FBI Director James Comey, who lives in Connecticut when he's not in Washington, visited his home state's field office Tuesday to speak with agents and local law enforcement about the threat ISIS poses as it works to recruit Americans.
"There are active investigations open all over the country," Comey said. "I wouldn’t single out Connecticut, but I would tell you that I do not exclude it. Wherever there are troubled souls with access to the Internet, we have this problem, and even in my beloved state of Connecticut, we have troubled souls and the Internet."
Comey said the way his agency fights terrorism has changed dramatically since he started his 10-year term at the helm of the federal law enforcement agency. He said Twitter alone presents agents with new obstacles.
He described the social media site as a key part of a "spider web" of interactions between ISIS recruiters and their targets.
"Twitter has changed all that because it is not a watering hole, a central gathering point. The threat is coming in that’s very hard to see. It’s consumed through mobile devices, personal devices of some sort," he said. "Saying, 'Kill, kill, kill' through social media works, and now we’re seeing the results through Twitter of that kind of advertisement."
He said working with local law enforcement like state troopers and police departments is the way to preven threats before would-be actors can even discuss them.
"We are only going to deal with a threat that is this dispersed, this hard to see, together. We need to search that hay stack together," he said.
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Comey added that it's highly unlikely an individual FBI agent would be informed about a possible terrorist threat before someone like a local police officer.
