Key Reflections
* Extremist narratives that used to be confined to the periphery of the internet have shifted to the mainstream. As such hate rhetoric is made more accessible on major social media sites, it compounds and proliferates.
* Flashy, digestible, and easy to look at extremist and terrorist content is getting more circulation on social media websites compared to lengthier propaganda documents. This is also a method to circumvent censorship or deplatforming by tech companies.
* Terrorists know that misogyny transcends the extremist spectrum and exploit this crossover to unite a variety of hateful beliefs under one rallying point.
* Catalytic events play a critical role in mobilising individuals to violence, including accelerating the decision to plan an attack or offering a channel and target for pent up rage. Better understanding the impact of such events on a person’s mindset can help counter-terrorism prepare more effectively.
* Law enforcement agencies like the NYPD are keeping up with the latest research in subjects like radicalisation pathways in order to hone their practices and strategies.
* With the rise of misogynistic extremist ideologies, it is more important than ever to have women in leadership positions in the counter-terrorism and national security space.
Transcript:
SG: Dr. Sajjan Gohel
MT: Meghann Teubner
KF: Kelli Foy
SG: Welcome to the NATO DEEP Dive podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Sajjan Gohel, and in this episode, I speak with Meghann Teubner and Kelli Foy from the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
Meghann is the Director of Counterterrorism Intelligence Analysis at the NYPD and Kelli is its Team Lead for Global Risk Intelligence. We discuss the evolving threats to national security and the dangerous role disinformation plays in that.
Meghann Teubner and Kelli Foy, warm welcome to NATO DEEP Dive.
MT: Thank you so much for having us.
KF: Thank you.
SG: It’s great to have you both with us, especially with so many important things that are happening in the world right now. So, some things that I would like to talk to you both about in your work with the New York Police Department (NYPD) are the challenges of extremist narratives and catalytic events. But before we delve into that, Meghann, talk to me about your role with the NYPD and what that entails.
MT: Sure, happy to. So, I’m currently the director of intelligence analysis for the NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau. I oversee our Intelligence Operations and Analysis Section in the Intelligence Division and, with an operational counterpart, we are basically tasked with ensuring that we are integrating operational efforts, investigative efforts, information that is coming in from multiple different sources of reporting, and that we consolidate that into intelligence analysis and share that as far and wide as we can. Obviously, it has to be tailored for the right audience. And if it’s an ongoing investigation, we’re coordinating that with our FBI and other federal partners.
But our mission is counter-terrorism. So, we are looking at ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, IRGC Quds Force, and all of their different proxies, as well as all of the different provinces and affiliates of the terrorist groups. Obviously, now, especially focused on Hamas and Hamas’ capabilities after what they demonstrated on 7 October. And we’re looking at that, we’re looking at the propaganda that they’re putting out, we’re looking at their communications channels, and we’re always looking for that New York angle. Who is this message resonating with? Is anybody responding to it? Are they looking to provide material support in whatever form that may look like: travel, finance, or, obviously, the thing we’re most concerned with is some form of kinetic violent attack.
We’re doing that on the terrorism side. We’re also doing that on the domestic violent extremist side, across the ideological spectrum. We have a team that is focused on what we would call racially ethnically motivated violent extremism, and on the other end of the political spectrum, so to speak, we have a team that’s focused on anti-government, anti-authority extremism and everything in between. So, our unit is primarily on the NYPD’s counterterrorism and combating domestic violent extremism mission. We also have a little bit of effort into insider threat, counter intelligence and cyber threat intelligence. And the cyber threat side of things is more on the strategic intel information sharing side, we’re not in the ones and zeros, as I like to say, we’re not protecting NYPD networks, but making sure that our partners and our information technology bureau have what they need to do their job to protect our systems. So, it’s a wide ranging task and mission. And obviously, it’s never a dull moment, especially these days. But it is an incredible partnership between analysts and uniformed officers on a daily basis working to keep the city safe.
SG: Certainly, as you say, never a dull moment, and a very large remit in one of the most important cities in the world, dealing with all those plethora of challenges. Kelli, if I come to you, so how does your work dovetail with what Meghann oversees?
KF: Yeah, absolutely, and thank you again for having us. So, I am the team lead of our Global Risk Intelligence Team within the Intel and Counterterrorism Bureau. So that, in a nutshell, is essentially our strategic intelligence shop, we’re developing written intelligence assessments, we’re also delivering oral briefings on really a range of topics related to the current threat environment, with the main goal being enhancing the situational awareness and preparedness of all of our various partners. Now, who does that entail? Of course, first and foremost, the executive leadership of the NYPD, of the Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, our over 35,000 uniformed NYPD members of service, but it also includes our various public sector partners, at different agencies both in New York and beyond, and our private sector partners as well.
So, my team coordinates very closely, for example, with our International and Domestic Liaison Unit, basically to facilitate that intelligence and information sharing, with not only law enforcement around the country, but internationally as well through our liaison programme. So, as you likely know, we have NYPD liaisons stationed both in the U.S. and abroad, not serving as intelligence officers, but once again to facilitate that intel and information sharing, and my team serves as the primary conduit for those individuals really trying to get them the information they need. So, my team is writing on a daily basis about anything from the latest extremist propaganda releases, whether from Salafi jihadist extremists, like ISIS or al-Qaeda, from racially ethnically motivated violent extremists, mainly to look at what they are trying to get across in terms of recommended tactics, and targeting that then we can translate for our own officers to make them more prepared. We also frequently write about any major significant developments going on in the world that could mobilise someone to violence; we write about significant attacks and plots. And once again, the main focus of that being main takeaways for our officers. So, really kind of the strategic portion of our shop that’s aggregating all of this information and getting that back out to our partners.
SG: Well, I know from my own personal insights, and having discussed in the past, with many of you, and on various issues, just how well researched, knowledgeable you are on the world and what is happening globally. And I think it is phenomenal the work that you all do, not just for keeping New York safe, but having actually a much wider impact beyond just the U.S. and contributing to global peace and stability. So, please keep doing the work you all are doing.
MT & KF: Thank you.
SG: Well, it’s a fact. You guys do such important work. And let’s, let’s delve further into that then. So, the two of you have been writing and researching the concerns about extremist narratives and, and catalytic events, if we sort of take it piece by piece. So, I think you both have said that what used to be primarily behind closed doors, as in certain types of information, and content, and radical narratives, have become increasingly mainstream. So, how has that process taken place? Maybe Meghann, if we start with you.
MT: So, I think it’s several different factors. And I think part of it is that we have seen extremist narratives show up in everyday life and in mainstream media in the past, but what we’re seeing now is this cycle of the extremist narrative that used to be kind of kept behind closed doors and encrypted channels, because you knew that you were going to be an outlier, you were not the norm, so you were finding your kind of echo chamber, your circle of friends that would agree with you and have these extremist views, but you were keeping it close hold. But what we’re seeing now is that these, what used to be kind of smaller, encrypted conversations are happening at larger scale on some social media platforms that then make their way over out of maybe say, a more secure, encrypted platform like Telegram and then that same narrative then moving over to a more mainstream social media platform that reaches a much wider audience and without really changing the the narrative at all.
So, it’s hate rhetoric, it’s anti semitism, it’s misogyny, it’s any number of narratives that are baked into a lot of the violent extremist ideology that we are concerned with. And then it gets on mainstream social media and it is accessible to so many more people and I think we’re in a society now that once its seen there, it scene as almost an acceptable narrative to either take on yourself and then comment further on or create some form of discord, fights with the person who has the opposite opinion. Then it makes it into the press, and then that then goes back into encrypted channels because they see the impact of it; they use it for recruitment; they have more conversations; and then the cycle continues and another variation on a theme of that same narrative will pop back up into more mainstream social media, and in some cases, on the news that everybody is tuning into on any one of these 24/7 news channels.
So, [what is concerning about] the phenomenon is that it is so easily going from the encrypted world where you have a small number of people chatting about it to it being a wide open discussion. And the wider audience that these messages reach, the harder it is for law enforcement to know, to truly suss out who is a violent extremist, who is a keyboard warrior, who do we need to worry about mobilising to violence, and when it’s so widespread, that challenge just becomes so much more difficult for law enforcement. I don’t know, Kelli, if you have more?
KF: Yeah. If I could just add to that, I would say a concerning trend too, that we’ve seen even are online threats, hostile violent rhetoric, in comments on postings by major media personalities, by elected officials, individuals that, even if that original post wasn’t violent in nature, people kind of feel galvanised and emboldened to jump upon that to issue their own kind of hostile rhetoric, and then that compounds. And like Meghann said, it’s very visible, it’s very out there. It’s occurring on these major social media platforms. And we see it day to day as you have elected officials, have media personalities speak on certain issues that are unfolding, certain crises that are unfolding, they post and then it sparks comments. And with that kind of a flurry of this really hostile rhetoric, which is really incredibly difficult for us to get our arms around, and isn’t that typical, small, tight knit extremist forum, it’s much, much broader than that, which means the problem is much larger for us to get our arms around.
SG: Yes, it’s very troubling and disconcerting, just how mainstream it’s becoming, and as you were saying, earlier, Meghann, just trying to draw that separation between who is potentially a keyboard warrior and those that actually wish to do us harm. So, if we continue to build on this, one other aspect is that the propaganda, the narratives that are being pushed can be flashy videos, they can be memes, which are very easily re-shared. So, Kelli, why is that perhaps different to what we’ve seen previously? Because maybe that type of new media content was still out there in the past, but there seems to be some kind of shift, right?
KF: Yeah, I think it just lends itself way better to being shared broadly on these platforms. So, you’re not just—and don’t get me wrong, some of the types of propaganda releases from foreign terrorist organisations that involve these lengthy speeches, these lengthy very text based documents certainly still exist, but we’re also seeing these memes that are reproduced, that are easily shared, even these large, I would say extremist, propaganda documents. So one, for example, there’s this racially, ethnically motivated violent extremist accelerationist kind of network called Terrorgram that’s released these really lengthy propaganda documents, but the pages themselves are kind of designed to be taken out of that context, and then shared individually within these extremists forums. And we see some times too, I’ll see an image threatening, say, politicians or law enforcement broadly, and you do reverse image searches, and that meme, that image, has been circulating for five years. So, these continually get a lot of circulation on these platforms, and just because they’re flashy too, they’re more digestible, they’re easy to look at. They’re cool, frankly, for these individuals to be sharing rather than these more lengthy propaganda documents. So, I think there’s just kind of a greater resonance there than there was previously.
SG: Interesting. Meghann, would you like to add anything to that?
MT: I think Kelli really touched on it, part of it, I think, is to avoid censorship and to avoid getting deplatformed or what have you by the social media companies. So, instead of putting something in words, or putting out some hateful or extremist propaganda, or reposting in the entirety of an Inspire guide or a certain ISIS tactical guide that will be flagged almost immediately by a platform, if you put out a meme of a smiley face that has a Hitler moustache painted on it, then you can propagate your message so much longer and so much further without getting without getting removed from the platform.
SG: So, people are kind of finding ways to, to get that hate out, whilst trying to pretend that there isn’t necessarily a specific agenda.
MT: Yeah, and it’s successful, right. As Kelli said, we could do a reverse image search, and we’ll see some images popping up across the ideological spectrum and across platforms. It’s very easy to create a meme that’s going to appeal to—especially if you’re looking to recruit and you’re looking to kind of have an impact on the younger generation. The meme, the video, that is chaotic, and is dissonant, appeals to a generation that has grown up looking at this, living in this online environment. We are definitely long past the days of the Zawahiri video of the long speech from a terrorist leader—no offence to Zawahiri. But it is just not going to appeal to people in the way that a meme appeals to the youth.
SG: Well, indeed, and I think, al-Zawahiri was an interesting example, biassed opinion, of course, anyone who knows me knows my book is coming out on Ayman al-Zawahiri. He certainly brought in the concept of new media, I wonder how he would have looked at the role that memes would be playing in getting the narratives out. Speaking of which, certain narratives are persuasive across ideologies. And one very disturbing trend is misogyny, that has been a consistent line that has gone across many different ideological beliefs and has contributed to violence itself. Meghann, perhaps, if we start with you, where are we at when it comes to misogyny and violence and these narratives that are emerging in the current environment?
MT: So, I’ll start in the most obvious, ideological realm and that’s the involuntary celibate, whose primary narrative is misogyny, it is their primary driver. And what is then frightening in that narrative in the incel community is that we do see a lot of overlap with the incel community and accelerationist and other racially, ethnically motivated violent extremists. So, what starts out as an incel, on an incel forum, about just hate directed at women for existing, for the most part. It is so much about women having to know their place; their participation in society is just to be there as an object for men, as far as the incel community would like it. That then gets transferred into the REMVE (Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists) space, and then what we see the misogyny in the REMVE space, is what they consider a throwback to the 1950s, and the role of a female and how feminism has destroyed the U.S. and I’m sure other countries in the world, and so we see this theme of keeping women down or really to the sidelines of society, as having no impact in society. And then we see the same thing, obviously, in the Salafi jihadi side as well. So, it is something that we see that goes across the spectrum. And the primary undertone of it is, in fact, maybe not an undertone, the primary driver, is to keep women down or aside and to not have really much of a role in society at all.
SG: Yes, and that unfortunately seems to only be growing and proliferating more and more. Kelli, are there any other angles on that misogyny role that you’d want to bring in?
KF: Yeah, I would just say we see kind of these hateful through lines across ideologies, and I think part of it too is that some of these extremist groups and individuals know that there are kind of these grievances that they can link on to that will have a really broad appeal, not just within their own specific groups, but within broader extremists, communities. So, it’s also kind of a way to get various individuals holding a variety of hateful beliefs to rally around certain causes, certain hateful beliefs generally.
SG: So, if we look at this further, there’s a major faultline that’s emerged in the Middle East: the crisis between Israel and Hamas following the 7 October 2023 attacks. What role does misogyny play in the fallout from those attacks? Perhaps if we start with you Meghann?
MT: Yeah, that’s a really interesting question and I think what struck me and has really been very painful, as somebody who has worked in terrorism for 17 plus years at this point, is the the kind of very brutal use of sexual violence as a weapon and the attack on 7 October. To know that that exists and is widely understood and to still see and hear people parroting messages like ‘Israel deserved this attack’ or something along those line, it is heartbreaking as a female to think that there isn’t a delineation between Hamas as a terrorist group, and the horrible, horrific things that they did. And obviously, their sexual violence is just one of many tactics that were used on 7 October. But it is, I would say, at least for me, the first time that that rape as a weapon has been so prevalent in a terrorist attack like this. We have, obviously [seen this before] with the treatment of the Yazidi females, it was horrific, and I’m certain very similar to what some Israeli citizens experienced on 7 October. But in an attack like 7 October, I just can’t think of a time in which sexual violence and rape was used as a weapon in such a brutal way. This is anecdotal evidence of, in some cases, forcing people to log on to their own social media to livestream assaults on themselves and then their death. This is a next level brutality and cruelty.
SG: This ‘next level brutality’ is, I think, very significant and deplorable as to what has been uncovered from the aftermath of that attack. So, Kelli, let me ask you this then, how does one deal with that in terms of also educating people that this was a tactic, effectively, that was used by a group like Hamas? Especially when, within the social media space, there’s so much disinformation going on, people questioning whether these things even happened. How does one even go about trying to firstly better inform people and then tackle that disinformation, that maybe these things didn’t happen?
KF: Yeah, the disinformation piece has been a huge, huge challenge with this. And I think there’s kind of that education piece, especially for our own officers, like I said, in terms of the products that my team puts out. We are always trying to learn from the tactics that we are seeing used in attacks abroad to try to inform our own officers in case they were to confront the same tactics here. So, there’s that kind of broad education piece that’s very inclusive of tactics. That live streaming piece that Meghan mentioned, was a really large portion of that. We’ve seen live streaming more and more as a tactic used by extremists across the ideological spectrum. But I think this is, as Meghann mentioned, the first time that we’ve seen, on a large scale, it being used in the context of live streaming via social media of the victims to reach their families to kind of increase the psychological trauma there.
On the disinformation piece in particular, I think it’s just acknowledging that there is a lot of trauma, firstly, a lot of fear in the communities well beyond the area where these attacks took place, to here in our own city. So making sure that our community knows that we are very much tracking these events as they unfold, not only the attacks themselves, but the extremist messaging, following them to make sure that we are getting ahead of any chance for that to reverberate here. We also in a broader sense really try as a bureau, as a department, as a whole to get ahead of some of the disinformation. So making sure the community is aware of all the initiatives that we’re undertaking, making sure the community is aware that while we are very much on top of these threats, we’re doing the investigations that are required, we’re tracking extremist messaging, we are not aware of any specific or credible threats in that moment. So trying to get ahead, basically, of the fear, and communicate that this is something that we are extremely on top of.
MT: And if I can just add really quickly, I think your question is perfect because it’s a tenant of intelligence analysis, right? It is what we’re always seeking to do—make sure that what we are portraying is not biassed, it’s unemotional, it is an analysis of the evidence that we have at hand. And so Kelli’s team does a great job, when we’re putting out products, we source it, we want people to understand what we are basing that assessment on. We do our best to try to suss out the disinformation and the misinformation, but we will caveat it if we don’t have the details. We are basing this assessment on limited intelligence at this moment in time. But it is a particular challenge, especially if you have malign nation states that are very good at dis- and misinformation and propagating that to a very wide audience. It is a challenge to counter that. And I think Kelli really nailed it. It’s truly about the communication and the transparency with the community and our partners, at different levels obviously. As Kelli said, we recognise the trauma that 7 October has an impact far outside of the region and is absolutely felt by citizens of New York City. And so making sure that they feel confident that we are doing everything in our power to identify the true threats, to review the extremist rhetoric, the hate rhetoric. And in most cases here in the US, a lot of what is being said is constitutionally protected. And in some cases, it is the amalgamation of all of the constitutionally protected language that’s going to mobilise somebody to violence. But I think it truly is the job of an intelligence analyst to do our best to tell an unbiased, unemotional story, to get that out to the appropriate audiences.
SG: Yes, and it’s very key that you do that. And I know how hard you all are working on that front. But let me ask you this, Meghann, based on what you had just been saying. So violent and conspiratorial rhetoric is only increasing, it’s not decreasing. We’re seeing it develop many tentacles in various different ideological hues. And that’s being fueled by controversial events and developments around the world. So is this now the new normal? Is this something that is just part of the daily work that a CT analyst is going to have to look at?
MT: I think so. I don’t foresee this going anywhere anytime soon or changing. I don’t see our capability of identifying it right from the get-go as changing anytime soon, primarily because our adversaries are going to be just as good at manipulating social media and manipulating audiences as we would consider ourselves capable of trying to defeat. I think we are only going to see an increase, and I imagine here in the US, once we really get into the next presidential election cycle, it is going to increase exponentially because I think that even people within the United States but definitely malign nation states recognise the power of fomenting discord in elections. So I imagine here in the US it is only going to increase over the next year.
And I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I know we all experience this right? When we are watching TV or listening to the news, and you hear something that is factually proven to be untrue, like there’s video evidence of something not happening or happening a different way…it still just doesn’t seem to matter because people get on social media, and they make one claim that it’s a conspiracy by the government to do this, or it’s a red flag to blame this. We see that all the time, Kelli I’m sure can speak more to it too, in extremist rhetoric. An incident happens, say the Buffalo attack and Payton Gendron. This attack happens, and we automatically see people coming out within the racially ethnically motivated violent extremism sphere, saying “Oh, this is something the government is doing to make us look bad.” I just don’t know how you counter that.
SG: No, and my only reason for my pause is because I’m just processing it all. It sounds like a lot to handle. Kelli, anything you’d like to follow up with?
KF: Yeah, I think something that we’re kind of always battling against in these situations is that people are inclined to believe something that confirms the pre-existing mindset that they already have. So when you have these extremists, these malign malicious actors pushing these certain narratives, they know that there is that audience that is already kind of predisposed to be very receptive to what they’re pushing out there. And around all of these attacks, all of these really, I would say, controversial hot button developments, you always see the conspiracies follow, and they really prey too on these broad fears, this paranoia that is already out there, and it just makes it easy for them to push those narratives.
SG: Very dangerous narratives. So then, Kelli, let me ask you this: you’ve done research on what can be described as catalytic events and triggering violence. Could you explain firstly, what catalytic events mean and what the significance of that is in the current context?
KF: Yes. So, I would say generally something that I’ve become more and more passionate about on the most basic level is understanding, firstly, what drives an individual to violence, and then secondly, how those driving factors influenced their attack planning. So as part of my thesis at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School, I focused on just one small piece of that puzzle. So that’s the role of what you hear me refer to as catalytic events in pushing an individual to violence. And on the most basic level, I define a catalytic event as anything that plays a meaningful role in an individual’s decision to mobilise to violence. So as part of my thesis, I looked at plots and attacks that I assessed to be driven at least in part by three major catalytic events: the COVID-19 pandemic, the police murder of George Floyd, and the 2020 presidential election, with really kind of an ultimate goal of developing a framework for understanding and confronting that type of violence. So here, I’ll also caveat, you could say there are internal catalytic events that are more personal, more specific to that individual, and then there are these external catalytic events which an individual may not have a personal link or connection to, but that can still play a role in mobilising them to violence. So through my research, I found that catalytic events have the potential to trigger a range of individuals to violence, some with extremist beliefs, some with ties to extremist groups, some not. And they really significantly impact both the targets that individuals choose, as well as the timing of their assaults, so in some cases really rapidly mobilising individuals to violence.
So I found that there were kind of different buckets in terms of the ways that catalytic events mobilised individuals to violence. One big one is that they can present what a malicious actor perceives as an opportunity to maximise violence or capitalise on chaos. So this could be an individual who is already planning on perpetrating an attack, has explored a range of targets, but the catalytic event is what kind of focuses that attack planning. In one case in particular, there was a racially motivated violent extremist outside of Missouri who explored a variety of targets for an assault but ultimately settled on plotting to blow up a hospital at the onset of the pandemic to exploit public fear. The second category is catalytic events that really exacerbate grievances individuals have and contribute to their radicalization, so individuals who may not have had ties even to extremism before, but they’re really driven by rage.
Looking at all of this in totality, my goal was, okay, now as law enforcement, what do we do about all of this? I recommended potential law enforcement prevention and mitigation measures that could correspond to the different ways that catalytic events mobilise individuals to violence. And there are a variety of actions that we could take, assessing the resonance of a catalytic event with current investigative subjects, individuals of concern, so someone with potentially already ties to extremism, already considering doing something, and this could be that last push; implementing protective measures at locations that could be high-value targets associated with that catalytic event, so in the case of the Israel-Hamas conflict, of course, you’re looking at religious targets, whether that be mosques, whether that be synagogues, other locations associated with the Jewish and Palestinian communities. And then, I think a central part of this discussion, just looking at relevant online threats and propaganda linked to them, both to generate investigative leads, but then also to kind of take the pulse of and assess that current threat level, and maintain an awareness once again of that tactical and targeting violence so that we can get that out to law enforcement. So basically, being proactive and recognising that not everyone who’s considering carrying out an act of violence is already on our radar. We know that individuals—and I saw it in my research based on the cases that I looked at—have a tendency to respond to these catalytic flashpoint events. So how as law enforcement can we identify these potential catalytic events and then get ahead of them in terms of our posture with respect to prevention and also mitigation?
SG: Well, that sounds like very interesting research. If you haven’t copyrighted the term ‘catalytic event,’ I would do that before anyone steals it, including me. Meghann, anything you’d like to add to that?
MT: Kelli has done so much great research on this, and we have definitely seen this play out in our security environment here in New York City. So Kelli focused on COVID, George Floyd, and the 2020 election, but we could point to the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and the volume of hostile rhetoric online, and then we see what happened at the FBI office in Cincinnati. Here in New York City, we had a complaint, an indictment against the former president, which led to just an exponential growth in online threats, hostile rhetoric directed at the district attorney of Manhattan and also the state attorney general and the office itself, other prosecutors, other government facilities in New York. And so while these grievances already exist in society, this kind of pseudo-catalytic event of dropping a criminal complaint or indictment then brings everything to the surface and just creates this huge divide. And for us, our immediate concern is keeping people who have the constitutional right to protest safe. That’s all we want to do. People are going to protest. They have a right to do that. We want to make sure that they are safe when they do that. But we also need to ensure that the people that are getting targeted are safe. And so we are monitoring online, we’re working with partners to sift through the noise and truly, I know it’s probably an overused term at this point, but finding the signal in the noise of a post-catalytic event type development is a real challenge. We’re up to it, but it is a challenge.
KF: Yeah, and if I could just add to that too, something that kind of prompted me to look at this even more is what I see as a sense of urgency as we approach the 2024 presidential election, given all of the vitriol, hostile violent rhetoric and the US Capitol riot that we saw following the 2020 presidential election, like Meghann said, the volume of threats that we see around public officials I would say is pretty unprecedented, at least in the last few years. And we see that in response to, like Meghann said, high-profile raids, high-profile arrests, but also even on a local level, in response to some particular policy decisions that you wouldn’t expect to resonate as much as they do. So that’s something that we’ve really kept a close eye on and will continue to, especially as we approach the election season.
SG: Well, this has all been very thought-provoking, our entire discussion, I feel like as we reached the conclusion of it, we need to have some positives as well to try to make everyone feel a bit better if we can, because there’s just so much bad news in the world. Let me start with you, Meghann. One thing we’ve spoken about in the past many times is the role of women in counter-terrorism. You mentioned the flipside of how violence towards women and radicalization has been a challenge, and based on recent case studies, that’s been demonstrated. Where are we at when it comes to women being more engaged, involved, and allowed to grow within the CT network? Not just in, say, New York, but within the US and globally? Where are we at on that?
MT: I think that we are at a really great moment in time in women having an impact on the national security environment, especially in terrorism. Here in New York, we just had our new Deputy Commissioner named, Rebecca Weiner, and that’s a great thing for women, and I think that’s a great thing for younger women to see that these opportunities exist. For me, I started out my career at the National Counterterrorism Center and seeing Director Abizaid named as the first female director of NCTC was a huge inspiration to me, to see that a female is given this task and quite frankly just doing a phenomenal job at it. Same with the DNI and and DNI Haines, it’s really, really empowering for me to see that, and I can only imagine, for younger females who are just getting into the business, to see that there is this pathway to the very, very top, in the CT national security space, to have the the Director of National Intelligence, a female, that’s the highest that you could aim to be I would think. So I think that we’re at a really, really great place with empowering females, females looking out for other females in this world. There’s a lot of great conferences that exist that are focused very specifically on women in law enforcement or women in counterterrorism. So I do think that we’re at a great place in the community with women being empowered and having an impact on the mission.
SG: Well, you certainly cited a lot of important people there, including our mutual friend, Rebecca Weiner, friend of the podcast as well. We’ve had her on before. And Kelli, let me ask you what your thoughts are on this.
KF: As one of those women who is earlier on in my career, it’s definitely really encouraging and really empowering to see people like Meghann, like Commissioner Weiner, in the positions that they are. You come into law enforcement, and you know that that’s going to be much more, or has historically been a much more male-dominated space. But in seeing these leaders, I see myself, I see other women represented. And I think that’s really encouraging as far as seeing a trajectory for yourself and growing within those organisations, and seeing these voices that you really respect taking these really important roles and really guiding the direction of our department. It’s amazing to see, like Meghann said, in the intelligence community writ large, but also in our department specifically. I tell the analysts, some of the junior analysts who are women on my team, you know, you will walk into some environments where you are the only woman in the room, and you can choose to be intimidated by that or you can choose to be really empowered by that. And that’s at least the view that I always take. I always appreciate being in environments where my voice can be heard and just being able to look at people like Meghann and like Commissioner Weiner is really amazing.
MT: And I would add, it is outside of the counter-terrorism and intelligence space at the NYPD, there are a lot of really, truly incredible female leaders within the NYPD that are having a real impact on public safety in New York City. And within the Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, and both the Intelligence Division and Counterterrorism Division, there are multiple females in leadership roles that I have just the utmost respect for. It’s been so incredible for me at the NYPD to really learn from so many different women who have had different experiences than I have, maybe more on the operational side, have had different roles within this kind of mission space. And you really learn from each other. And it’s truly a team effort. To build off of the positivity vibe that we’re wanting to put out at the end of a kind of depressing conversation, what we accomplish is accomplished because of the team that is all on the same page and wanting to fight the same fight and really be dedicated to our public safety mission. I am a better leader because of what I’ve learned from an operational counterpart, who has maybe a slightly different leadership style than I do, or a different perspective that I hadn’t even thought of because I don’t have the experience of being a detective working a case. So there are so many females that I’m incredibly grateful for at the NYPD, some that have just recently been promoted into executive officer positions in the intelligence division. It’s just a very cool time for females in the NYPD, and also in the counter-terrorism mission space.
SG: These are great comments by both of you. And Meghann, one thing I’ll say about you is I will remember when we first met, which was at one of the Five Eyes conferences that was organised by the NYPD some years ago, and I remember you speaking, and I was very taken by what you had to say and the leadership role that you’ve had within the NYPD. And I always saw that you would be a great source of inspiration to a lot of people, not just women, but men too. And more power to you. And the NYPD I think is a very leading example, especially the analysts that you all have, I’ve seen how many women work there and how much importance they have in providing that safety and security to New York. So it’s really, really encouraging, and I hope more and more women continue to engage in counter-terrorism because we need them. And I would make the point that with the challenges of misogynistic violence, tied to ideology, with conflict zones around the world that are fueled by hatred towards women, we need to have more women in counter-terrorism to counter that, to challenge that. So Meghann and Kelli, the role you’re both playing is so critically important.
MT: Well, thank you. That means a lot to me, more than I could probably put into words. But I think you’re right. I think that this is the time that women’s voices need to be heard in the counter-terrorism mission space.
SG: Most definitely. Well, let me thank you both again, Meghann and Kelli, for being on the NATO DEEP Divepodcast. And yes, the conversation was challenging, but it’s very important that we are better informed about what’s going on in the world. And you both have done that with great detail. So my appreciation to you both.
MT: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having us. It’s truly an honour to be on your podcast, and it’s truly an honour to have been your friend over the last couple of years and to learn from you as well. Very excited that we were able to do this.
SG: My appreciation to you.
KF: Yes, thank you so much.
SG: 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.
Disclaimer: Please note that the views, information, or opinions expressed in the NATO DEEP Dive series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of NATO or DEEP.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.