyond the literature, it is also important to
understand the contours of the program that allowed this
literature to reach the U.S. prison system. Prisoners would
initiate contact with Al Haramain by writing to request Islamic
literature. They might learn about us from their chaplains,
through word of mouth, or through the name and address
information that was stamped into the literature that Al
Haramain distributed. Prisoners who wrote to Al Haramain would
be sent a number of pamphlets and a questionnaire. The
questionnaire asked a variety of informational questions,
including inmates' names, prisoner numbers, release dates, and
address outside of prison. It also included questions designed
to determine the inmate's level of Islamic knowledge.
It is what happened next with the questionnaires that
caught investigators' interest during their investigation of Al
Haramain. After we graded the questionnaires, all of the
information--including the inmates' names, prisoner numbers,
facilities they were held in, release dates, and the address
they would be released to--was entered into a massive database
containing 15,000 names. This database is significant because
of the potential for terrorist recruitment. As the panel has
already discussed, the prison population is ripe for terrorist
recruiting, and the database hosted by Al Haramain was
perfectly designed to allow follow-up with prisoners and
potentially to allow for terrorist recruitment. Al Haramain
could have established ongoing relationships with prisoners,
and the database contained the critical information that would
have allowed Al Haramain or ideologically sympathetic
organizations to follow up with prisoners after they were
released and to point them in a direction that these
organizations considered to be convenient.
Ultimately, the program was not used in that way, but part
of the reason may well have been that in a pre-September 11
world, it wasn't seen as advantageous to recruit prisoners into
terrorism out of the prison system because it was seen as more
desirable to be able to raise funds and gain political
influence in the United States. But now, in the post-September
11 world, the United States is undeniably seen as the focus of
the global jihad.
In closing, I would like to recognize the Committee and the
staff for their professionalism and extend an open offer to
continue to work closely with them. I am pleased to try to
answer any questions that you may have.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much for your testimony.
I would like to follow up on some of the points that you
just made. You talked about the literature that was being sent
in to prisons under your prison literature program, and you
described it as undeniably radical. You read some excerpts from
the Noble Qur'an, which certainly is the radical
interpretation. But I understand that this publication, Islamic
Guidelines, was also sent in by the charity, is that correct?
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Yes, that is correct.
Chairman Collins. I would like to have the board \1\ put up
so that I can read a couple of excerpts from this book, as
well. There is a section on jihad as collective duty, and it
says, ``If someone makes any obstacle in the way of
propagation, Muslims are allowed by Allah to fight them until
Islam becomes the governing authority. Jihad in this sense will
not stop until the day of judgment.'' And then there is another
quote that says, ``The last hour will not appear unless the
Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.'' Obviously, a very
extremist and radicalized version of Islam.
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\1\ The posters referenced by Senator Collins appear in the
Appendix on page 83.
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My question to you is this. During any time that you were
associated with sending this kind of extremist literature in
the prison, was it ever refused by prison officials? Was it
ever turned back or rejected that you are aware of?
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. No. During my time there, the
literature was not once refused on the basis of its radical
content. There were two instances I recall of literature being
refused. Once, there was a prison chaplain who refused one of
the pamphlets that we sent in. It was written in the typical
vitriolic style of Al Haramain material, and it was a pamphlet
discussing the Nation of Islam. But his concern was not so much
the content itself as the potential for creating sectarian
strife within the prison.
The second instance of literature being refused was when a
prison screener found that we had sent literature bundled in a
manila envelope that had a metal clasp. He thought that the
metal clasp might be used as a weapon by prisoners without any
attention to the content of the material, which may well have
been the deadlier weapon.
Chairman Collins. This is an issue that I am going to raise
with our next panel, but I want to follow up, Mr. Cilluffo,
with your comment in which you talked about the need for more
involvement by the Muslim community. It seems to me that this
is an excellent example, where many prison officials,
particularly at the State or even local level, are simply not
going to have the resources or the expertise to do a review of
the literature to see if it is appropriate. There is obviously
also a difficult balancing test in that you don't want to
impede the flow of legitimate information about Islam into the
prisons.
Last week, we had a hearing in which we heard all of the
witnesses who were asked to look ahead to the emerging threats
over the next 5 years, and all of the witnesses told us that
there needed to be more of an outreach to the Muslim community.
You mentioned that in closing in your comments. Could you
expand on how we might be able to better involve moderate
Muslims in programs with prisons, including the review of
literature?
Mr. Cilluffo. Absolutely, Madam Chairman, and that, to be
honest, is the primary reason, or one of the primary reasons,
we advocated the creation of a commission, since this cannot be
won or defeated or tackled long-term by law enforcement means
alone. That is only a small part of the solution. Rather, we
need to bring people who actually have the knowledge and the
wherewithal to be able to steer people in another direction and
who have the capacity and the capability to know when things go
awry.
But I think if we look at it only through a
counterterrorism perspective, that is automatically going to
create defensive postures, understandably, that we need to
actually expand those issues, and we quite honestly need more
imams. We need more chaplains, I mean, at the Federal level. We
only have 10 imams. In California, where we are talking about
300,000 people throughout the system, including paroles on the
parolee side, we only have 20 imams. That is a tip. That is a
very small percentage that can even handle the Muslim needs.
So what I think we need to be able to do is expand the
dialogue, but if we only look at it through this particular
lens, and that in large part is where that dialogue is
occurring, we are only going to get so far. So I think that we
need to be able to put together an entity and a group that are
going to look at it from multiple perspectives, from different
denominations, as well, because ultimately it is going to
require--this is a challenge that is within, to some extent,
the Muslim faith, and they are going to be the most important
component to any solution.
One may argue, where is the Martin Luther King? Where is
the Mahatma Gandhi? Maybe we need martyrs. But I think at the
end of the day--for good, not only for terrorism. But at the
end of the day, it is going to require bringing these
communities in a trusted, honest way as part of an honest
dialogue.
Chairman Collins. Dr. Saathoff, could you help us better
understand the circumstances under which radicalization lasts?
What I am talking about is from your testimony, it has helped
us understand why the prison population is particularly ripe
for radicalization efforts. After all, many prisoners are anti-
social, angry at their government, looking to strike back,
alienated, are seeking some sort of bond. But what causes the
radicalization to last after an inmate is released from prison?
I can understand why our prisons are fertile grounds, but once
the inmate is released?
Dr. Saathoff. Chairman Collins, this is a question that is
on the minds of so many researchers who are interested in this
issue. Certainly, there is such a dearth of research and
literature on this issue of radicalization and particularly the
issue of how radicalized individuals move to that next
important step. And so I would say that we know very little
except for the fact that networks and social bonds are very
powerful. And so those kinds of social bonds that keep people
in other types of organizations, religions, etc., are also
important, from what we can understand, in terms of keeping
people bonded within a certain community. And so as we look at
not only the issue of prisons, but also rehabilitation and
probation and parole, as Senator Carper was mentioning, these
are issues that we would advise that a commission look at
because the only way to loosen certain bonds is to find out how
we can strengthen others.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, the comments the physician has just
made about networks leads me to a final question for you before
I yield to my colleague, and that is the compilation by Al
Haramain of this enormous database on 15,000 prisoners,
information about their release dates and the address to which
they were going to be released, what do you think was the
organization's purpose in compiling all that information? You
made clear in your testimony that, as far as you know, it
wasn't used as a recruitment tool. Why would the organization,
which is a sponsor of terrorism, go to the effort of
maintaining such a detailed, comprehensive database on 15,000
inmates?
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Well, the information is dual-
purpose. It is information that could be used either for
legitimate purposes or for more nefarious purposes in terms of
terrorist recruitment.
In the case of legitimate purposes, the information can be
used to make sure you don't send the same literature to an
inmate twice, to make sure that you don't send literature to
the inmate after the inmate has been released from prison, and
also the address to which the inmate is released could allow
for an ongoing relationship, but one that isn't necessarily
tied to recruitment to terrorism.
In this case, Al Haramain, it seems to me, had a few
factors working against it when using this for terrorist
recruitment, one of which was that the head office in Riyadh,
which held the purse strings, really didn't have the idea of
the kind of gold mine that it had in its hands. Rather than
recruiting people out of prisons, they were much more intent on
the social status that would be attained from recruiting rich
white people into Islam and specifically instructed the head
U.S. office that this is the kind of demographic that we should
concentrate on.
One other thing that I think is important is, as I said in
my testimony, this was all the pre-September 11 world, where a
lot of Al Haramain's support for terror was focused on jihads
in Chechnya, in Bosnia, in the Philippines, in Uzbekistan, and
other far-flung places. Focusing on these various far-flung
jihads and supporting them doesn't necessarily translate into a
real need to recruit inmates from the U.S. prison system for
terror plots. And in fact, they may have thought that doing so
would be counterproductive because we were able to operate very
freely in the pre-September 11 world. You saw the kind of
literature that made its way into prisons, never once being
questioned. If they were seen as trying to actively subvert the
United States or do violence to it, that may have, in their
view, somewhat undermined their cause.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Madam Chairman. I just want to say,
we have had a lot of witnesses come before us. These are three
of the best. That is why I want to do this for a living. I
thank you very much for coming and for your testimony and for
your response to our questions. I see in the audience sitting
behind the witnesses my friend Thurgood Marshall, Jr. Welcome.
I can just barely see your lips move when he testified, so you
have that down pretty good. [Laughter.]
I want to go back to the issue of how few imams there are
in these prisons. It is really striking. In our own prison
system in Delaware, I am aware that there are a number of folks
who come to our prisons on a fairly regular basis of different
faiths. They do it in many cases on a volunteer basis, but they
are there.
I am Protestant. I think the Chairman is Catholic. In the
New Testament, there is a verse which is actually pretty well
known where we are exhorted, like when people are sick, we
should visit them. When people are naked, we should clothe
them. When they are hungry, we should feed them. When they are
thirsty, we should give them a drink. And when they are sick
and in prison, we should go visit them. A number of people in
our faith take that seriously. Is there a similar kind of
urging within the Qur'an to do that kind of thing? I presume
that there is, but I just don't know. We see it as sort of a
Biblical injunction, what we should do as part of our faith,
rather than just to talk a good game, but actually do it, and
part of it is to visit people in prison.
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Certainly within the Islamic faith,
you can find a number of different injunctions that ask you to
care for those who are less well off. There is a lot of ways,
including Muhammad's kind of elevation of the social status of
slaves during that time and the like, that I think would give
Muslims a similar sort of desire to help out within the prison
system.
One thing that has served as a barrier in the past is the
certification process. For Federal prisons, there were only two
organizations for a long time, both of which had at least some
sort of Wahhabi or Salafi ties, that were allowed to certify
Federal prison chaplains. Likewise, there often is not a
situation where there is trust necessarily between members of
the Muslim community and the prison system. But in the end, the
fact that there are so few imams does indeed, as Mr. Cilluffo
said, open the door for radicals to come forward when Muslim
chaplains and Muslim imams who are more moderate in orientation
aren't really spearheading efforts to do so.
Senator Carper. Let me stay with this issue for just a
moment. What should we be doing at the Federal level or State
or local level to encourage folks of the Muslim faith to come
forward, people who are not jihadists but mainstream? What can
we do to encourage them, to make them feel welcome, if you
will?
Mr. Cilluffo. Senator Carper, if I can expand because this
is a differentiator between maybe the way the United States
handles this issue and some of our allies overseas in Europe. I
think if you look throughout Europe, and there are a number of
phenomenal studies that have been done, perhaps the best one
was actually done after the Van Gogh murder in the Netherlands,
their intelligence service put together ``Violent Jihad in the
Netherlands: Current Trends and the Islamist Terrorist
Threat.'' I think the Europeans are looking at this from a top-
down perspective. I think that the reason we are to some extent
more inoculated from the crisis that they arguably are facing
is because we need to look at it from the bottom up and from
the top down.
The bottom line here is that is that this is going to be as
big of a role for a governor, for a mayor, and for county
executives as it is going to be from the Federal perspective.
And actually, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, in large part
thanks to Congressional leadership in hearings held on the
Judiciary Committee, did take some proactive actions after some
hearings as well as an Inspector General's report and have
closed some of the holes in terms of some of the imams that
were finding their way, and the Muslim chaplains, into the
prison system. But it is not an issue of just making sure we
are weeding out some of the more radicalist preachers but
finding others to participate, and that is where relief
organizations and the like are going to play a big role.
But here again, you have that vetting challenge. Do you
know who you know? To me, that is largely going to be part of a
larger discussion that is going to have to occur at the
community level, from the bottom up as well as from the top
down, and ultimately information and intelligence and
knowledge. So it is bringing all these pieces together. That is
what is so difficult with this challenge; you can't look at it
only through a law enforcement or national security lens. That
part is actually kind of easy, comparatively speaking. It is
then looking to what we really mean by solution sets.
Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
Dr. Saathoff, I think it was you who mentioned information
technology, and I think you said fully integrated. Would you
just go back and tell us again what you were saying there?
Dr. Saathoff. I was referring to the disparate information
technology systems looking at inmates. There are some systems
where visitors, for example, within a State at least are
identified by name so it is possible to find out where visitors
are going. There is no question but that visitation is really a
crucial and very constructive element of prison rehabilitation,
but there are some State systems that would not be able to tell
you through data mining whether or not there are certain
individuals who are just going to one prison and visiting
family members, for example, or perhaps going to disparate
prisons and visiting people that they don't know.
So looking at patterns, I think it is important for us to
be able to just understand and shine a light, and because of
the way information technology has advanced over time, what we
have are different systems that don't necessarily communicate.
I would like to just add to Mr. Cilluffo's statement with
regard to your really vital question, and that has to do with
welcoming and bringing in the constructive aspects that
religion brings. I focused to some extent on how technology and
information technology is a problem. The images that are seen
in prison can certainly mobilize inmates in negative ways, but
there are also ways in prisons, for example, that information
technology is a real success.
For example, we have inmates in the prisons that I work in
who have very serious diseases, and because of the rarity of
their disease, it may not be possible to bring a specialist, a
top physician, to that prison to examine the patient. It may
also be difficult for security reasons to transport the patient
on a weekly basis. However, through telemedicine, we can bring
top-quality professionals into the prison setting for very
personal, direct contact.
And so I think as we look at this confusing set of
circumstances, just as information technology can be identified
as a problem, ultimately, I think it really is going to be a
solution in terms of really opening up more options for
constructive, important interactions with regard to religion.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Madam Chairman, I just have a
thought here. You mentioned the telemedicine and what a great
use of technology that can be in the prison system. We have a
situation where we don't have very many imams who can come in
and proselytize and deliver the sort of message, responsible
message, that most of us would welcome. Has there been any use
of the kind of technology that we are talking about in
providing better medical care to allow mainstream imams to come
in without physically being present in the prison but to be
able to deliver a message that really reflects what is in the
Qur'an? Is anybody doing that?
Dr. Saathoff. Senator, I am not aware of that.
Senator Carper. Just take a moment and react to that idea.
It may be a bad idea, but on Sunday mornings, you turn on the
TV, and there are plenty of televangelists on the airways.
There might be a good idea there.
Mr. Cilluffo. Senator Carper, I do think that is something
worth exploring, and we did identify that to some extent as
something a commission could look at, not specifically as it
pertains to some of the telebroadcasts, but there really is no
standard for what is acceptable and what is unacceptable
material that is being disseminated throughout our systems. We
know some literature that arguably does not reflect, and I
would suggest doesn't reflect, the Qur'an has found its way. So
how do we build some of that capacity? I think information
technology could be part of the solution.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks very much.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. I want to thank this panel of
witnesses very much. You have helped increase our understanding
of the challenges that we face, and we look forward to
continuing to work with you, so thank you for your
participation.
I would now like to call forth the witnesses on our second
panel.
Our first witness is Dr. John Vanyur. He is the Assistant
Director of the Correctional Programs Division of the Federal
Bureau of Prisons. He directs the security, intelligence, case
management, mental health programs, religious services,
community programs, and private prison management for the 113
correctional facilities and approximately 192,000 inmates
nationwide. He has held a variety of positions during his 25-
year career with the Department of Justice.
Our second witness is Donald Van Duyn. He joined the FBI in
August 2003 after 24 years of service in the CIA as an analyst
and manager of analysts. He currently serves as the Deputy
Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Analysis Branch in
the Counterterrorism Division.
Our third witness, Javed Ali, serves as the Senior
Intelligence Officer for the Chief of Intelligence in the
Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining DHS, he
served as an intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence
Agency's Joint Intelligence Task Force on Combatting Terrorism.
We welcome all of you to the hearing today, and Dr. Vanyur,
I would ask that you start.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN M. VANYUR,\1\ ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
CORRECTIONAL PROGRAMS DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Dr. Vanyur. Thank you. Chairman Collins and Members of the
Committee, I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss
the efforts of the Bureau of Prisons and what we are taking to
ensure that we are preventing the recruitment of terrorists and
extremists in our Federal prisons.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Vanyur appears in the Appendix on
page 66.
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The Bureau of Prisons is committed to providing inmates
with the opportunity to practice their faith while at the same
time ensuring that Federal prisoners are not radicalized or
recruited for terrorist causes. We understand the importance of
controlling and preventing the recruitment of inmates into
terrorism. We know that inmates are particularly vulnerable to
recruitment by terrorists and that we must guard against the
spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies.
Our practices in institution security and inmate management
are geared toward the prevention of any violence, criminal
behavior, disruptive behavior, or other threats to institution
security or public safety. We have taken a number of measures
over the last several years, and we are actively engaged in
several ongoing initiatives to ensure that Federal inmates are
not recruited to support radical organizations or terrorist
groups. We have eliminated most inmate organizations in order
to control the influence that outside entities have on Federal
inmates. We also have enhanced our information and monitoring
systems, our intelligence gathering and sharing capabilities,
and our identification and management of disruptive inmates.
We have been managing inmates with ties to terrorism for
over a decade by confining them in secure conditions and by
monitoring their communications. We have established a strategy
that focuses on the appropriate levels of containment and
isolation to ensure that inmates with terrorist ties do not
have the opportunity to radicalize or recruit other inmates.
The most dangerous terrorists are confined under the most
restrictive conditions allowed.
We monitor and record telephonic communication involving
inmates with terrorist ties, and we share any relevant
information with the FBI, the National Joint Terrorism Task
Force, and other agencies. In addition, our institutions work
closely with the local joint terrorism task forces to share
information and intelligence about these inmates.
The Bureau of Prisons has two full-time employees assigned
to the National Joint Terrorism Task Force to facilitate our
involvement on this task force and to coordinate the exchange
of intelligence related to corrections. These two members of
the NJTTF also manage the Correctional Intelligence Initiative,
a nationwide NJTTF special project involving correctional
agencies at the Federal, State, and local levels designed to
detect, deter, and disrupt the radicalization and recruitment
of inmates.
In addition to containing and isolating inmates who could
attempt to radicalize other inmates, we help inmates become
less vulnerable to any such attempts. Experts have identified
the societal marginalization of inmates as the key factor in
their becoming radicalized. The Bureau of Prisons provides
inmates with a broad variety of programs that have proven to
assist in the development of key skills, thereby minimizing the
likelihood of the inmates being marginalized.
Moreover, we are well aware of the important role religious
programs can play in preparing inmates to successfully
reintegrate into society. Religious programs and chaplaincy
services are provided to the approximately 30 faiths
represented within the Federal prison population. Full-time
civil service chaplains in the Bureau of Prisons lead worship
services and provide pastoral care and spiritual guidance to
inmates, and they oversee the breadth of religious programs and
monitor the accommodations provided by the contract spiritual
leaders and community volunteers.
We screen all of our civil service staff, volunteers, and
contractors to avoid hiring or contracting with anyone who will
pose a threat to institution security. Bureau of Prisons civil
service chaplains must meet all of the requirements for
employment as a Federal law enforcement officer. And like all
Bureau of Prisons employees, chaplains are strictly prohibited
from using their position to condone, support, or encourage
violence or other inappropriate behavior.
Our religious contractors and volunteers are also subject
to a variety of security requirements prior to being granted
access to our institutions, and we have and continue to work
closely with the FBI and the National Joint Terrorism Task
Force to improve our screening of contractors and volunteers.
Information on staff chaplains, contractors, and volunteers is
checked against databases supported by the FBI. We have also
enhanced the supervision of programs and activities that take
place in our chapels over the last 3 years, and we have trained
nearly all of our staff on recognizing the signs of potential
radicalization.
Chairman Collins, this concludes my formal statement. I
would be pleased to answer any questions you or other Members
of the Committee may have.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Van Duyn.
TESTIMONY OF DONALD N. VAN DUYN,\1\ DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. Van Duyn. Madam Chairman, Ranking Member, thank you for
the opportunity to speak to you on the issue of prison
radicalization in the United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Van Duyn appears in the Appendix
on page 74.
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Before I begin, I would like to emphasize that Islam itself
is not the problem, but rather how Islam is used by violent
extremists to inspire and justify their actions. The FBI does
not investigate individuals for their religious beliefs, but we
investigate the activities of individuals who want to do harm
to the citizens and interests of the United States and abroad.
The FBI and the Bureau of Prisons analysis shows that
radicalization and recruitment in U.S. prisons is still an
ongoing concern. Prison radicalization occurs mostly through
anti-U.S. sermons provided by contract, volunteer, and staff
imams, radicalized inmates who gain religious influence, and
extremist media. Ideologies that radicalized inmates appear
most often to embrace include or are influenced by the Salafi
form of Sunni Islam and an extremist view of Shiia Islam
similar to that of the government of Iran and Lebanese
Hezbollah.
There are two groups of concern involved in prison
radicalization and recruitment. The first group consists of
inmates. These radicalized inmates either feel discriminated
against in the United States or feel that the United States
oppresses minorities and Muslims overseas. The feeling of
perceived depression, combined frequently with their limited
knowledge of Islam, especially for the converts, makes this a
vulnerable population for extremists looking to radicalize and
recruit.
Radicalized inmates are of concern for a number of reasons.
Influential inmates could urge other prisoners to attend
certain mosques or Islamic centers in the United States or
overseas upon their release that may present opportunities for
the further proselytizing of radical Islam. Influential inmates
could also pose a risk to prison security by urging inmates
under their influence to disobey prison authorities and
possibly incite violence within the facility. Inmates who have
acquired skills used in terrorism activities could pass them on
to other prisoners.
The second group consists of contract, volunteer, and staff
personnel, the majority of which are imams who enter
correctional facilities with the intent to radicalize and
recruit. Particularly for Muslim converts, but also for those
born into Islam, an extremist imam can strongly influence
individual belief systems by speaking from a position of
authority on religious issues. Extremist imams have the
potential to influence vulnerable followers at various
locations of opportunity, can spot and assess individuals who
respond to their messages, and could potentially guide them
into increasingly extremist circles after release.
Aside from individuals providing radical messages, there is
also extremist media in the form of literature and videos being
circulated within the prison population that appears to be a
significant factor in prison radicalization.
The majority of cases involving radicalization have not
manifested themselves to date as a threat to national security.
There have been, however, instances where charismatic elements
within the prison have used the call of global jihad as a
source of inspiration to recruit others for the purpose of
conducting terrorist attacks in the United States. You referred
to the JIS group in California, which is probably the most
well-known case at this point in time, and that was certainly a
wake-up call, I think in general, for both the FBI and the
Bureau of Prisons in how we approach this problem, and I won't
go into further detail on that.
The FBI and the Bureau of Prisons have been actively
engaged in efforts to detect, deter, and disrupt efforts by
extremist groups to radicalize and recruit in U.S. prisons
since February 2003. These activities have been organized
through the Correctional Intelligence Initiative, which you
referred to earlier. I would like to stress that we have
extended this initiative beyond just the Federal system, but
into the State and local correctional facilities, and we
realize the need to do that further.
The CII program focuses first on improving intelligence
collection, so that we truly understand the problem; detecting,
deterring, and disrupting efforts by terrorist, extremist, or
radical groups to radicalize or recruit in Federal, State,
local, territorial, tribal, or privatized prisons; providing
training and support materials that can be used by our field
offices, JTTFs, and correctional institutions for training and
outreach at State and local correctional institutions.
All of these elements have helped to identify numerous
factors responsible for the spread of radicalization and
recruitment in prisons. A recent comprehensive assessment based
on a survey of nearly 2,000 State and local correctional
facilities identified the following trends. Most cases of
prison radicalization and recruitment appear to be originated
by domestic extremists with few or no foreign connections. Some
radicalized Islamic inmates are current or former members of
street or prison gangs, indicating an emerging crossover trend
from gang member to Islamic extremist. Radicalization activity
appears to be higher in high-population areas on the West Coast
and the Northeastern United States.
The FBI and Bureau of Prisons assessment identified best
practices for correctional institutions to follow to combat the
spread of radicalization and recruitment. Some of these are:
Establish systemwide vetting protocols for all contractor and
volunteer applicants; create systemwide databases of
contractors and volunteers providing direct inmate services;
improve monitoring capabilities; coordinate inmate transfers;
share information among all levels of law enforcement and
correctional personnel.
Numerous FBI analytical products as well as operational
highlights have been disseminated to our foreign liaison
partners, from classified products to unclassified assessments
for a wide audience. The feedback from these products has
helped us to better drive our analytical and investigative
perspectives and identify services where bilateral exchanges
could prove beneficial on this issue.
I would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to
address this important issue and look forward to answering your
questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Senator Carper, I know that you have to leave shortly. Do
you have any questions you would like to pose?
Senator Carper. If I could. I apologize. The new President
of Amtrak is waiting in my office to meet with me. It is a
meeting we have sought, and I don't want to keep him waiting.
Could I ask the same question of each of you, if I may.
What advice do you have specifically for us on this Committee
and for us in the Senate on what we should be doing to address
these concerns?
Dr. Vanyur. Before I answer that, let me just mention,
getting back to your suggestion on technology, this is a little
lower tech than your suggestion, but what we did in the Bureau
of Prisons is we had our imams, our civil service imams,
videotape 125 jumma prayer sermons and over 70 Islamic study
group sessions, and we distributed those throughout our system
so that if we have inmate-led groups, which I am sure we will
probably get into a little bit later, they have a plug-and-play
appropriate----
Senator Carper. That is the kind of thing we do in our
adult Sunday school classes in my church, and I am sure you are
familiar with that in other faiths. Go ahead.
Dr. Vanyur. I think the best thing is training,
particularly pushing down training to the State and local
levels, and so the appropriate resources for the development
and the appropriate funding for the delivery of that training
throughout all corrections--tribal, private, local, State, and
Federal--to me would be the most effective strategy for this
Committee.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Van Duyn. I certainly concur with Dr. Vanyur's
assessment of the need for training and the greater awareness
throughout the system so that people are aware of the problems
that they are facing. And then in addition, I think to the
degree to which we can integrate systems for vetting and
information systems so that various institutions can talk to
one another and exchange data easily would be the second thing
that would be highest on my agenda.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you. There is a national
organization of State correctional secretaries or
commissioners, and so they have a great forum to share that
kind of stuff.
Mr. Ali, I am sorry I am going to miss your testimony, but
just give me one or two take-aways, if you will.
Mr. Ali. Sure. Just to add to the comments that have
already been made, I think two other important points that
cross-cut various aspects of this radicalization issue, not
just prison radicalization, outreach and dialogue with
communities identified at potential risk of being exposed to
these radical beliefs, whether in the prison system or not, I
think that is certainly an effort that we need to further
develop at the Federal level, and also continued dialogue at
the State and local level to have contact with officials who
are really seeing these experiences and activities on the
ground. I know just from our DHS perspective, our understanding
of just the prison radicalization issue has been incredibly
enhanced by having direct interaction with State and local
officials, and that is the perspective we just did not have at
the national level. So those things from our perspective are
very important.
Senator Carper. Our thanks to all of you, and I apologize
for having to leave. Madam Chairman, thanks so much for giving
me the opportunity to ask those questions. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Ali, you can proceed with
your statement.
TESTIMONY OF JAVED ALI,\1\ SENIOR INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, OFFICE
OF INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. Ali. Thank you. Chairman Collins, Senator Carper, I
know you are leaving, thank you for the opportunity to share
perspectives from the Department of Homeland Security on the
topic of prison radicalization.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ali appears in the Appendix on
page 79.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since 2004, a spate of activities in Western Europe carried
out or supported by radicalized homegrown Sunni extremists,
including the March 2004 attacks in Madrid and the July 2005
attacks in London, have really focused national attention on
the overseas phenomenon of radicalization or homegrown
extremism. But more recently, developments here in the United
States and Canada, including the disrupted JIS incident, which
we have discussed and heard about here in California, but also
the Toronto 17, those arrests in June, have also focused the
same kind of attention on the phenomenon in North America.
Against the backdrop of our larger efforts to understand
radicalization here, activity occurring in some prison systems,
such as last year's JIS incident, has become of keen interest.
In early 2006, the Department of Homeland Security Office
of Intelligence and Analysis formed a team to develop a
comprehensive intelligence-focused project that seeks to
address how, why, and where radicalized ideas and beliefs
develop over time in the United States. This project is part of
a broader DHS approach in addressing the issue of
radicalization and will help inform the Department-wide effort
to understand and mitigate the phenomenon.
We are conducting our study in a phased approach, focusing
on examining radicalization dynamics in key geographic areas
throughout the country. Our first phase focused on assessments
in California and New York. Our second phase is focusing on the
Midwest and the National Capital Region, and we hope to, beyond
these first two phases, conduct other regional or State-
specific assessments with the goal that all of these
assessments will provide the building blocks for a larger
national picture on radicalization.
Thus far, we have found that the relationships between
radicalization nodes and radical actor/groups vary across
ideological and ethno-religious spectrums, different geographic
regions, and socio-economic conditions throughout the country.
Further, we have found several diverse pathways to
radicalization in the United States through an examination of
these nodes, and from our perspective, nodes are the conduits
that facilitate and support the radicalization process, and
they can be several things. They can be physical institutions,
such as prisons; they can be virtual communities; they can be
charismatic individuals; they can be written or recorded
material, or even shared experiences or what we call a rite of
passage.
Further, we are also finding that radicalization in the
United States is not a one-way street and that individuals and
groups who can radicalize can just as easily deradicalize
depending on a very complex set of factors. This particularly
holds true when looking at the prison radicalization issue.
Our research and discussions indicate that radicalization
within prisons has occurred predominately, but not exclusively,
among the African-American inmate population and those
affiliated with gangs. Looking at that data set, inmates have
been radicalized through charismatic, religiously radical
inmates; by clerics, contractors, and volunteers who serve as
religious authorities; and through extremist propaganda created
both inside and outside of prison walls.
As a result, from our perspective, there appear to be both
bottom-up and top-down influences shaping the prison
radicalization dynamic, although it is difficult to assign
percentages as to which influence is greater.
We judge that the current radicalization dynamics in some
U.S. prison systems do not yet present the level of operational
threat seen in other parts of the world. That said, last year's
incident with the JIS in California suggests that small
motivated clusters of like-minded individuals exposed to
radical beliefs within prisons could potentially cause harm
once released.
We have worked with partners at the Federal, State, and
local levels to enhance our understanding on this issue of
prison radicalization. At the Federal level, we have worked
with the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons, amongst others, and at
the State and local levels, as I indicated before, we have held
discussions with officials in a variety of locations, to
include New York, California, Illinois, and Ohio, regarding
their particular unique perspectives on radicalization and will
also soon hold similar meetings with representatives from
Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.
In conclusion, our work on radicalization, including the
examination of the extent and depth of the phenomenon within
prisons in the United States, is preliminary and by no means
complete. Continued dialogue and relationship building with
Federal, State, local, and even foreign partners are critical
aspects of this work. We hope our efforts on radicalization
will help enhance the Department's perspectives on this issue
and help policy makers throughout the Federal Government make
the most informed judgments about how best to address the
phenomenon inside the United States.
Madam Chairman, thank you again for giving me the
opportunity to speak with you and Members of the Committee, and
I welcome your questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much.
Dr. Vanyur, you anticipated what my first question was
going to be in your comment to Senator Carper. In your
testimony, you talked about screening all of the civil service
staff, volunteers, and contractors, that each Bureau of Prisons
civil service chaplain has to meet certain requirements for
employment, that there is a field investigation, a reference
check, a panel interview. But we know that due to the shortage
of imams going into our prisons, that a lot of Islamic groups
within prisons are led by inmates. Is there a system for
screening inmate-led religious discussions or services to
ensure that the radicalized form of Islam is not being taught?
I am told by law enforcement officials that there is even a
nickname for it of Prislam, that it is that common.
Dr. Vanyur. The answer is yes, and let me just mention, to
look at the 11 civil service imams is really underestimating
who is delivering Islamic services throughout the Federal
system. There are also 56 contract imams that are not employees
of ours, but are on a contractual pay basis, delivering Islamic
services inside Federal prisons, and over 20 Islamic
volunteers.
But that said, there is a substantial portion of Islamic
services being led by inmates. A lot of that has to do with
where we have built prisons in many of the States and in the
Federal system over the last 20 years. Many of them are in very
rural and remote areas where there is just not a large Islamic
population in that area.
What we do with inmate-led groups is a few things. First,
any inmate-led group has to have 100 percent constant staff
supervision. So anytime there is an inmate-led group or an
inmate-led study or jumaa prayer, there is a staff member in
that room 100 percent of the time.
We require all of our religious services to be in English
except for that part of the service that has some formulaic
prayer. So in a jumaa service, you have got a piece of it that
is a formulaic prayer, for lack of a better word, that needs to
be in Arabic. But then the sermon or homily, we require that to
be in English so that our staff member can understand what is
going on.
We require that the inmate-led groups rotate the inmate who
is leading that group week to week so that we don't have one
individual who is dominating the group or trying to steer the
group in a particular direction.
We also ensure that we have standardized headgear and
procedures for inmates. Years ago, we would let inmates have
their own religious headgear, so they would use that as a sign
of leadership, different color kufis and other religious
headgear. Now we have standardized all that to take away any
trappings of leadership or direction that an inmate can bring
on.
So we think with that really intense monitoring, the
requirement of English, and then that piece I mentioned earlier
where we provide a lot of videotapes and study guides that are
the appropriate, accurate form of Islam, that we have very good
control over the inmate-led groups.
Chairman Collins. You heard on our previous panel the
discussion that I had, and I am going to ask that the
posterboards be put back up, that had some very disturbing
radicalized quotes on an extremist version of Islam that was
part of literature sent into prisons by the group Al Haramain,
which was later designated as a sponsor of terrorism. This
particular copy of this very disturbing book was ordered by my
staff on amazon.com. It is a used version of it. If an inmate
ordered this book today, would there be any review of it by
prison officials or would it most likely get to that inmate?
Dr. Vanyur. Every incoming publication is reviewed, but
there is a different standard for the publications that we
place in our chapels that we control, which is totally
discretionary in what the Bureau of Prisons wants to place in
that chapel, and what an inmate can get. And so the standard
for an inmate is much lower, and the standard is generally if a
publication presents a threat to institution security, deals
with drug introductions, criminal activity, then we would
reject the publication.
It gets very difficult when you talk about what are sort of
religious-political rhetoric in terms of whether that crosses
the line of threatening institution security or being part of
criminal activity. So I can't comment specifically on that
book, but it is a difficult issue, I think, on the publications
because of the First Amendment rights that inmates still have.
So my response, Senator, is that, yes, we would review the
book, but I couldn't tell you without further review whether we
would reject it across the board or not.
Chairman Collins. What standard is used to decide whether
literature should get through to an inmate?
Dr. Vanyur. Again, the standard is very clear in Federal
regulation, if it is detrimental to the security, good order,
or discipline of an institution or facilitates criminal
activity, and that is the standard that is in Federal
regulation that would cause us to reject a particular piece of
correspondence or a publication.
Chairman Collins. I guess I need to go to some of the
specific language in this to understand whether this would meet
that standard. As this chart shows, it says ``the last hour
will not appear unless Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.''
The earlier posterboard said, ``If someone makes any obstacle
in the way of propagation, Muslims are allowed by Allah to
fight them until Islam becomes the governing authority.'' Is
that kind of language sufficient to block this literature from
reaching an inmate?
Dr. Vanyur. I believe this last quote would be because you
are talking about killing other individuals.
Chairman Collins. Right.
Dr. Vanyur. And we try to push out literature that
disparages other religions, also, but these are difficult
decisions to be made at the local level, and to be honest with
you, the more difficult decisions are not in Islamic text. We
have a lot of white supremacist literature and Christian
identity movement and a number of other types of literature
that come in that we are constantly making these decisions on.
So I believe, particularly based on that last quote, we would
reject that book.
Chairman Collins. Do you involve experts, religious experts
of all faiths, in reviewing literature related to a particular
faith to decide what should come in and what shouldn't? You
have mentioned, and obviously I mentioned in my opening
statement, some white supremacist groups that have very violent
literature that could come in under the guise of religion. Do
you involve clergy, mainstream clergy, from various faiths to
help you do this kind of review?
Dr. Vanyur. We do. We have over 200 civil service
chaplains, and we designate some as subject matter experts for
their particular religion that we use to review many of these
materials. In the case particularly of Islam because our number
of imams is so low, we have reached out to a number of
universities and other Islamic study centers to try to assist
in this. But I would agree with the three speakers in the last
panel that the amount of outreach and contact can be greatly
improved.
Chairman Collins. It is my understanding that the Bureau of
Prisons is doing an inventory of books in both chapel libraries
and in the main libraries of prisons. Is that correct?
Dr. Vanyur. That is correct.
Chairman Collins. And that is ongoing?
Dr. Vanyur. That is ongoing, and it is showing us some of
the problems that we are going to confront because the number
of entries so far in our database exceeds 20,000. So there is a
lot of material that is out there.
One of the changes we just recently made is we have for the
first time taken specific publishers and any materials produced
by those publishers, we have removed from any of our libraries
and frozen, and that is different than the way we used to
handle business, where it was on a text-by-text basis. The
majority of those publishers, by the way, are not Islamic
publishers. They are primarily white supremacist. So we have
tried to take a broader approach in terms of materials coming
in.
We also work with our partners on what is coming in, and
the Qur'an that was discussed earlier was a piece of literature
that we received notification from the FBI had some issues, and
we removed that particular version of the Noble Qur'an from all
of our libraries. So it is a cooperative effort across our law
enforcement and other corrections partners, also.
Chairman Collins. When you find extremist literature like
this, whether it is Islamic or Christian or any other kind of
extremist literature, do you share that information with State
and local correctional facilities? The Federal Government has
the resources and the knowledge to do this kind of review.
Probably a large State like California or New York does, as
well. But smaller States simply don't have the expertise or the
resources. So do you maintain a list of extremist literature
that can be shared with your State and local counterparts?
Dr. Vanyur. We have not. We do a lot of sharing with the
State and local counterparts, particularly through the National
Institute of Corrections, which is a wing of the Bureau of
Prisons that deals specifically with State and locals, but I
don't believe we have actually put on their website or put out
to the States specific publications that we have eliminated.
Chairman Collins. I think that would be something for you
to look at. When I think of a State like mine, a small State
with very limited resources with a population that has very few
Muslims, for example, it would be extremely difficult, I think,
for prison officials in my State to make that kind of
assessment. But it would also be very helpful regardless of
whether it is religious in nature or not for States like Maine
to have a list of extremist literature to be on the lookout
for. It also, I think, would give more comfort to State and
local officials that they are making the right decision in what
is admittedly a very difficult area because of concerns of
protecting civil liberties and religious freedoms. So that is
something I would encourage you to pursue.
Dr. Vanyur. We will, Senator. I concur.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Van Duyn, I want to turn to the JIS
case out of California that I discussed in my opening
statement. In the indictment, there is mention of a document or
protocol that Kevin James clandestinely distributed, and this
document apparently set forth his bizarre teachings about Islam
including ``justification for killing non-believers.'' Do you
know how he was able to distribute that document?
Mr. Van Duyn. I don't have the specifics on just
mechanically how it was done. My sense is he did up copies that
he handed out. I know he gathered some of his materials from
the Internet. That is where he got some of the ideas. Then he
pulled it together. Some of the materials were hand-written, so
he would have had to make copies and then basically pass them
around. But I would have to check on the actual mechanics.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Ali, do you happen to know how he was
able to distribute that information?
Mr. Ali. The description that Mr. Van Duyn made is fairly
accurate, that some of this material was obtained through the
open source, through Internet, through information that he
brought into the prison system. Some of it was his own sort of
musings or writings that he wrote down by hand and then he put
together his own manual and then apparently just passed that
out by hand. I don't think it went out beyond the hard copy
dissemination.
When we were in California earlier this year, actually, in
Sacramento, we sat through a presentation with prison
officials, and they showed via PowerPoint slides certain pages
of the manual that he had written, and it is fairly alarming
stuff just from the sense of the ideas that were being shared
within this small group of individuals, and there are other
groups active just like that within the prison systems there.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Van Duyn, do you know whether copies
of these documents that Kevin James circulated were found in
California prisons?
Mr. Van Duyn. Yes, they were.
Chairman Collins. Do you know how many?
Mr. Van Duyn. I know the materials were found in his cell,
and then some other materials were found in other places
because I know after the arrest--that you refer to from the
cell phone, it led them to the house, and some of the materials
were found there, and then subsequently to him, but I don't
know the specifics of where they were all found.
Chairman Collins. I know that the FBI led the investigation
that eventually traced this cell phone back to the prison to
the plot to Kevin James. Prior to what really was a lucky break
of one of the perpetrators happening to drop a cell phone, was
there any knowledge that you are aware of among the FBI or
prison officials or State and local officials that such a plot
had been hatched in prison?
Mr. Van Duyn. Before the incident of the arrest, the fact
of the plot was not known. The group, however, was known. It
was being treated mainly as a prison gang prior to the arrest
for the robberies. It was on the discoveries emanating from the
arrest after the robberies that then led people to the plot.
That was the first knowledge of the plot per se.
Chairman Collins. I guess that worries me because here you
have a group of inmates led by a charismatic leader apparently
who was able to propagate his perverted version of Islam and
incite inmates to violence once they were released, and yet it
seems to have been under the radar, something that was not
detected. What do you think prison officials could have done to
be more aware of what was essentially homegrown terrorists in
their midst?
Mr. Van Duyn. I think many of the measures that Dr. Vanyur
already discussed in terms of better monitoring of meetings, of
activities, of literature, material that were there. In
particular, I think monitoring of meetings so that there are
not meetings that are being held without officials present. I
think, just in general, better monitoring and better
intelligence gathering in general inside the prisons, and I
think the case of the JIS, I mean, really pointed that up, and
also because that was a State prison, it also raises the issue
of we need to have very good communications between all levels
in the correctional systems.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Ali, I note that you indicated that
DHS is in the initial stages of its work on the radicalization
issue. In your testimony, you referred to nodes where
radicalization could take place, of which prisons are one. Do
you have yet any sense of how significant a node prisons are
for radicalization versus radical mosques or Internet chat
sites, etc., or do you not have enough information yet?
Mr. Ali. Madam Chairman, that is a great question. We are
trying to get to that through this research, and by doing it
with the regional approach of looking at States or different
regions, we are trying to drill down to two or three levels
below the national level perspective to get that more enhanced
perspective. So you can make an argument that if you looked at
what is going on in California right now, potentially within
just California specifically, prisons and some of the activity
within some of the prisons there seems to be of more concern or
greater interest--or there is more activity in that particular
node than potentially prisons in Illinois, where other nodes
may have a greater impact. So that is the comparative look we
are trying to develop.
At a broad macro level throughout the country, though, I
think we could say, at least from our initial perspective, that
prisons don't seem to have the same level of concern that we
have from DHS that other nodes have in terms of a conduit in
which radical ideas are either developed or passed or shared,
not to say that they are not of concern, but in terms of a
priority scale at a national level, they seem to be a little
bit lower down. But certainly we are focusing attention on
them.
Chairman Collins. That is something that I think we need to
get a better understanding of, is how radicalization and
recruitment occurs not only in prisons, but elsewhere in our
society. If you look at the attempted terrorist or actual
terrorist attacks that have occurred worldwide since September
11, you see that more and more, they are being done by
homegrown terrorists. All of the border security in the world
is not going to help to address the problem of radicalization
within our borders. That is why we have undertaken this
investigation, starting with looking at prisons where, at the
risk of using a bad pun, you do have a captive audience for
radicalization and you have a population that has a propensity
to violence and alienation already.
So my hope is that we can continue to work with you, but I
would also encourage you to work with your State and local
counterparts. Frankly, I think the Federal Government is
starting to move on this issue, has a good understanding of it,
and is expanding its expertise with each passing day. But I am
really worried about our State prisons, which is, after all,
where most inmates are incarcerated. It is overwhelmingly at
the State level. I worry that States lack the kinds of programs
that you have talked about, the ability to screen individuals
or literature, and the intelligence sharing of information that
is just vital to addressing this problem.
So I salute you all for the good work that you are doing,
but I really encourage you to reach out to the Muslim community
for help and to also reach out to your State and local
counterparts so that we can share information about specific
individuals, about radical literature, whether Islamic or
otherwise, and about the techniques, such as the monitoring of
religious services, that you have found to be valuable at the
Federal level. I really think we need to have a major outreach
effort in this area.
I hope you will continue to keep in touch with the
Committee and to work closely with us as you pursue your
investigations and work in this area, and I want to thank you
all for sharing your knowledge and expertise and insights with
the Committee today.
I want to again stress that our concern is not with inmates
converting to Islam. In many cases, that can be exactly what a
prisoner needed to put his or her life back on the right path,
to shun violence and future criminal activity. What I am
talking about is the extremist conversion, the radicalization
of Islam that is adopted by some inmates, and in some cases,
without any knowledge of prison authorities that this is going
on. Obviously, we have seen that prisons for decades have been
fertile grounds for radicalization in other areas and for the
creation of gangs. So this is a further evolution of that
trend, but indeed one that raises a great deal of concern about
the potential threat to our homeland security.
Again, thank you all for working with us, and we will be
continuing to investigate this area.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days for the
submission of any additional questions. I know many of my
colleagues were tied up at other hearings today. That doesn't
reflect a lack of interest in the subject, and I think you can
probably expect both panels will receive some additional
questions for the record.
Thank you very much for your participation. I also want to
thank the members of my staff, particularly Jen Boone and David
Porter, who have worked hard on this issue.
The Committee hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Thanks, Madam Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing on a
subject of growing interest and importance to our war against terror
here at home. The idea of homegrown terrorism--terrorism that is born
not deep in the Hindu Kush or in a desert cave but right here among
us--is a frightening concept to most Americans. It eliminates the
buffer of oceans and continents and even tightened immigration controls
that have kept our neighborhoods and institutions relatively free of
terrorist ideology. Home grown terrorism is now a grave enough concern
that we must consider whether to focus more attention and resources
toward it. I hope this hearing helps us to sort that out.
Experience tells us that we need to consider and then work together
to prevent the next terrorist attack, not the last one. Since September
11, we've spent billions of dollars to improve airline security and
prevent terrorists and their tools of destruction from entering the
country and we need to do more. But we must also be on the lookout for
ruthlessness we have not yet experienced--terrorism spawned right here
among us.
The men who plotted and carried out last year's bombings of the
London Underground, for example, were converted to terrorist ideology
in their home country, the United Kingdom--just as the perpetrators of
deadly rail explosions in Madrid and Mumbai might have been homegrown.
We will hear from our witnesses this morning of the developing
concern that American prisons are potential breeding grounds for
terrorism in this country. I say--potential--because there is no
evidence to suggest U.S. prisons are churning out terrorists--yet. But
nor can we afford to wait until production is in full swing before we
address the conditions that could lead to that occurring. The missed
opportunities leading up to the 9-11 attacks have been chronicled at
length. So, again, I thank the Chairman for holding this hearing today
so we can hear about a potential problem that can no longer be ignored.
The study we will hear about today shows that the American prison
systems--Federal, State, and local--are environments that are
permissive to the proliferation of radical ideologies. That
permissiveness, quite naturally, is exploited by those wishing to fill
out their ranks and win new recruits to the cause. The study's
authors--Mr. Cilluffo and Dr. Saathoff, together with their formidable
team of experts from across the professional spectrum--have done
outstanding work to identify potential loopholes that could be
exploited by radical groups and to provide thoughtful, well-reasoned
ways to close some of those loopholes. Our final witness on the first
panel is someone who actually did exploit those loopholes. Mr.
Gartenstein-Ross joined Al Haramain, a radical organization with
terrorist ties. He was personally responsible for outreach to the
prison populations in the United States and sent thousands of pieces of
radical literature to prisoners. And although Al Haramain has been shut
down, in large part due to Mr. Gartenstein-Ross's cooperation with the
FBI, there could be other similar groups still operating out there.
The fundamental questions we must ask are what would cause a person
to convert to a radical ideology condoning terrorism? What is the
process by which a prisoner might convert to such an ideology? What are
the conditions under which a conversion might take place? And what
controls can we put into place to curtail such conversions? Dr.
Saathoff, with his extensive experience in psychiatric evaluations of
prisoners, will offer a glimpse into the behavioral science behind
radicalization, and what factors might make the prison environment
conducive to the recruitment of terrorists. And Mr. Cilluffo, who has
lent his tremendous expertise in Homeland Security policy to this
study, will offer insights on how the government, across levels and
jurisdictions, can begin to close gaps in the system.
The value of spirituality for inmates requires that a range of
religious services be available. Our adherence to the principle of
freedom of worship, in fact, allows for any inmate to request services
in the religion of his or her choice. And since Islam is the second
most widespread religion in the world, it is understandable and proper
that it be represented proportionately among the chaplains employed by
the prison system and among those who contract or volunteer to provide
religious services to inmates.
Unfortunately, the number of qualified Islamic chaplains, or Imams,
is insufficient. Although over 80 percent of religious conversions in
prison are to some form of Islam, only ten of the 200 chaplains in the
Federal system are devoted to Islam. This staggeringly disproportionate
number cannot possibly fulfill the need for expertise in cultural
traditions and linguistics--not to mention offering a meaningful
presence--in a system with a total population of nearly 200,000. The
report states that radical prison groups have been able to use Arabic
as a code for passing secret information. A greater corps of educated
and certified Muslim chaplains and expert staff, with the ability to
detect dangerous materials, teachings, and communications, seems key to
controlling radicalization.
As we will hear, radical Islamic literature may contain incendiary
language against Jews, Christians, and others who are considered non-
believers. Does that mean that extreme views, whether religious or
political, naturally imply a proclivity toward violence? I don't think
so. There are no restrictions on thought in this nation. Freedom of
ideas, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion are among the
most cherished birthrights of our democracy. The First Amendment does
not stop at the prison wall.
But controls must exist to prevent the freedom of individual
thought from devolving into a hateful ideology that promotes or incites
violence. While it may be legal to hold such beliefs, it is decidedly
illegal to act on them. Within the confines of correctional facilities,
where a higher requirement for order exists, the interest of safety and
security demands that these beliefs be discouraged.
I hope that our second panel of witnesses can tell us today what
controls are currently in effect in Federal prisons to stem the spread
of hateful ideology and what additional controls should be instituted
to halt recruitment and stop the radicalization process before it is
manifested in terrorism. I also hope that this panel will speak to
Federal efforts and plans to increase information sharing--a critical
element in controlling the spread of radical ideology. The task force
report starkly describes the challenges to sharing information between
institutions, jurisdictions, levels of governments, and agencies in the
correctional system. Dangerous religious service providers may move
freely between jurisdictions, radical and charismatic inmates may be
transferred untracked between prisons, and intelligence gained at the
Federal level lacks a sufficient means for dissemination to State and
local levels. The State of California has taken admirable strides in
forming its Prison Radicalization Working Group, which draws together
officials from all levels of government in monthly dialogues to address
the problem. I hope similar efforts take root across the nation, with
Federal leadership to assist in the sharing of information that is so
essential in improving homeland security.
I thank both panels of witnesses for taking the time to share their
wisdom and experience today and I look forward to their testimony. The
topic is an important one: Our dialogue today, and even more
importantly, the dialogues that I hope will ensue, can only serve to
increase our awareness and active vigilance against an ever-changing
enemy in the war on terror.
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