“Fight them in the air, fight them on the ground, fight them online,” the candidate says.
By Dileep Thekkethil
Hillary Clinton on Sunday urged US technology companies to disrupt the unchallenged recruitment of people to ISIS by devising a system that could block or take down militant websites, videos and encrypted communications.
The frontrunner for the Democratic Party presidential nomination said during an hour-long speech and question and answer session at Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum that one most likely contention that could pop up if such a proposal is moved could be related to freedom of expression.
Saban Forum is an annual gathering at the Brookings that focuses mostly on Israel’s security issues.
Speaking about how Silicon Valley can help in shutting down the operations of ISIS, Clinton said, “We need to put the great disrupters at work at disrupting ISIS”.
The former secretary of state has been critical of the growing drift between government and technology companies in the Silicon Valley on methods to be adopted for squashing the use of social media as tools for propagating the ideas of ISIS.
According to latest findings, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and a range of encrypted apps are widely used by ISIS to recruit more people.
The differences between the government and the technology firms emerged after the revelations by Edward J Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.
“Fight them in the air, fight them on the ground, fight them online,” Clinton said during a speech and following the question-and-answer session.
While speaking at the forum, Clinton also took a strong stand against Iran and insisted on taking harsh steps if Tehran failed to comply with the nuclear agreement signed in July, which restricts it from possessing or producing nuclear fuel for the next 15 years.