Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — On Thursday, FBI Director James Comey told a congressional committe he is seeing more and more young people and young women in the U.S. who are being influenced by ISIS, because of the continued use of social media.
Comey was testifying along with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“The challenge for us is there’s no geographic center to it and in part because of the crowd sourced way that the message is going out and there are kids and adults who are seeking meaning in their life, troubled people all over the United States,” Comey said. “But it seems to be drifting younger with more girls and by girls I mean women under the age of 18 with whom this message on social media is resonating.”
Comey said the FBI is arresting people to stop people from travelling and potentially becoming more dangerous, as well as “to send a message.”
He said that “dozens” of people inside the United States have been influenced by ISIS or ISIS propaganda on social media to radicalize.
Sec. Johnson also reiterated his concerns that the global terrorist threat is more decentralized and harder to detect than it was before 9/11. He said he is concerned about people who “self-radicalize.”
“The new reality involves the potential for smaller-scale attacks by those who are either homegrown or home-based, not exported, and who are inspired by, not necessarily directed by, a terrorist organization,” said Johnson.
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
