© Rick Guy/The Clarion-LedgerFederal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey speaks as representatives of state law enforcement agencies look on during a press conference Tuesday at the MIssissippi FBI headquarters in Jackson
FBI Director James Comey, who was in the state for the second visit of his 10-year term, said there are open cases looking into individuals who may be related to ISIS/ISIL in every state in the Union except Alaska.
"Mississippi is a great state, but like all 50 states it has troubled souls that might look to find meaning in this sick, misguided way. The challenge that we face in law enforcement is that they may be getting exposed to that poison and that training in their basement," Comey said. "They're sitting there consuming and may emerge from the basement to kill people of any sort, which is the call of ISIL, just kill somebody."
So he stressed that the threat is very real, not just for military or law enforcement or the media, all of whom have been warned by the FBI that ISIS could be gunning for them, but for ordinary citizens as well.
"If you can video tape it all the better, if it's law enforcement all the better, if you can cut somebody's head off and get it on tape, what a wonderful thing in their view of the world," he continued. "That's the challenge we face everywhere."
Comey expressed particular fear that restrictions on information gathering could give terrorists more leeway because they are harder to track.
"I'm very worried about where we're drifting as a country in respect to law enforcement's ability to, with lawful process, intercept communications. I'm not talking about sneaky stuff. I'm talking about situations where we have probable cause to believe that somebody is communicating with a terrorist group," he said. "... We're drifting into a place where there are going to be large swaths of this country beyond the reach of the law."
Because of that, Comey said, citizens need to be constantly on the watch. The current climate of the world does not make it acceptable to see something and not report it.
"Ordinary folks should listen to the hair on the back of their neck," he said. "We've gone back through every homegrown violent extremist case in the United States and studied it. In every single case, someone saw something online, at a religious institution, in a family setting, at a school, that was weird, that was out of place, this person was acting in a way that didn't make sense."
Law enforcement leaders from around the state attended the conference as a show of a solidarity the FBI and local agencies haven't always had.
"They're there for us, there to help us, anything we need," Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey said. "Since I got elected sheriff, the relationship with the FBI and the federal government has never been better than it is right now."
Hinds County Chief Deputy Chris Picou said Comey talked to officers about programs that fit right into MACE, the program Hinds County and the Jackson Police Department are working on based on Baton Rouge's BRAVE program.
"We had a conversation about the project we're doing, and about the FBI stepping in, and they're coming in to get involved with this program," he said. "We have to pick those areas out that we can't change, and we have to change the ones we can. Just having their help and resources will be a tremendous help to us."
Comment: Just how dangerous is terrorism, really?