FBI used a Philly protester's Etsy profile, LinkedIn, and other internet history to charge her
As demonstrators shouted, fires burned outside City Hall, and Philadelphia convulsed with outrage over the death of George Floyd, television news helicopters captured footage of a masked woman with a peace sign tattoo and wearing a light blue T-shirt setting a police SUV ablaze.
More than two weeks after that climactic May 30 moment, federal authorities say they’ve identified the arsonist as 33-year-old Philadelphia massage therapist Lore Elisabeth Blumenthal by following the intricate trail of bread crumbs she left through her social media history and online shopping patterns over the years.
The path took agents from Instagram, where amateur photographers also captured shots of the masked arsonist, to an Etsy shop that sold the distinctive T-shirt the woman was wearing in the video. It led investigators to her LinkedIn page, to her profile on the fashion website Poshmark, and eventually to her doorstep in Germantown.
Their pursuit, described in court filings this week, sheds light on the extent to which the FBI and Justice Department have used news footage, online histories, and social media footprints to track down and identify demonstrators believed to be responsible for acts of violence or property destruction.
But civil rights advocates say it also raises questions about the scope of law enforcement surveillance of protest movements and the use of the very social media networks that protesters have relied upon to spread their message.
“Social media has fueled much of the protests, and has also become a fertile ground for government surveillance,” said Paul Hetznecker, an attorney who has organized a group of lawyers to represent demonstrators, including Blumenthal. “I think people have lost awareness of that.”
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philly-protests-arrests-fbi-lore-elisabeth-blumenthal-george-floyd-20200617.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
