
Yesterday, I interviewed Dr. Jacob Shively on News Talk 1370âs âPensacola Speaks.â He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at the University of West Florida. His research and instruction focus on international relations, with a current emphasis on U.S. foreign policy, security issues and grand strategy.
Dr. Shively said the criticism of the FBI in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Orlando may be unfair.
âWhat we donât know as a public is how many false positives do they get, how many times do they actually nab the right person,â he said. âUnfortunately, as a political scientist, I also want to look at this in terms of statistics. Statistically, you will at any population, you will get people who are radicalized and a subset of that are inevitably going to get through the net.â
Dr. Shively said, âIt could be that we are doing all the right things. Itâs just that what we get is inevitably somebody who has access to weapons, because he doesnât have a history of violence and so forth, is able to commit an act like this.â
He said the federal government âseems to be very good at breaking apart terrorist cells and terrorist networks, particularly in the U.S.â
âWe donât see terrorist attacks like we see happening in Europe today, which is to say a broad conspiracy or a broad network that is set up over time,â said Shively. âWhat we see are these âlone wolfâ attacks. Even if we just focus on this as a terrorist attack and not part of that some broader wave of mass shootings, it does, in some ways, represent at least the containment of those attacks to âlone wolfâ actors rather than some coordinated network.â