Key Reflections
* The Capitol Police is the only law enforcement agency under the U.S. legislative branch and is responsible for protecting members of Congress both domestically and overseas.
* The Capitol Police also bears the responsibility of protecting the U.S. Capitol building itself and anyone on its grounds. The agency must ensure that protesters themselves are not a security threat but also that such demonstrators do not become a target either.
* The January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol has led to changes across the agency and consideration about whether such threats are anomalous or part of a new normal.
* Today, extremists may be motivated to enact violence as a result of seemingly unconnected ideologies, making it harder for law enforcement to identify. New and emerging technologies only further compound these challenges.
* The Capitol Police factors in threats emanating from hostile state actors who seek to harm members of Congress. Adversarial nations have grown increasingly bold in their behaviour.
* Groups traditionally underrepresented in certain arenas need to have examples of representation in those domains. Organisations like the Gay Officers Action League exist to create change on the ground.
Transcript:
SG: Dr. Sajjan Gohel
RS: Ravi Satkalmi
SG: Welcome to the NATO DEEP Dive podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Sajjan Gohel, and in this episode, I speak with Ravi Satkalmi, the Director of Intelligence for the United States Capitol Police (USCP). I discuss with Ravi about his unique role with the USCP in leading a team charged with identifying and interdicting threats to the U.S. Capitol and members of Congress. Ravi Satkalmi, welcome to NATO DEEP Dive.
RS: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to the discussion.
SG: It’s going to be our pleasure. So, the United States Capitol Police is a unique law enforcement agency. Can you explain what makes it so different to others in the U.S.?
RS: Sure. So it is, firstly, the only law enforcement agency that falls under the purview of the legislative branch of government. So, all the federal law enforcement agencies we typically think of—the FBI, ATF, HSI—all are under the executive branch. The Capitol Police is under the legislative branch and is tasked with protecting Congress, and that includes the members of Congress, the senators and the representatives, their staff while they’re here on campus, the visitors that come to our campus. But I think the other thing that most people don’t realise is our authority and our responsibility extends far beyond the campus of the US Capitol itself. And so, our responsibility to protect the members of Congress extends nationally. So, we’re responsible for their security in their district offices, in their home states when they are travelling, when they’re on recess. So, all of that falls to us to manage and to get ahead of. It’s unique in that regard. It’s a relatively small agency for the footprint that it needs to defend, understanding the national purview that we have. And that will extend at times overseas as well. So, when our members are going on their overseas trips to different nations, we are also responsible for making sure that we are coordinating security for them as well. And so, it’s a large responsibility that we have, and it’s one that we’re continuing to improve upon, particularly in the current threat environment.
SG: That’s really interesting, and if I understood correctly, it’s not just the US Capitol that you’re covering, you’re actually looking at protecting the people of Congress across the United States, which obviously extends to Hawaii and Alaska as well. So, what exactly does that entail when it comes to having to safeguard them when they’re not in the Capitol?
RS: For us, it depends. Some of our high-ranking leadership in Congress do get details that are not dissimilar from the details that we typically think about when we think about protecting the President or the Vice President, and obviously that is work that the Secret Service does. It’s analogous for us when we’re talking about, say, the Speaker of the House, it’s a similar level of focus that we provide for our congressional leadership, for their security, but we are looking at 535 members of Congress that we are responsible for, and we do not have the resources to provide everybody with such around-the-clock protection. So oftentimes what happens is we rely a lot on our partners to help us extend our security footprint. Oftentimes, that will be state and local agencies, county agencies, police departments that we will pick up the phone and reach out to when we know that a member is going to be in their jurisdiction and try to coordinate any kind of security that may be needed for an event that the member will be at. And so those relationships are really key for us. They are kind of force multipliers for us, I think very much in the literal sense. And a lot of that threat picture and that approach is driven by the intelligence, right? So, what is the threat that any given member of the body may be facing, or what is the threat that elected officials in general in the United States are facing? Who are the threat actors? Where are they most active? What have they been saying lately? All of that kind of comes into the picture when we think about resourcing for protection for all of these elected officials.
SG: In some ways, you’ve kind of answered what my next question was going to be but let me see if I can also extract more from what you’re saying, because it is actually a very, very unique role that your agency plays. So, you’re the Director of Intelligence at the United States Capitol Police—what would you say is an average day in what you have to look at, and why did you want to take on this role?
RS: So, I think anybody that does this type of job, particularly from a protective standpoint or an intelligence standpoint, will tell you that the average day is probably not average. And it will really depend on what’s happening that day, right? So, our concern ranges anywhere from protests that are happening here on Capitol grounds and making sure that we know who is approved to be here on Capitol grounds for their daily protests. And if they are here, to make sure that not only are they not a security concern, but also making sure that they themselves wouldn’t be the target of any potential malicious action. So that falls to us. That’s a daily task. We have protests here every day. I like to say that they go on without incident, and these are protests covering all ranges of political views. And the fact that you don’t hear a lot about them is good news for us. They’re going on every day as they’re meant to do.
Our day-to-day also includes taking in threats that are being made to our members of Congress, and we’re getting that from all types of directions. We have members of offices that are calling in saying there’s a particular individual that they know about that they think warrants some scrutiny. Or we are finding it online—there’s commentary online suggesting perhaps that somebody wants to target to kill a member of Congress, and that kind of language ebbs and flows with the 24-hour news cycle and who’s got the spotlight that day. And so, a lot of our work is determining which of these are credible threats and which ones you can kind of tell from context may be somebody just blowing off steam. But there’s a lot of that that happens, it’s not a perfect science, and anybody that’s in threat mitigation space will tell you that, and it’s no different for us.
It’s also making sure, as I was talking about, that we know where our protectees are going to be at any given time and that we’ve got the resources in place to make sure that they are protected and understand the threat that they are facing. And those are some of our key lines of effort as we think about protecting Congress. And a lot of that is done through, as I mentioned, relationships and relationship-building. A lot of that is done internally, of course. We’ve got our dignitary protection elements, we have our threat assessment elements, all of which are crazy busy, which is not going to be surprising. So, they’re doing all that work on a daily basis, while also trying to stay ahead of the threat and anticipate what’s coming down the road. And from my shop, which is the intelligence shop here, it’s to find a way to support each one of those kinds of operational prerogatives that we have, and also continuing to build out subject matter expertise on the range of threats that government officials and elected officials and law enforcement face in this country. So, it’s a pretty wide range of responsibility that we’re trying to tackle every day.
SG: It definitely shows just how wide the challenges are, and I want to come back to that in a moment. Part of what I was also curious about is what made you want to take on this responsibility. It sounds very challenging, very hectic, and no doubt will give you a lot of grey hairs in the future.
RS: I’ve got some now, in fact. The listeners can’t see, but they’re there. But the opportunity is one that I don’t know that I could have turned down. I joined just last year, so I’ve only been here for over a year. Before this, as you know, I was over at NYPD for over a decade, working counter-terrorism there. But particularly after January 6, and particularly after the attention that was paid to protecting Congress after that day and the challenges that the organisation was facing to kind of get ahead and stay ahead of that threat… I applied when I saw the posting, not necessarily thinking it would come my way, but when they did call, I couldn’t say no. They decided that my background is something that could help them. That is something that I felt that was a privilege to be offered, and I couldn’t turn down. So much so that actually, I don’t know if I told you this, but before I moved here to take this job, I was actually in contract to buy another home in New York and basically had to walk away from that contract to take this job. But I think it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and one with potential for real impact, and I couldn’t say no to that.
SG: Most definitely. I think an obvious question that’s going to come up is of course the January 6, 2021, protests that have attracted a lot of attention around the world, not just in the U.S. So, as you mentioned, you had a different role at the time when you were with the NYPD. I guess with the benefit of hindsight, is there something that could have perhaps been looked at to have pre-empted what was going to transpire? Or is it one of those situations where it spirals so quickly that it is ultimately very hard to anticipate something of that scale?
RS: I spent a lot of time thinking about this question, and not just me, obviously, my colleagues here that were here that day and continue to work this job and continue to drive the mission of this agency have spent a lot of time thinking about what could have been done differently or what needs to change going forward. And that is continuing to drive decision-making here at Capitol Police. It continues to drive their support around growing the intelligence apparatus here at Capitol Police. And when we talk about January 6, I think there were lots of elements that fed into what happened that day. There were conversations online indicating a level of heated discourse that was kind of directed and coming out of this idea of a stolen election in 2020. There was a lot of conversation about that. We had that kind of organising happening online…obviously still in the midst of COVID, a lot of people that were unemployed or severely affected by the overall effects of the pandemic in this country. And we in the threat space had thought a lot about what would the impact be of large populations sitting at home online, and whether or not that would lead to some kind of increased consumption of content that might motivate them to act violently. And to some degree, I think we saw that with January 6, we saw that another couple of other cases that are not related to January 6, but I think we did see some of that, so there was that factor, as well. It was a politically charged environment. And I think all of these factors were coming together in a very unique way, leading into January 6. And I think what we saw there is something that nobody really expected to see here in the United States.
It’s interesting because we had seen something similar happen in Germany, maybe about a year before that. We saw something very similar happen in Brazil earlier this year in terms of an attack on their parliament and their government. And it raises the question as to whether or not this is becoming more of the norm or whether or not it’s an anomaly. And we certainly hope it’s more anomalous than normal, but that’s one of our jobs, to continue to look to see what factors are out there that not necessarily would replicate January 6 because I think the agency itself, Capitol Police itself, has made a lot of changes after January 6 to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But what is the next thing going to look like that we need to be open to expecting? I think that’s the real challenge.
SG: So, to build on that, you mentioned the next thing—do you see an evolution of the threats that you had to deal with from the time you were with the NYPD to now? Has the has the scenario altered? Has the way you assess things changed as well?
RS: So, I joined NYPD in 2011. And even at that time, coming out of the mid- to late 2000s, there was still a very kind of al-Qaeda-mode-centred focus on what the terrorist threat was. It was still very much focused on Islamic extremism. It was focused on operators being sent to the United States or being embedded here in the United States to carry out operations. And I think all of that is still at play. I think since the time I joined NYPD 12 years ago to today, we’ve seen a lot of trends related to that threat stream. We’ve seen the killing of Zawahiri, we’ve seen the rise and fall of ISIS, we’ve seen the move towards this whole characterization of inspired and directed attacks. And through that, I think what we have seen is a coming together of tactics and a coming together of modes of motivation, that I think have spread across the extremist spectrum. And what I mean by that is, you think about the propaganda that al-Qaeda really pioneered in terms of trying to get instructions into the hands of their followers here in the United States such that they didn’t have to travel to Afghanistan or to Pakistan to get trained—they could just do it at home, and that was a very successful tactic.
ISIS took it up another level with the level of graphicness and gore that I think attracted a large amount of viewers, and I think also showed people that were not even into the Islamic extremism piece of this how effective that can be in terms of getting attention for your cause, getting recruitment for your cause. And so, we’ve seen that be adopted by other threat actors, particularly when we talk about white supremacist, neo-Nazi groups and what we call accelerationists—those that essentially want to bring a collapse to the current system in order to replace it with something more to their liking, which in this case is oftentimes a white ethno-state. But you see them adopt these same tactics—the propaganda is out there, the messaging is out there, the “you can do it yourself” is out there, the “pick up what you have available to you,” that message is out there.
And we’ve seen that progression over the course of the past decade or so. And I think what we’re seeing now is now that those tactics have kind of been tried and true, and people understand what is at their disposal if they want to sow chaos, I think the next transition we’re seeing is just away from discrete lines of hate ideology. And so, it becomes harder to put folks into a particular bucket because people are choosing what they want to act on in terms of their grievances, and it’s not always coherent. It’s not always what we would think, our ideological bedfellows, but threat actors out there put it together themselves and say, “Well, this is why I’m angry, and I’m going to go ahead and act on it.” And I think we see this a lot with conspiracy theories, which I think is harder for us to wrap our heads around at times. Some of the bigger ones we understand, but there are always more out there. And some of these conspiracy theories do end up motivating violence on the part of those that adhere to them. But those become difficult for us to pick up in the way that we were able to pick up folks that were kind of more disciplined in the communities that they engaged in, or the ideology that they were espousing. So that’s a challenge for us.
And the other thing I’m thinking about, a year from now, I probably wasn’t thinking it was going to be as quickly, but we’ve got AI and ChatGPT and these new technologies that are coming up and people kind of racing to integrate them into all facets of life. But it becomes easy to see a world where the motivator behind a hate ideology is no longer a person but some chat bot essentially that people will go to get the guidance that they need in order to push this forward. So, all of a sudden, we’re not talking about somebody that we can arrest, we’re talking about a programme that has enough smarts to it, to be able to radicalise and to mobilise. And I think that that’s going to be a brand-new challenge for us.
SG: Yes, I’m actually reminded now of when we were in Las Vegas for that counter-terrorism conference, where our good friend Rebecca Weiner from NYPD gave that presentation, which I found absolutely frightening, about AI and how it can be utilised and actually sow a lot of panic and discord in society. So yes, that is an emerging challenge that has suddenly really rapidly accelerated, perhaps faster than any of us were anticipating. Do you also find that hostile state actors come into your purview in the work that you do?
RS: Yes. And when we think about threat protection, we often talk about the lone wolf actors, but actually it’s the full kind of gamut of threat that we are concerned about and so that includes things like counter-intelligence by nation states, it includes cyber threats. It’s a pretty broad scope of responsibility that we have in protecting Congress. And we know some of our most concerning nation state adversaries, I think, have grown a little bit bolder over the past few years. We talk about Iran, and we talk about the plot to assassinate John Bolton. We talk about a Russian plot to assassinate a CIA operative in Miami. We’ve got the Chinese setting up police stations in New York and other places, in the United States and elsewhere. And I think there’s a brazenness that exists among our nation state actors that didn’t exist some time ago. And I think they’re really pushing the boundaries. And for us, when we talk about the folks that we protect, these are people that are vocal on a lot of these issues, particularly on things like China, or the war in Ukraine, or sanctions against Iran. These are all issues that are key policy issues that Congress weighs in on, and because of that, our protectees are vocal about these issues. And it’s concerning to us that some of these boundaries are being pushed. That absolutely informs how we think about the threat that is facing our protectees.
SG: Okay, so you’ve got all these different challenges, threats that are emerging. So, I’ve always wanted to ask this type of question, I guess, because we have politicians in our various countries, and they come from various different ideological perspectives, the way they interact with people will also vary. So how do members of Congress interact with US Capitol Police? I mean, by and large, do they comply with all the security issues that they’re guided that emerge? Do they get upset if their day isn’t going to go according to plan because you have to give them some bad news that something is emerging and therefore you need them to perhaps change the order of their day? How does that work?
RS: Right, so it’s a great question. I mean, you’re basically asking to what degree are our potential victims partners in their own protection. And I think that is a key aspect to the protection industry itself, you need the cooperation from the folks that you are trying to protect. And with 535 members, you’ve got a range of views about Capitol Police and how a threat will affect a given member and how much they themselves want to participate. And for a lot of members, it’s a calculation of being able to interact with their constituents versus having to stand back from that. And for elected politicians, this is their job, meeting with constituents is their job. This is an open campus for that reason. And it’s a security challenge for us. This is a public building; the Capitol is a public building. And we need to make sure that we are continuously educating the folks that we protect about what they can do to keep themselves safe. And generally, we do get cooperation from our members. And some of our programmes, as I mentioned, will focus beyond just the Capitol grounds to make sure that our members are safe at home in their district offices.
We partner with the respective Sergeant at Arms offices in both the House side and the Senate side to make sure that we are in lockstep in communicating our security message to our protectees and to the members of Congress and imparting upon them what the threat may be, and why it makes sense to do x or to do y to increase their safety—because maybe we’re seeing a heightened level of attention online, for example, or we know that there are some tactics out there that are being used by threat actors, and there’s a fairly straightforward way to mitigate against them. And so, we offer all of that to the members for their use, so that they can avail themselves of those services. And again, the level of engagement will vary by member, but all in all I think people have generally bought into the security mission here at Congress because I think they understand themselves how important it is to keep this institution safe.
SG: Well, that is encouraging. I won’t ask whether you give them gold stickers for the best-behaved ones.
RS: We don’t give out stickers.
SG: Okay, good to know. Let’s look a bit more at yourself and the role that you’ve been playing. So, you’re an ethnic minority of Indian heritage in a very senior position in a very important police organisation. Do you feel any burden or responsibility that your role could help encourage other Asians, other ethnic minority groups to join law enforcement agencies? And where are we at when it comes to Asians in national security in the United States?
RS: I give this question some thought from time to time. I don’t come to the job wearing my identity, the identity is who I am. And I certainly don’t characterise it as a burden, but again, a privilege to be able to be in this position and be somebody representing the Desi community essentially. And to your point, it’s not something that is traditionally viewed as a career path for, I think, a lot of South Asian families. But I will tell you, having been in both a national security and law enforcement space now for over a decade, close to 15 years now, I’ve come across a lot of folks of South Asian descent that are doing this work on a day-to-day basis, at the ground level up to some senior ranks. And I think that is encouraging for us as a community, particularly here in the United States, where the Desi population is relatively new, which is in contrast to say, a place like the UK, where it’s been there and kind of ingrained? for a much longer period of time.
Here, we’re fairly new—my parents immigrated here in the early ‘70s, so I’m first-generation-born American. But I do see folks that have that background, are part of that diaspora, part of the Desi diaspora here in the United States, taking this as a solid career choice and finding ways to serve their country in that way. But these are often roles that are not visible unless something goes wrong. And so, we do see a lot more representation for folks of South Asian descent coming out of the West Coast. We see CEOs of Microsoft and Google and talent in Hollywood being kind of the face of the diaspora here in the United States. But I like to think that here in Washington, D.C., we’re also holding our own.
SG: Most definitely. That’s very encouraging to hear. You’re also a member of the Gay Officers Action League, perhaps one of the most senior people in law enforcement from the LGBTQ+ community. How have you experienced attitudes change towards the community, and what more needs to be done?
RS: I think the biggest change in attitude with respect to being a member of the LGBTQ community in law enforcement has been my own. And I say that because for this industry in particular, which traditionally is not thought of as being LGBTQ-friendly, the national security space, the law enforcement space, it takes a lot of effort to make the decision to be out and to let people know who you are. And this conversation about bringing your whole self to work is, I think, an important consideration. I spent a large part of my career not doing that, trying to think about how to have conversations about my personal life in a way that wouldn’t give away the fact that I was dating guys or what have you. And that is, I think, a burden for a lot of people that are in similar shoes. But organisations like GOAL exist because it’s clear that the change needs to happen. There need to be change agents making that and pushing for that. And GOAL started in the early 1980s and I think since then has grown to a substantial organisation working on real change in law enforcement, not only where it started, NYPD, but for law enforcement kind of across the board. And there are similar efforts going on here in D.C. as well.
And the fact that I can be on this podcast with you talking about being gay—that I think is itself an indication of change and acceptance in the field. Now was it all 100 per cent? Of course not, but I do think one of the most important things somebody can do, particularly when you’re a member of a minority, whether it’s being Indian-American, or being gay, is to stand up and be counted, to be proud of who you are, to take that with you. And that is one thing that I would encourage folks to do, understanding that people, particularly when we’re talking about having to come out, people are at different stages of that journey. They can make that decision when they feel that time is right. But I can sit here and honestly say that there will be challenges to it, but the other side I think is absolutely worth it.
SG: Well, you set a very important example for two different communities, that you can play an active role in law enforcement and be successful at that. So, it’s very important what you’re saying, very encouraging and uplifting as well. I think we’ve covered a lot of areas in our discussion. So, I’m very grateful to you, Ravi, for being on this podcast. I hope you’ll consider being on it again, and in the meantime, please keep everyone in Congress safe.
RS: Yeah, absolutely. That’s my job. Thank you so much for the time. It was a great conversation, and I’m looking forward to seeing you again soon.
SG: Yes, most definitely. It’s been our pleasure.
Thank you for listening to this episode of NATO DEEP Dive, brought to you by NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP). My producers are Marcus Andreopoulos and Victoria Jones. For additional content, including full transcripts of each episode, please visit: deepportal.hq.nato.int/deepdive.
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This transcript has been edited for clarity.