U.S. surveillance policies cost U.S. tech sector more than $35 billion in sales

U.S. surveillance policies cost U.S. tech sector more than $35 billion in sales

Published 15 June 2015

 

 

New report says the U.S. tech industry has under-performed as a result of concerns about the U.S. government’s electronic surveillance. The report estimates that the total economic impact on the U.S. tech sector of U.S. surveillance practices exceeds $35 billion annually. The report recommends policymakers level the playing field for the U.S. tech sector by implementing a series of reforms such as increasing the transparency of its surveillance practices, opposing government efforts to weaken encryption or introduce backdoors in software, and strengthening its mutual legal assistance treaties with other nations.

Shortly after Edward Snowden revealed extensive U.S. government surveillance, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimated that the U.S. tech sector could lose between $21.5 billion and $35 billion over three years if U.S. cloud computing providers saw even a modest drop in their foreign market share due to concerns about electronic surveillance. ITIF says that since then, it has become clear that the U.S. tech industry as a whole, not just the cloud computing sector, has under-performed as a result of these spying concerns.
Therefore, the total economic impact of U.S. surveillance practices will likely far exceed ITIF’s initial $35 billion estimate.
ITIF last week released a new report, Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness, which catalogues a wide range of specific examples of the economic harm that has been done to U.S. businesses as result of unreformed government surveillance practices, and it proposes a series of reforms designed to improve security, protect transparency, and increase cooperation and accountability in the global technology ecosystem.
“Foreign customers are increasingly shunning U.S. companies, and governments around the world are using U.S. surveillance as an excuse to enact a new wave of protectionist policies. This is bad for U.S. companies, U.S. workers, and the U.S. economy as a whole,” notes Daniel Castro, vice president of ITIF and co-author of the report. “Now that Congress has passed the USA Freedom Act, it is imperative that it turn its attention to reforming the digital surveillance activities that continue to impact our nation’s competitiveness.”
The report recommends policymakers level the playing field for the U.S. tech sector by implementing a series of reforms such as increasing the transparency of its surveillance practices, opposing government efforts to weaken encryption or introduce backdoors in software, and strengthening its mutual legal assistance treaties with other nations. In addition, it should combat anti-competitive practices by other nations through the establishment of international legal standards for government access to data and pushing for trade agreements to include bans on digital protectionism.
“Over the last few years, the U.S. government’s failure to meaningfully reform its surveillance practices has taken a serious economic toll on the U.S. tech sector and the total cost continues to grow each day,” adds Castro. “Other countries are scrambling to take advantage of this opportunity, and if policymakers fail to address this issue head on, these losses will be locked in permanently. Ultimately, Congress must decide how many American jobs it is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of intelligence gathering and find a better balance between economic interests and national security interests.”
— Read more in Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn, Beyond the USA Freedom Act: How U.S. Surveillance Still Subverts U.S. Competitiveness (ITIF, 9 June 2015)

Syrian Druze facing uncertain future

Syrian Druze facing uncertain future

Published 15 June 2015

The broad retreat of the pro-government forces in Syria in the face of increasingly more effective attacks by both Islamic State and moderate anti-regime rebels, have placed the Druze in Syria in a difficult position. The disintegration of the Syria military has forced the regime to abandon areas it regards as less essential to the future of the Alawite community, to which the Assad family belongs. The realization that Syrian government forces are no longer capable of, or interested in, defending them, has triggered urgent debates among Druze leaders about how best to protect the interests – and lives — of the half million Druze who live in Syria. Some Druze leaders still advocate staying close to the Assad regime, which traditionally has been hospitable to the Druze, but the majority of the Druze in Syria – and, importantly, the Druze leadership in Lebanon – are calling on the Druze in Syria to reach out to Sunni insurgents in an effort to reach an accommodation with them in anticipation of a post-Assad Syria. There are also Druze leaders who call for members of the community to mobilize and create a Druze militia in order to repel the approaching Sunni rebels. The Israeli government and military, however, have this week quietly decided not to use, or threaten to use, military force to defend the Druze. If ISIS fighters take the lead in pushing into areas heavily populated by Druze, and if the militants exhibit the same murderous tendencies toward the Druze that they showed in Iraq toward the Yezidis and others, then a humanitarian catastrophe will be unfolding on Israel’s doorstep, forcing Israel to make decisions it has so far resisted.

The broad retreat of the pro-government forces in Syria in the face of increasingly more effective attacks by both Islamic State and moderate anti-regime rebels, have placed the Druze in Syria in a difficult position.
In north-west Syria, Druze towns and villages have been attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated militants of the Nusra front, while in two provinces in southern Syria, forces from both a moderate rebel coalition and Islamic State have pushed the Assad military out of its main military bases in the area, and are advancing toward the main Druze towns and villages in the region.
The Druze are facing danger on three fronts.

• In the south, the newly formed coalition of rebels, the Southern Front, has gained a major victory over Assad forces by capturing a large military base situated near the road from Dara’a to Damascus. The base was home to the 52^nd Brigade of the Syrian army.
• The Southern From forces have been moving east toward Jabl Druze, and earlier this week captured a military airbase there.
• ISIS forces are closing in on Jabl Druze from the east.

Israel urges U.S. to send military aid to Druze in Syria

Israel urges U.S. to send military aid to Druze in Syria

Published 15 June 2015

 

Israel has asked the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who was visiting Israel last week, to help persuade the White House to rush aid to the Druze in Syria, where the retreat of the pro-government forces and the collapse of the Syrian army have exposed the Druze to attacks by both moderate Sunni rebels and Islamic State militants. Israel said it would be willing to extend humanitarian aid to the residents of Khadr, near the Israeli border, but that intervention to assist the Druze in the Jabal al-Druze region, deeper in Syrian territory, was not in the cards because it would amount to an intervention in the Syrian civil war. About 450,000 of Syria’s 700,000 Druze live in the Jabal al-Druze area.

Israel has asked the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who was visiting Israel last week, to help persuade the White House to rush aid to the Druze in Syria, where the retreat of the pro-government forces and the collapse of the Syrian army have exposed the Druze to attacks by both moderate Sunni rebels and Islamic State militants.
Leaders of the Druze community in Israel – some of them current and former senior military commanders in the IDF — made urgent appeal to the Israeli government and military to consider intervening on behalf of the Druze to prevent what could develop into a human catastrophe similar to those inflicted on the Yezidis and other minority groups in Iraq.
Haaretz reports that after intense consultation, Israel’s political and military leadership told the leaders of Israel’s Druze that Israel would be willing to extend humanitarian aid to the residents of Khadr, near the Israeli border, but that intervention to assist the Druze in the Jabal al-Druze region, deeper in Syrian territory, was not in the cards because it would amount to an intervention in the Syrian civil war.
Ayoub Kara, an Israeli Druze who is a member of the Knesset from Likud, and who serves as deputy minister of regional cooperation, said that “It is important to emphasize that we are working in this context as a [ethnic] community, not as the government of Israel,” he said, adding that “all assistance that will be given [to Syria’s Druze] will be by fellow Druze, and I know that the Druze of Syria know how to defend themselves.”
Kara also criticized statements made on Friday by Wald Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon’s Druze community, called on him to send soldiers to Syria, saying: “Jumblatt has the option of sending troops, since the border is open. We [in Israel] cannot do that, and it’s preferable that he acts instead of just talking.”
Jumblatt said on Friday that Syria’s Druze population did not intend to ask Israel for assistance. “We don’t need [Bashar] Assad or Israel,” said Jumblatt, during a press conference in Beirut. “Both sides are speaking in sectarian terms, which only perpetuates sectarianism and divides the country” (see “Syrian Druze facing uncertain future,” HSNW, 12 June 2015).
Dempsey, who was in Israel on a farewell tour – he ends his term on 1 October – listened to Israeli suggestions that the United States rush humanitarian and military aid to the Druze from bases the United States maintain in Jordan, where American instructors are training moderate Syrian rebels.
Dempsey did not commit to U.S. action.
About 450,000 of Syria’s 700,000 Druze live in the Jabal al-Druze area. The Druze in the region are facing attacks by Sunni rebels from two directions: from the west the face the Southern Front – a newly formed alliance of rebel groups which includes both moderate elements supported by the United States but also the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. From the east, the Druze face Islamic State militants.
In the last ten days, the Syrian 52^nd Brigade collapsed and its forces fled the area toward Damascus, leaving its large military base to be captured by the Southern Front. The rebels also captured the Sweida military airfield in the Jabal al-Druze area.
Military observers say that the Druze have the manpower to form a self-defense militia: Since January, when the disintegration of the Syrian army became obvious, the Druze stopped sending young, military-age Druze to the Syrian military’s recruitment centers to be inducted into the Syrian army. The Druze thus have about 27,000 military-age men ready to serve in a Druze militia, plus about 2,500 52^nd Brigade soldiers who decided to remain in the area and fight with the Druze rather than defend the Assad regime in Damascus.
The analysts say, though, that what the Druze lack are experienced commanders, a well-developed command structure, and heavy weapons.
The Druze are worried about Islamic State because fundamentalist Sunnis view the Druze as heretics, but even moderate and secular Sunnis resent the Druze because of their alliance with the Alawites and the Assad regime.
The Druze believe, though, that they will be able to reach an accommodation with the Southern Front, and even with Nusra which, of late, has become more tolerant in in its approach to secular Sunnis and non-Sunni Syrians.
Last week, after twenty Druze were killed in a village in Idlib Province in north Syria, the Nusra Front issued a statement of regret. The group said it had received, with “great sorrow,” news of the incident in which “a number of Nusra Front members” had taken part without consulting their leaders. All those involved would face trial in an Islamic court, Nusra added. “Everyone involved in this incident will be presented to a sharia court and held to account for blood proven to have been spilt.”

State-by-state plan to convert U.S. to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2050

State-by-state plan to convert U.S. to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2050

Published 11 June 2015

 

One potential way to combat ongoing climate change, eliminate air pollution mortality, create jobs, and stabilize energy prices involves converting the world’s entire energy infrastructure to run on clean, renewable energy. This is a daunting challenge. Now, researchers for the first time have outlined how each of the fifty states can achieve such a transition by 2050. The fifty individual state plans call for aggressive changes to both infrastructure and the ways we currently consume energy, but indicate that the conversion is technically and economically possible through the wide-scale implementation of existing technologies.

One potential way to combat ongoing climate change, eliminate air pollution mortality, create jobs, and stabilize energy prices involves converting the world’s entire energy infrastructure to run on clean, renewable energy.
This is a daunting challenge. Now, however, in a new study, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, and colleagues, including U.C. Berkeley researcher Mark Delucchi, are the first to outline how each of the fifty states can achieve such a transition by 2050. The fifty individual state plans call for aggressive changes to both infrastructure and the ways we currently consume energy, but indicate that the conversion is technically and economically possible through the wide-scale implementation of existing technologies.
“The main barriers are social, political and getting industries to change. One way to overcome the barriers is to inform people about what is possible,” said Jacobson, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy. “By showing that it’s technologically and economically possible, this study could reduce the barriers to a large scale transformation.”
The study is published in the online edition of Energy and Environmental Sciences. An interactive map summarizing the plans for each state is available at www.thesolutionsproject.org.
A Stanford University release reports that Jacobson and his colleagues started by taking a close look at the current energy demands of each state, and how those demands would change under business-as-usual conditions by the year 2050. To create a full picture of energy use in each state, they examined energy usage in four sectors: residential, commercial, industrial and transportation.
For each sector, they then analyzed the current amount and source of the fuel consumed — coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables — and calculated the fuel demands if all fuel usage were replaced with electricity. This is a significantly challenging step — it assumes that all the cars on the road become electric, and that homes and industry convert to fully electrified heating and cooling systems. Jacobson said, however, that their calculations were based on integrating existing technology, and the energy savings would be significant.
“When we did this across all fifty states, we saw a 39 percent reduction in total end-use power demand by the year 2050,” Jacobson said. “About 6 percentage points of that is gained through efficiency improvements to infrastructure, but the bulk is the result of replacing current sources and uses of combustion energy with electricity.”
The next step involved figuring out how to power the new electric grid. The researchers focused on meeting each state’s new power demands using only the renewable energies — wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and tiny amounts of tidal and wave — available to each state.
They analyzed each state’s sun exposure, and how many south-facing, non-shaded rooftops could accommodate solar panels. They developed and consulted wind maps and determined whether local offshore wind turbines were an option. Geothermal energy was available at a reasonable cost for only 13 states. The plan calls for virtually no new hydroelectric dams, but does account for energy gains from improving the efficiency of existing dams.
The report lays out individual roadmaps for each state to achieve an 80 percent transition by 2030, and a full conversion by 2050. Jacobson said that several states are already on their way. Washington state, for instance, could make the switch to full renewables relatively quickly, thanks to the fact that more than 70 percent of its current electricity comes from existing hydroelectric sources. That translates to about 35 percent of the state’s all-purpose power if Washington were 100-percent electrified; wind and solar could fill most of the remainder.
Iowa and South Dakota are also well-positioned, as they already generate nearly 30 percent of their electricity from wind power. California, which was the focus of Jacobson’s second single-state roadmap to renewables after New York, has already adopted some of his group’s suggestions and has a plan to be 60 percent electrified by renewables by 2030.
The plan calls for no more than 0.5 percent of any state’s land to be covered in solar panels or wind turbines. The upfront cost of the changes would be significant, but wind and sunlight are free. So the overall cost spread over time would be roughly equal to the price of the fossil fuel infrastructure, maintenance and production.
“When you account for the health and climate costs — as well as the rising price of fossil fuels — wind, water and solar are half the cost of conventional systems,” Jacobson said. “A conversion of this scale would also create jobs, stabilize fuel prices, reduce pollution-related health problems and eliminate emissions from the United States. There is very little downside to a conversion, at least based on this science.”
Jacobson said that if the conversion is followed exactly as his plan outlines, the reduction of air pollution in the U.S. could prevent the deaths of approximately 63,000 Americans who die from air pollution-related causes each year. It would also eliminate U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases produced from fossil fuel, which would otherwise cost the world $3.3 trillion a year by 2050.
— Read more in Mark Z. Jacobson et al., “100% clean and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United States,” Energy and Environmental Sciences (27 May 2015) (DOI: 10.1039/c5ee01283j)

Abbott signs sweeping border security bill

Abbott signs sweeping border security bill

By Julián Aguilar

Published 11 June 2015

 

To Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas), signing a sweeping, multimillion-dollar border security bill hundreds of miles from the Rio Grande made sense. “Here in Houston, there are more than 20,000 dangerous gang members that are associated with cross border traffic-related crime,” Abbott said Tuesday as he was flanked by lawmakers and peace officers at a Texas Department of Public Safety facility. “More than 100,000 of those gang members operate across the state of Texas.”

To Gov. Greg Abbott, signing a sweeping, multimillion-dollar border security bill hundreds of miles from the Rio Grande made sense.
“Here in Houston, there are more than 20,000 dangerous gang members that are associated with cross border traffic-related crime,” Abbott said Tuesday as he was flanked by lawmakers and peace officers at a Texas Department of Public Safety facility. “More than 100,000 of those gang members operate across the state of Texas.”
His signature on House Bill 11, by state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, is the final piece of a massive effort by lawmakers during the 84^th Legislature to bolster the ranks of state police, increase technology and establish intelligence operations units on the Texas-Mexico border. The bill has a price tag of about $310 million and is part of an $800 million border security effort.
The measure will facilitate the hiring of additional troopers and give the Department of Public Safety the authority to expedite the hiring of certain military veterans who have been honorably discharged. It also increases penalties for human smuggling and creates a transnational intelligence center on the border to analyze crime data. In addition, the law continues the operations of the Texas National Guard on the border until the department can hire and train up to 250 troopers to be permanently stationed in the area.
The bill signing comes on the heels of a legislative session that saw the department and border Democrats repeatedly spar over what the lawmakers alleged was a lack of transparency at the state police force.
Opponents of increased border-security spending demanded the department produce statistics to prove that the massive border surge, which began last summer in response to the flood of undocumented immigrants who breached the border illegally, was working. Instead, the department would only release data on apprehensions and drug seizures performed by all law enforcement agencies participating in the surge, including local and federal police.
When Abbott was asked by a reporter what problem HB 11 was intended to fix considering crime in the Rio Grande Valley is at an all-time low, he instead emphasized the statewide impact of cross-border crime.
“According to [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Jeh Johnson, who spoke here in Houston, Texas, yesterday, we still have more than 25,000 people come across the border illegally every month,” Abbott said.
The governor also sidestepped a question about two unsuccessful legislative proposals. One would have ended in-state tuition rates for undocumented immigrants and another would have banned so-called sanctuary cities – local governments that prohibit law enforcement officers from enforcing immigration laws. Both topics were hot-button campaign issues for Republican lawmakers.
When asked if he was disappointed they didn’t make it to his desk, he instead focused on how the federal government’s efforts to secure the border have fallen flat.
“The issues exist in the first place because we have a failed federal government that has refused to address the issues to tackle those problems,” he said. “Those are national, federal-based issues that we demand the United States federal government address and solve. Texas is doing what is can do by passing this border security plan.”
Though he called House Bill 11 the cornerstone of the state’s efforts to protect and seal the border, he also lauded the passage of House Bill 10, which enhances penalties for human trafficking and House Bill 12, which codifies the duties of the state’s border prosecution unit. Abbott also indicated he was eager to sign a resolution that urges Congress to reimburse Texas the nearly $700 million the state has spent on border security operations since 2012.
“Texas is willing to shoulder the responsibility; we expect the federal government to foot the bill,” he said.
Julián Aguilar reports on politics and border affairs from the Texas-Mexico border. This story is published courtesy of the Texas Tribune, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Texas flood exposes serious weaknesses in high-tech warning systems

Texas flood exposes serious weaknesses in high-tech warning systems

Published 11 June 2015

 

The Memorial Day weekend flood in Texas was a test for regional flood warning systems employed by local and federal emergency agencies. Hays County officials issued three “reverse 911” notifications to residents residing in homes along the Blanco River. The National Weather Servicesent out flash flood warnings to registered local cellphones. Yet the disaster flood, which caused tens of millions of dollars in property damage in Blanco and Hays counties and killed more than a dozen people, exposed serious weaknesses in high-tech warning systems.

The Memorial Day weekend flood in Texas was a test for regional flood warning systems employed by local and federal emergency agencies. Hays County officials issued three “reverse 911” notifications to residents residing in homes along the Blanco River. The National Weather Service sent out flash flood warnings to registered local cellphones. Yet the disaster flood, which caused tens of millions of dollars in property damage in Blanco and Hays counties and killed more than a dozen people, exposed serious weaknesses in high-tech warning systems.
Most of Wimberley, a Texas town, lacked the alarm systems used in other Texas river towns. The warning system used during the flood “was the bare minimum, but it’s what we had at the time,” said Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos, who has roughly forty-five years experience with the department. “There’s a lot of people that flat didn’t know about it.” Emergency workers spent hours pounding on doors and yelling to residents that they needed to evacuate the area. Critics say emergency alarms had been inconsistent during the flood. Linda Persohn owns two rental homes on River Road and recalling the warnings she received said: “Over there, they got phone calls, but no one came to their door. One house over, someone came to their door.” “Here, they said they didn’t hear anything.”
State and local officials have spent millions of dollars to install disaster-warning systems, yet each method has weaknesses that can become obvious during extreme disaster events. Mystatesman points out that the Regional Notification System, an automated system used to phone imperiled residents in a targeted area, primarily reaches landlines. The system becomes less effective as more residents rely exclusively on cell phones for voice communications. Tourist towns such as Wimberley are particularly a challenge as many of the residents are out-of-town visitors who might not have answered the landlines in their rental units. Even some updated emergency notification systems that issue alerts to cellphones require cell customers to actively register their numbers with local emergency management authorities to receive alerts.
Ed Schaefer, homeland security director for the Capital Area Council of Governments, which administers an updated notification system in Central Texas, said it is likely that very few people received the cell phone alerts during the Memorial Day weekend. Only 23,500 cell users in the ten-county region with a population of more than 2 million people have registered their cell numbers for alerts. “It’s been a struggle to get the word out,” Schaefer said. The National Weather Service operates the federal Wireless Emergency Alert system which sends out text warnings accompanied by an alarm. The system connects with cellphones in targeted areas by bouncing the alerts off local cell towers, however, cell customers can choose to block the alerts. Others may also turn their phones off at night.
The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority uses a color-coding system to inform area residents about the seriousness of incoming floods. Residents can log onto a website that signals the color green as a lower flood risk and the color red indicating historic flood levels. Following a devastating flood in 1988, Guadalupe County installed a series of fifteen sirens in communities along the river; eight years later, after another flood, the county added eight more sirens. Each unit cost about $15,000, plus $500 a year to maintain. The sirens proved to be effective during floods in July 2007 and in June 2010.
Hearing “a siren is kind of universal,” said Guadalupe County Emergency Management Coordinator Dan Kinsey. And “you don’t have to have a phone or a cellphone.”

Focusing on how, rather than why, individuals make the transition to terrorism

Focusing on how, rather than why, individuals make the transition to terrorism

Published 11 June 2015

 

Intelligence and counterterrorism officials have spent tremendous effort to understand why people become Islamist terrorists and commit acts of violence. Up till the 1980s, a significant number of terrorism scholars argued that terrorists are “driven” or “pushed” to commit violence because of an internal imbalance or a psychological abnormality rooted inside the individual. In recent years, scholars have suggested that the roots of terrorism are not in the individual, but in the social environment in which terrorists live and act. The debate goes, leading scholars to argue that the concerns of law enforcement officials should be less about why terrorists exist or commit violence, and more about the how, when, and where does the transition to terrorism take place.

Intelligence and counterterrorism officials have spent tremendous effort to understand why people become Islamist terrorists and commit acts of violence. Up till the 1980s, a significant number of terrorism scholars argued that terrorists are “driven” or “pushed” to commit violence because of an internal imbalance or a psychological abnormality rooted inside the individual.
In recent years, scholars have suggested that the roots of terrorism are not in the individual, but in the social environment in which terrorists live and act. This school of thought draws on a broader consensus in the social sciences about violence, particularly that it is “socially determined,” a product of deeper historical, economic, or cultural forces over and above the individuals. Social psychologist Albert Bandura summarized this thought on violence saying “it requires conducive social conditions rather than monstrous people to produce atrocious deeds. Given appropriate social conditions, decent, ordinary people can be led to do extraordinarily cruel things.”
Based on this reading of the sources of terrorism and violence, scholars assert that the roots of Islamist terrorism lie not in Islam but in the historical crimes and injustices of Western and U.S.-driven imperialism, specifically the post-9/11 era events such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to Defense One, Islamist terrorism, from this perspective, is an inevitable reaction driven by Muslim anger and vengeance; and Westernized Islamist terrorists are simply alienated from a West that excludes, insults, and disrespects Muslims.
Still, this thinking does not explain why only a minority of Muslims are violent extremists. According to sociologist Jack Katz, “whatever the validity of the hereditary, psychological, and social-ecological conditions of crime, many of those in the supposedly causal categories do not commit the crime at issue, … many who do commit the crime do not fit the causal categories, and … many who do fit the background categories and later commit the predicted crime go for long stretches without committing the crimes to which theory directs them.”
Referring to his research to understand why individuals become radicalized, terrorism scholar John Hogan wrote, “The most valuable interviews I’ve conducted (with former terrorists) have been ones in which the interviewees conceded, ‘To be honest, I don’t really know,’” he wrote. “Motivation is a very complicated issue. To explain why any of us does anything is a challenge.”
Perhaps the concerns of law enforcement officials should be less about why terrorists exist or commit violence, and more about the how, when, and where does the transition to terrorism take place. “How did this specific person come to join this specific organization? What networks helped facilitate the act of joining, and where and how were these networks accessed or sought out?” Defense One notes. Such questions focus on the circumstances of terrorism, and not the internal motives of terrorists. The answers to those questions are measurable, and could be used to prevent or stop terrorist recruitment. While law enforcement may be unable to disrupt a motive, with the right intelligence and skills, they may be able to disrupt a network of terrorist recruiters.