Within an hour after the November terrorist attacks in Paris began unfolding, United States Rep. John Katko’s (R-Syracuse) phone wouldn’t stop ringing.

He received calls from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul and a representative from House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office, among others. All of them wanted to implement recommendations from a report by a bipartisan task force, headed by Katko, into law.

The report, which outlined 50 recommendations for fighting terrorism, had been mostly ignored before that, Katko said. Katko, who spoke Wednesday afternoon in Dineen Hall about his efforts to combat terrorism and the media’s role in bolstering those efforts, credited the media’s coverage of the Paris attacks in bringing attention to his report.

The lecture was part of The Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics & the Media’s eighth annual speaker series.

One of the findings of the report, created by the “Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel,” was that Europe had gaping holes in its security, which the report said could make a terrorist attack more likely. Katko, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, was the Republican leader of the task force.

The Paris attacks, Katko said, fell directly in line with the report’s findings.

“Everything that I thought they were going to do, they did,” Katko said, referring to the terrorists who carried out the attacks.

Now, at least half of the report’s 50 recommendations are already law or on their way to becoming law, Katko said. The recommendations are focused on countering terrorist travel.

“They’ve basically taken the recommendations and turned it into our national strategy in combatting terrorism,” Katko said.

Katko credited the media for helping one of the bills pass through a recent markup session in the Homeland Security Committee.

At the hearing, five bills were up for approval. Several Democrats on the committee tried to block one of the bills “for no particular reason,” Katko said.

The media “caught wind” of the situation and, by the end of the hearing, was there to question those Democrats, Katko said. After that, “four or five” Democrats voted for the bill and it passed, Katko said.

“So the confluence of media and events overtaking strategy in Congress, it happens all the time,” he said. “All the time. You can never plan when it’s going to happen.”

Katko ended his lecture by calling for more action to combat terrorism, saying that the threats from the Islamic State “are real” and that, sometimes, it’s necessary to use the media to make progress.

“We are at the highest threat level since 9/11, hands down,” he said. “… What we’re doing is really important. When you can use the media to augment what you’re trying to push, you’ve got to do it.”

Published on March 30, 2016 at 9:51 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu