Michael McCaul Quotes

Through the Internet, ISIS and other terrorist groups reach people they wouldn't ordinarily be able to reach.

To a considerable extent we are faced by a technology arms race with terrorists. The communications revolution has made it easier for terrorist groups to reach out to vulnerable individuals with their violent extremist ideology and propaganda. It has also facilitated fundraising, recruitment and training.

How did ISIL grow? It's real simple: social media.

200,000 ISIS tweets a day, 1,000 investigations in all 50 states. It's really hard to stop all of it. But we have to get control over this Internet propaganda that is poisoning the minds of the United States.

ISIS is a radical jihadist group that is increasingly sophisticated in its ability, for example, to radicalize American citizens, in its inability to exploit loopholes in our legal immigration system, in its ability to capture and hold territory in the Middle East, as I outlined earlier, in multiple countries.

Social media has allowed groups, such as ISIL, to use the Internet to spot and assess potential recruits. With the widespread horizontal distribution of social media, terrorists can identify vulnerable individuals of all ages in the United States - spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize - either to travel or to conduct a homeland attack.

ISIL's widespread reach through the Internet and social media is most concerning, as the group has proven dangerously competent at employing such tools for its nefarious strategy. ISIL uses high-quality, traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its extremist ideology.

I'm over here with the French counterterrorism experts talking about the 'Charlie Hebdo' case, how we can stop foreign fighters from coming out of Iraq and Syria to Europe, but then we have this phenomenon in the United States where they can be activated by the Internet, and, really, terrorism has gone viral.

There's a conspiracy going on online every day between these top U.K. individuals within ISIS leadership out of Syria.

ISIL particularly is very slick, very sophisticated, proselytizing and recruiting, and they are very astute users of social media.

It is a cause of grave concern that the cyber world is being exploited by terror groups such as DAESH or ISIS to radicalise the gullible youth of our country.

Unfortunately, we have seen terrorist groups use social media to spread hateful propaganda, to recruit members, and to incite violence with alarming effectiveness.

Foreign terrorists are using technology to radicalize Americans at a troubling pace that continues to increase.

We ask how did ISIS members become radicalized? How did the shooters in El Paso or Orlando or Las Vegas become radicalized? Well, the answer very often is the Internet. The digital land of make-believe. The same pipeline that helps my children learn, helps you connect with your loved ones also poisons some adults and distorts their reality.

It plays right into the hands of ISIS. And that's why Americans need to know that Donald Trump's words are being used in recruitment videos that ISIS is putting out. I think that is a very serious problem.

The way Donald Trump talks about terrorism and his very insulting language towards Muslims is making him the recruiting sergeant for ISIS.

We worry a lot about ISIS traveling overseas from Syria to the United States, but I think one of the greatest fears are those already within the U.S. who are being radicalized and inspired by the ISIS propaganda that's out there on the Internet.

International terrorism is throwing down a challenge, and not just to Russia.

As a communication medium, social media is a critical tool for terror groups to exploit.

The Internet has made it easier for those who want to attack the American way of life to identify like-minded individuals to carry out their terroristic plans

President-elect Donald Trump says he's looking for a simple plan for defeating ISIS within his first 30 days of taking office. But even as ISIS has suffered setbacks in Iraq and Syria, its violent ideology continues to spread.

Social media campaigns and the savviness of ISIS and propaganda is what greatly concerns us Homeland Security officials.

ISIL are already using the Internet for hideous propaganda purposes - for radicalisation, for operational planning, too.

Given its Internet sophistication and the attraction the group has with vast numbers of potential recruits from among disaffected populations around the globe, ISIS has the realistic potential to eventually swell its ranks of jihadists waging a 'holy war' to hundreds of thousands in both the western and eastern hemispheres.

ISIL does something al-Qaida would never imagine: they test people by tasking them.