Speaker 1: This next guest comes recommended by our friend Mike Lyons,
Speaker 1: who we've been talking to for years about anything that
Speaker 1: happens military wise. He said, you got to get Josh
Speaker 1: Campbell on Josh Campbell's CNN Security correspondent, former FBI counter
Speaker 1: terrorism agent, Navy veteran. It says, here, friend of the
Speaker 1: Armstrong in Getty Show. For over fifteen years, you've been
Speaker 1: a listener, Josh, Welcome to the show. How you doing?
Speaker 2: I have Jack, It's a pleasure to be on listening
Speaker 2: a long time. And if you indulgent me just a
Speaker 2: quick story. I actually learned about the A and G show.
Speaker 2: I was on a FBI team that was working overseas
Speaker 2: counterterrorism cases. And it was actually a Navy seal who said, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys have to listen to the show.
Speaker 3: And I'm in La, so I'm already a Californian.
Speaker 2: But one story in particular, we were out on counter
Speaker 2: terrorism mission and you know, you have your logistics. An
Speaker 2: important part of that is how do you feed your crew?
Speaker 2: And this defense contractor who's responsible for our food screwed
Speaker 2: up and they basically had an entire case of hot
Speaker 2: dogs as our food. And this just happened to coincide
Speaker 2: as we're sitting around the campfire listening to the travails
Speaker 2: of positive Sean and his hot dog episode. So there
Speaker 2: were we were, you know, listening eating our twentieth hot
Speaker 2: dog of the week, thinking, man, we feel your pain.
Speaker 3: Brother.
Speaker 1: All right, that's what I paid our producer, Sean one
Speaker 1: thousand bucks if he could eat seventy hot dogs in
Speaker 1: a week, which you did, and I paid him a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So you're in LA. You're listening to us
Speaker 1: then on KABC in Los Angeles, which we are proud
Speaker 1: to be on. I was in LA the other night.
Speaker 1: I was at LAX, and Lax had that feeling that
Speaker 1: the airports have sometimes when security is ramped up a bit,
Speaker 1: am I imagining that or not with the FBI say,
Speaker 1: and all lights are blinking for terrorism attack and all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: No, you are, you know, since the attack by Hamas
Speaker 2: on Israel, I mean we've seen that then reverberate across
Speaker 2: the country. I was using across the world where you
Speaker 2: have intelligence services, security services around the world now on
Speaker 2: a high alert to include here in the United States.
Speaker 2: You know, the FBI director recently said that you know,
Speaker 2: anti Semitism. What the FBI is seeing is unlike anything
Speaker 2: uh that it seems certainly in the modern era.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And so you know, they are prepared for any type
Speaker 2: of attack. I mean, we know that there are different
Speaker 2: types of terrorism. You have you know, cells and groups,
Speaker 2: but a particular concern to the FBI is the so
Speaker 2: called lone wolf and that's someone out there who you know,
Speaker 2: is online, who's on the receiving end of all of this,
Speaker 2: you know, vitriol and garbage and you know, all the
Speaker 2: anti anti Semitism that we're seeing, who might opt to
Speaker 2: actually act with violence. And so that's something certainly that
Speaker 2: they're watching.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the lone wolf thing, which I know is is
Speaker 1: a hard thing to stop for obvious reasons. And then
Speaker 1: you get a porous border also. Uh so you know
Speaker 1: a cell coming together doesn't seem like a big stretch.
Speaker 3: No, you're right, I mean, that's I have to tell you.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is one particular concern is you know,
Speaker 2: obviously when you talk about people coming into the United
Speaker 2: States who the government isn't able to keep tabs on,
Speaker 2: I mean, that is a lucrative mode of entry, so
Speaker 2: to speak. You know, if you're a terrorist group, wondering
Speaker 2: how you actually secrete people in the United States. That's
Speaker 2: obviously one vector. I mean, go to the place where
Speaker 2: you know, people aren't being screened, or if there is screening,
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's very cursory.
Speaker 3: And so you know that that's something interesting.
Speaker 2: Obviously when we talk about immigration, I mean I don't
Speaker 2: cover politics for CNN, but I cover security, and that
Speaker 2: is certainly a concern.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Obviously, they're the the immigration laws that have been debated,
Speaker 2: you know, for for years and years. But on the
Speaker 2: security side of the House, law enforcement, the FBI, state police,
Speaker 2: you know, along the border, they're certainly concerned that among
Speaker 2: you know, people coming to the United States, it could
Speaker 2: be people trying to cause ill intent and that's a
Speaker 2: great vector to try to get someone in the United States.
Speaker 1: So you talked about chatter and the and the FBI
Speaker 1: Director Ray saying he hasn't seen all the lights flashing
Speaker 1: like this since nine eleven. What other than posts on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook are you guys talking about when you
Speaker 1: say you know, all the lights are blinking.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've seen, you know, threats to Jewish institutions
Speaker 2: here in the United States, both physical threats that have
Speaker 2: manifested in vandalism and destruction, but also the online threats.
Speaker 2: And just to give you an example, you know, I've
Speaker 2: been reporting throughout this week. Over this past weekend, from
Speaker 2: Saturday to Monday, there were over four hundred Jewish institutions
Speaker 2: in the US that received bomb threats. And you can imagine,
Speaker 2: you know, I've been speaking with Jewish leaders who say,
Speaker 2: you know, they're going about their services, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: they receive a message saying that there is a incendiary
Speaker 2: device in your institution that's going to go off. You
Speaker 2: can imagine just the widespread chaos and fear and panic
Speaker 2: that that would cause. And you know, you scale that
Speaker 2: to over four hundred institutions, that's certainly something that law
Speaker 2: enforcement is taking seriously. We're told that there are over
Speaker 2: thirty FBI field offices in the US that are currently
Speaker 2: investigating those threats. And you know, interestingly, as the FBI
Speaker 2: conducted its investigation, they learned that this particular wave of threats,
Speaker 2: the four hundred, were actually coming from overseas. And you know,
Speaker 2: I talked with the Anti Defamation League. They actually have
Speaker 2: their own threat watchers who are going onto the dark
Speaker 2: web trying to find you know, these groups that are
Speaker 2: that are talking about, you know, conducting these types of
Speaker 2: threats in order to try to get that information to
Speaker 2: law enforcement.
Speaker 3: And they said that one of the.
Speaker 2: Typical profiles that they're seeinger these groups are actually young gamers,
Speaker 2: you know, people who are in these online gaming communities
Speaker 2: who are you know, spewing hate and then you know,
Speaker 2: get together and try to get attention and then go,
Speaker 2: you know, do these types of digital threats in order
Speaker 2: to try to see you know, the fear you know
Speaker 2: that they that they'll cause, and you know, even more sinister.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of these online services are streamed
Speaker 2: online and so you know, these perpetrators can actually watch
Speaker 2: in real time the chaos and fear, and so it's
Speaker 2: certainly something that's very serious. It's it's a challenge for
Speaker 2: law enforcement when you're talking about digital threats.
Speaker 3: Obviously, the relative anonymity of the Internet makes that challenging.
Speaker 2: That said, the FBI and local law enforcement has had
Speaker 2: successes in recent months, including right here in southern California
Speaker 2: and Orange County. Just last week, the FBI arrested a
Speaker 2: juvenile who was making threats to Jewish institutions, to African
Speaker 2: American churches, and they said that this juvenile was part
Speaker 2: of an online ring of people who are calling in threats,
Speaker 2: and so they have seen successes, but these cases certainly
Speaker 2: very difficult.
Speaker 1: I've got a friend who's in your line of work
Speaker 1: to be vague and always talks about trying to figure
Speaker 1: out if somebody is a keyboard warrior or an actual threat.
Speaker 1: That's got to be the real difficult thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: cause it's really easy to shoot your mouth off as
Speaker 1: a gamer where your head set to your friends and
Speaker 1: sound like a tough guy, and try to figure out
Speaker 1: whether that person is, you know, just shooting their mouth
Speaker 1: off or danger. How the heck do you ever figure
Speaker 1: that out?
Speaker 2: You know, it's difficult. I mean, in the security world,
Speaker 2: you're looking for two things. You're looking for capability and intent.
Speaker 2: You know, someone who has the actual capability to cause harm,
Speaker 2: if they don't have the intent to do so, they're
Speaker 2: obviously know less of a threat. Someone who has the
Speaker 2: intent to kill people but isn't capable of doing so,
Speaker 2: you know, that's obviously something that that could be mitigated.
Speaker 2: But when you couple those together, someone who is dangerous
Speaker 2: and has the ability to go out and cause destruction
Speaker 2: or to hurt people. You know, that's something that's certainly
Speaker 2: law enforcement is constantly trying to look for and chafing
Speaker 2: when you talk about you know, words and you know speaking.
Speaker 2: I remember when I was in the FBI. I mean,
Speaker 2: that was a constant challenge. Where do you reach that
Speaker 2: threshold from someone who's just spouting off, you know, to
Speaker 2: actually someone who's inciting inciting violence. And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not a lawyer like Joe almost with the law school,
Speaker 2: but that was a constant challenge. You know what what
Speaker 2: is it that gets you over that threshold? And it's certainly,
Speaker 2: you know, very difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's funny. I got a lot of
Speaker 1: questions for you, but I don't want to ask them
Speaker 1: because I don't want you to answer them. I don't
Speaker 1: make people any any ideas or or know that you're
Speaker 1: onto them. One thing I think often when I'm at
Speaker 1: airports and I see the security is I feel like
Speaker 1: we're so focused on like airports are the only thing
Speaker 1: you can attack it. The only way you can possibly
Speaker 1: ever kill people is with a plane or at an airport.
Speaker 1: When obviously, there are lots of options out there is
Speaker 1: security amped up in a lot of other arenas that
Speaker 1: we just don't see outside of flying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there's the scene and the unseen. I
Speaker 2: mean that security posture that you see at an airport,
Speaker 2: for example. A lot of that is to serve as
Speaker 2: a deterrent. You know, when you roll up to lax
Speaker 2: and you see you know the airport police officers there
Speaker 2: who are doing their random checks. You know, they'll stop
Speaker 2: every tenth or twelfth car or whatever it is. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of that is just to serve as a deterrent. Hey,
Speaker 2: if you're intent on causing harm here, you may be
Speaker 2: the person that gets caught up, you know, in this net.
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of you know, systems out there,
Speaker 2: a lot of intelligence collection platforms that are used that
Speaker 2: tried to detect threats, and a lot of it, you know,
Speaker 2: can be after the fact. I mean, I'll give you an
Speaker 2: example of you know, here, there was a serial killer,
Speaker 2: for example, here in Los Angeles in the last couple
Speaker 2: of weeks, and this person was stopped by the Beverly
Speaker 2: Hills Police Department because the department had installed license plate
Speaker 2: scanners and so they had this technology that was in
Speaker 2: place that wasn't a tent on signing any pot for
Speaker 2: their person, but it helped after the fact because you know,
Speaker 2: at one of the scenes of one of these killings,
Speaker 2: they cops got a license plate, they entered it into
Speaker 2: the system. The moment that guy popped driving through Beverly Hills,
Speaker 2: they were able to go and capture him. But you know,
Speaker 2: that's after the fact, right after the person's already done
Speaker 2: certain crimes, and.
Speaker 1: So we're up against a hard break. Josh and I
Speaker 1: want to have time to say thank you very much
Speaker 1: for coming on, and we would love to have you
Speaker 1: on a lot more during this next year. Glad to
Speaker 1: get to know you, and thanks for listening all these years.
Speaker 1: Josh Campbell's CNN security correspondent. You're going to hear a
Speaker 1: lot more from him in future episode.