Lynch: ISIS ‘as Serious, if Not More Serious a Threat than al Qaeda’

LYNCH: "It’s as serious, if not more serious a threat, than al Qaeda."
THOMAS: "Lorretta Lynch—the nation’s new Attorney General is talking about ISIS—-the threat that is front and center, staring her in the face as she arrives to the Justice Department every morning - This day it’s 7:15. The threat from ISIS, now a clear and present danger."
THOMAS: "Do you agree with some of the assessments from people in Congress that this is the most dangerous high tempo threat environment since 9/11?"
LYNCH: “...it is a dangerous high tempo threat environment. And I think the fact that it is still new to us and we are still trying to determine, really, the scope of it, does make it very, very dangerous.”
THOMAS: "Lynch suggested, ISIS, is a group rewriting the book on terror tactics, using an unprecedented social media campaign— urging young followers worldwide and here at home to kill."
LYNCH: “They’ve got over 20,000 English language Twitter followers ISIS focuses on getting individuals to commit acts of violence in their name which they will then take credit for. This is a different model from other terrorist groups.”
THOMAS: "Often, No funding, no training. Just do it. And there’s evidence—the ISIS planning is working. More than 70 Americans charged in recent years with supporting ISIS, some accused of plotting to blow up of pressure cooker bombs, planning to murder soldiers and college students in mass. Does that make the threat more imminent?"
LYNCH: "I think that it makes it harder to predict. I think it makes it harder to determine who is going to succumb to the propaganda, And there is a new ISIS threat. As people get drawn more and more into the rhetoric, they move off of platforms into which we have visibility into encrypted platforms into which we don’t have visibility. That’s the going dark problem”
THOMAS: "And the Lynch warned that ISIS may employ a new tool in the future. ISIS might develop the capacity to do a cyber-attack?"
LYNCH: "Concern that ISIS or any of our foreign enemies might develop that capacity. That is the thing that keeps me and many of my colleagues in law enforcement up at night."
THOMAS:  "And Lynch admitted that the FBI may not be able to detect every lone-wolf - ISIS or otherwise. Case in point, the Chattanooga shooter who killed five military personnel."
LYNCH: "I think that the fact that he was not on law enforcement’s radar illustrates the concern that we have of individuals who are outside the mainstream yet tap into these strands of thought or schools of thought that lead them to violence."