Thread: Follow along to NCITE's chat with counterterorrism and PACER court records expert, @SeamusHughes. We're thrilled to host this events, offered first to students.

For those tuned in, you're seeing @claralbraun, a bright light who aspires to be part of the national security workforce. She's a doctoral student at @UNOSCCJ.

Our guest has an extensive resume in counterterrorism: https://extremism.gwu.edu/seamus-hughes 

He said he'd talk about the book "very quickly, until you get bored," for five minutes. Doubt that would happen. His book was out in November: "Homegrown: ISIS in America."

Why do Americans join groups like ISIS? As a researcher, asked, what makes a terrorist tick. Went through 20k pages of court records. Interviewed attorneys, family members of people who joined ISIS, convicted terrorists in jail and trying to get to central point: WHY?

Saw "an unprecedented number" of people join ISIS. A thousand active investigation in all 50 states. 221 charged. All share same ideology, narrative but all come at it a bit differently.

Takeaways: Tend to be male, younger (average age, 28),come from all walks of life, prosecuted through undercover agent, but "most interesting stat" was most wanted to travel overseas.

Social media shrunk the geographic distance, offered a level of connectivity not there prior. "We saw a good number of Americans drawn to that." Not insignificant number drawn inward to attacks: San Bernardino, Pulse nightclub ...

Goes through a process of arriving, training - bureaucratic down to Excel spreadsheet of who you are and what you want to do ...

The connectivity, the responsiveness virtually, seemed to seal recruitment.

What to do about all of this? Can arrest but how to save people from themselves, how to get people before they cross a legal threshold to interventions. In part because caseload too big, some don't reach chargeable level.

Takeaway: Unprecedented in arrests. Not saying it's everyone. Not saying it's nothing. If you can understand nature, can figure out what to do.

Onto Q-A on this, talking about PACER, federal court records system with lots of quirks. @SeamusHughes has trained journalists on PACER.

What are limitations on court records? A: Don't want to infer too much in what you're reading. You can read a lot through the black-and-white words of what the prosecutor says, but it only tells part of the story.

Use as hook but not be-all, end-all. Use it as a starting off point, but not end point. If you're a young researcher look at court

The hope would be tailoring countering violent extremism toward nature of threat. Make sure efforts do no harm and are smart.

. @SeamusHughes has looked at variety of extremist groups.

Advice: Stay away from silos. Don't just be an ISIS researcher or white supremacy researcher. Says there's overlap and "floating ideologies." Have to know nuances. "Don't be myopically focused on any one ideology."