Massive trove of cell phone location shows 40% of those who went to rally then went to Capital

[kpete]

Last edited Sat Feb 6, 2021, 01:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Massive trove of cell phone location shared w/NYT shows that 40% of those who went to rally then went to Capitol.

About 40 percent of the phones tracked near the rally stage on the National Mall during the speeches were also found in and around the Capitol during the siege — a clear link between those who’d listened to the president and his allies and then marched on the building.

Link to tweet

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Link to tweet

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/opinion/capitol-attack-cellphone-data.html

UPDATED TO ADD:

Link to tweet

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[genxlib]

1. I would also be interested in the opposite

How many in the Capitol never went to the rally.

I think that is where the real conspiracy lies. Its the ones that showed up there intending the storm the Capitol without any push from the rally.

Bonus points for any of those cell phones that were at the Trump Hotel the night before.

[2naSalit]

2. The milling around crowd...

Was cover for the coup strategy.

[SheltieLover]

3. Absolutely!

[Chainfire]

5. As was the timing

[blm]

7. Exactly. The women's groups had their role to play.

[CottonBear]

4. Where did the lumber and rope for the gallows come from and who erected it?

Who brought the battering ram? There must be CCTV showing the grounds around the Capitol.

[NCjack]

6. WH's work shops?

[diverdownjt]

9. If you think the FBI is going to take this lightly...guess agian...

They are not releasing everything they have. Trust the system for once...I know...I don't trust cops either...
the FBI are a different animal...they will win this one...the instigators will be had. Count on it!

[BComplex]

10. I'm betting against that happening.

It's still trump's legal system.

[CottonBear]

11. I agree. I'm sure the FBI is closing in on the the insurrectionists.

The hair salon owners, realtors, and the like are easy picking. I’m quite sure that cases arebei g made and charges are being prepared for the leaders of the insurrection.

[crickets]

52. I have no doubt the FBI is taking this seriously,

and will figure out just how everything went down and who was responsible. I agree with you. The FBI is going to get the job done. My issue is whether the US public will ever be fully informed, or at least informed enough that the guilty parties are publicly exposed and charged, all of them. It's easy to get caught up in the good vibes when seeing so many of the little soldiers get scooped up day after day.

That's great. Here's a sincere, 'good job!' for that. This is a huge investigation, and they are working hard.

But I want the FBI to find and charge the people who planned and funded this coup, knowing full well what they were doing. I want to see the Congressional reps who knew beforehand, the ones who helped whip up the useful rabble, the ones who were not afraid during the insurrection -- I want to see them held accountable too.

[GopherGal]

54. I'd hope they're not releasing everything...

If de-anonymized, that tracking data probably could also tell you other things they may not want publicly known, like where the congresscritters were evacuated to.

But analysis to show the call history of phones that were near the rally stage, then in the Capitol, could in theory lead to ring leaders and their "inside" contacts.

[Rebl2]

17. I wouldn't

know, but bet the FBI does

[Hortensis]

16. Agree their to-do list was about the Capitol. But it's believed

the top people not only didn't go in the Capitol but most stayed back or away altogether, and many didn't go to the rally or mall to have their picture taken there either.

[Cosmocat]

21. YEP ... American History X

GREAT movie with Edward Norton on American Nazis.

Stacy Keach's character was the guy who was behind the movement in their area, and he never went out to do shit, or even go their parties. He stayed back in the clubhouse, got in the heads of the "mid level" ones to be the leaders.

You can bet there are types like that who really orchestrated it from afar, utilizing some of the ex (or current) military or law enforcement types who naturally function as mid level leaders in chain of command to lead and carry it out.

[Heartstrings]

24. I agree, GREAT movie! Nt

[LeftInTX]

31. Yes, people like Alex Jones kept their distance

He went the rally and marched....He may have been on the grass at the far end of the Capitol grounds, but he didn't get close.

[Eyeball_Kid]

23. BINGO! n/t

[carpetbagger]

53. Tough to gather.

There were thousands of cell phones at the Capitol from people who work there.

[uponit7771]

8. That's 16000 people ... OK, that's a lot of people the FBI needs to charge with felony tresspassing

[bottomofthehill]

12. As crazy as this sounds there was a permitted event on Capitol Grounds

You can only charge those who you can prove violated the terms of the permit( building a gallows was not part of the permit) assaulting members of the USCP and other jurisdictions that arrived to help was not part of the permit, destruction of public property was not part of the permit and entering the building was not part of the permit. I don’t think the number is 16000. Once identified, I hope that any and all that fit one or more of the conditions are arrested, charged, tried, convicted and jailed for their actions. This can not be tolerated.

[ancianita]

14. This permit fact is very big, with big implications.

It's all really strange, too, because when I demonstrated at permitted events on the Mall -- twice in past Obama and Bush years -- both times, the entire crowd's phones weren't able to text, call, or otherwise post anything to the Internet.

Yet this crowd could. I'm wondering if the FBI allowed this event to be a big honeypot of detection and arrest under the data gathering capability of a 'permit event.'

Not connected with the FBI's involvement, the military itself wasn't inclined to send help, either, but for different reasons now being investigated in Lloyd Austin's standdown order across branches.

There will be books written about the planning and government response to this Jan 3 event.
Bad as corporate tech surveilance is, it worked in democracy's favor this time.

That it was a permitted event sounds like more evidence of intent by Trump and his planners.

[Hortensis]

18. The issue of internet phone service is very interesting, and your prior

experience. Could the law have changed since then, or?

The only thing I've read on this was that many people lost all or adequate connection during the event, leading to speculation that the authorities jammed them. The piece I read thought it came about simply from overloading cellular capacity. ??

[ancianita]

20. I'm not even sure

that there ever was a law.

As far as I know, it was implemented back then as a security measure, maybe under Homeland. And so this time, I think, it was allowed, though I can't figure the reason.

One would think Trump's people wouldn't want any ping evidence to exist, right?

As for overloaded cellular capacity, I doubt such a thing would happen around the DC region for TLA purposes or Homeland reasons, right? I haven't read that cellular went out at all. Am I missing something?

[Hortensis]

25. It certainly makes sense from a security standpoint.

But thousands of people wouldn't be available for their children, use phones for emergencies, etc. And the authorities would also lose that communications ability; have they come to depend on it too much? As for where I saw it, it was someplace people would talk about phones, like Wired or PCMag or whatever.

Btw, not the same thing, but you mentioned signal being shut down during the Bush and Obama eras. I'm remembering how Cheney disappeared either around the Thankgiving after 9/11 or censorship started then and was done retroactively to before. In any case, you may remember that all discussion about where he was and in what condition was censored and all sites scrubbed and/or closed down. Googling would find things like tables of contents that listed articles that had been removed. I remember one political discussion site that was up but totally gutted; someone had seemingly come back after and posted something like "Dick Cheney is alive" and that was allowed to remain in the middle of an otherwise-empty screen. He showed up for the 2002 State of the Union address.

During a flu epidemic several years later, either 2007 (Bush) or 2009 (Obama), also censorship. Technical discussion the lay reader would have trouble following was allowed (apparently needed), but all lay-level discussion on and off line about the flu was disallowed.

Since then, any government censorship hasn't been blatant enough to make even me realize it (I can be pretty unaware). But back then when it happened, the media were required to be totally mum about it all. And they were. Not a whisper, hostage-type hand signal, Morse-code blinking, nothing.

[ancianita]

28. Yes.

Thank you for the blackout history.

But the fact that thousands wouldn't be able to contact relatives or emergency service doesn't appear to be the reason for the change, or there wouldn't have been cell tower blackouts from the start.

The media blackouts of the past are indeed creepy.


I'd like to believe that DC statehood might change all that. But who knows; when TLA's and Homeland are involved in government matters, statehood would likely be irrelevant.

[Hortensis]

34. Whatever, it's likely we don't know a few things we need

in order to understand. As usual, even when sinister trumpian forces aren't at work.

[bottomofthehill]

39. Often times in the past it was a capacity issue

2 million people on the mall for President Obama’s Inauguration, 850,000 people for the million man March, hundreds of thousands of people I. The post trump election protest and even with COWS brought in there was not enough capacity. This crowd was not anywhere close enough to overwhelm the system.

[Eyeball_Kid]

26. A PING is not the same as access to the cell network.

A ping only recognizes a packet sent from and to a cell phone.

And you were writing about the event on JAN 6.

[ancianita]

35. Okay, thanks. Then what is a ping, exactly?

Who sends them back and forth? An ISP?

[LeftInTX]

45. GPS location does not require cell service!

It is satellite based. Google maps work in airplane mode.

I turn off cell/internet when I canvass and use the map service/location in airplane mode.

[ancianita]

48. Ah. I see. Thank you.

[LeftInTX]

27. I read they turned off cell coverage when the bombs were discovered (1/6)

Even then your phone's GPS and timestamps work.

The purpose of stopping cell coverage was to prevent detonation of any bombs. It wasn't to prevent people from communicating with each other.

[ancianita]

29. Very cool point. I guess most civilians don't think like that. One would think, though,

that planted bombs would've gone off during the siege, since reports say that allegedly the bombs were discovered after.

[LeftInTX]

30. They were discovered just before it happened..

There were explosives discovered in a truck afterward, but the planted pipe bombs were discovered right around the time that rioters were pushing down barricades.

[ancianita]

36. I'm surprised there wasn't some immediate comms to US Capitol police and local bomb squads,

so that Congress people wouldn't get hurt, at the very least. It all looks so much like a terrorist war.

[Hortensis]

37. :) Oh, I don't know about the "thinking like that."

Once explained, I think I'll retain the happy thought that I could set off a bomb by calling my husband. In fact, liable to pop to mind every time from here on in that I'm at a big political event or in a large crowd.

According to the WaPo timeline, some pipe bombs were found around 1:30, roughly the time McConnell was saying refusing Biden's election would send our government into a death spiral, and nearby buildings began to be evacuated, presumably Ocasio-Cortez's among them. The mob was on the steps and around the building but the actual breach was at 2:15. This was as of Jan 9. More info about bombs may have come out since then.

[ancianita]

40. I hear you. I get it. One reason I said "I guess."

Bombs planted. Pipe bomb maker. The 10 lbs of C4 taken from a CA Marine base.

The fact that the FBI hasn't arrested any bomb planters yet -- just photos and rewards, and has arrested a maker whose pipe bombs weren't on the scene -- means that the FBI is more hardcore on threat assessment than tracking and making the arrests we need.

The situation that our Democratic leaders describe, given their access to intel, I hope, points to a terrorist problem totally unrelated to 2A rights activities, and if we go back to McVeigh, long in the making.

[Hortensis]

41. And domestic white power terrorism IS of course being

traced back to McVeigh, and further still to Vietnam.

Supposedly there's now bipartisan support for beefing up domestic terrorism laws so the FBI can, as you say, track and arrest. Apparently, even when convicted, penalties for domestic terrorism are typically so light that they can be back out while still burning with unfinished plans for mayhem and coconspirators waiting.

I was struck by the fact that the various government agencies don't even have a uniform vocabulary to use for domestic terrorism. Long ago I had to send a letter up to legal for review before sending it out and never saw it again. We decided they didn't know what to do so ate it. I'm imagining the gears of giant bureaucracies continually freezing up over differing definitions and interpretations, and the constipation.

[ancianita]

42. The reason that

tracking, tracing, penalties, uniform terminology, different interpretations is the fact that we do not have an explicit terrorism law on the books.

That would clear up a lot of bureaucratic problems and give the DOJ, AG, FBI and the courts more long term firepower.

Rule of law can't be enforced if it doesn't exist. Wray has told Congress this problem time and again.

This is the time to pass that law, and use special funding for it that will allow a parliamentary override to get that 51 votes.

[Hortensis]

43. :) And all the while keeping authoritarian advocates for

an enhanced surveillance state and doing away with those incredibly stupid individual rights on a leash. We'll finally do it, though, because we have to. As you undoubtedly know, risk of big, violent events, and many smaller ones, is believed to be very high and will be for some years.

[ancianita]

44. Absolutely.

Hammer down domestic terrorism.

[ancianita]

46. The penalties should include life sentences for bomb makers, planters and any other weaponry used.

Incarcerate them into the ground. And where they come from, legally surveil to salt the earth.
All 900 hate groups in this nation should feel threatened and be made permanently afraid of jail time for their conspiratorial activities.

[Hortensis]

51. No real quarrel with that, although it's reportedly not much of a deterrent

for serious violent extremists, but it would put them away and also put real fear into those around them at risk of being roped into serious trouble.

[Irish_Dem]

56. I read the bombs were planted to be discovered just before the insurrection.

In order to pull police away from the Capitol.

This shows a concerted effort, a conspiracy.

[ancianita]

58. Got a link? Unless any bomb planters admitted this, it's conjecture. Just sayin'.

[Irish_Dem]

59. It was widely reported that the police believed this was the situation.

Detectives are good at putting 2 and 2 together.
This is their working theory apparently.
The timing was not coincidental in their minds.
The bombs discovered right before the insurrection, at political party headquarters.
Most likely to draw away the police.

I have quite a few cousins in law enforcement, and they don't believe in coincidences.

But as you say, since LE has not apprehended the bomber yet, it is conjecture and not
verified. Just their working theory at this point.

Edit to add:
Law enforcement investigates a crime using something like the scientific method.
Based upon their training and experience, they use the data at hand to develop theories.
And then as they gather more evidence, their theories are confirmed or refuted.
So yes it is conjecture. But like scientists, it is educated conjecture. Not like random guessing.
When they apprehend the perpetrators, they get their final data set to make the case.

[maxsolomon]

32. I'd thought the rally was permitted, but not the march or occupying the Capitol grounds.

Did the Trump WH change the permit once they'd taken it over from Women For America or whoever the permit holder's BS organization was called?

[ancianita]

13. What? That's a big number. Where do you get it from, again?

Lots of phones and many more pings, with 130 phones being shown as already in the capitol when the mob broke in.

As part of investigations into the attack, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened more than 400 subject case files and more than 500 grand jury subpoenas and search warrants were issued.[74] At least 183 people have been arrested and charged with crimes.[37] Dozens of people present at the riot were later found to be listed in the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database, most as suspected white supremacists.[75] Members of the anti-government paramilitary Oath Keepers and neo-fascist Proud Boys groups were indicted on conspiracy charges for allegedly staging planned missions in the Capitol.[76][77][78]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol

[uponit7771]

15. "in and around" means they trespassed because the Capital grounds were barricaded with barriers and

... and security staff.

They broke passed the barriers onto capital grounds or in some cases let in, give those folks a pass maybe.

Then their stupid asses went onto other areas outside of the capital building then inside.

That's a lot of people who need to answer to wtf were they doing.

They might be able to pitch it all onto Putin's Whore though saying they had lawful permission from him since he said "we're going to march down to the capital ..."

[ancianita]

19. I get that part, thanks. It's your number I don't get. "In and around" can mean DC residents,

Last edited Fri Feb 5, 2021, 01:38 PM - Edit history (1)

too. So that's why I'm asking where the number is from. I don't see it in the OP source. Am I missing something?

[dalton99a]

22. The violence was clearly planned by the coup plotters

[WhiskeyGrinder]

33. Everyone's missing the point here. The point is *this data set itself* and how and why it was

collected, and what the implications of collecting data that can easily be de-anonymized are. Or, as Charlie Warzel says himself in a subsequent tweet:

The second story is about a broken, surreptitious industry in desperate need of regulation, and of a tacit agreement we’ve entered into that threatens everyone’s individual privacy. None of this data should ever have been collected.

The industry itself is a threat.

[Hortensis]

38. Regarding only the numbers involved, I noticed on video, around the time

that the animal roar of the mob began at the front, that while the crowd the videographer was in was still moving forward toward the Capitol, a continuous, fairly sizable stream of people on their left were walking just as determinedly away from the Capitol. Whatever those thought they'd come for, they were either surprised or changed their minds.

I'm guessing many of those would be among that 40% who went to the rally then the Capitol. Far, far too many to be Covid-winter tourists getting the heck away from there.

[WarGamer]

47. I'm surprised there were only 130 individuals inside the Capitol building during the siege. nt

[TwilightZone]

55. 130 devices.

Some were probably smart enough not to take a trackable device with them when they illegally broke into the Capitol.

The number of actual people is likely higher than 130.

[ancianita]

57. 150 were arrested, and it's estimated that up to 800 were in the building.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

49. And many of these are the idiots who won't take a COVID vaccince because of a tracking chip

implanted by Bill Gates.

[Billytee]

50. You can run but, you cannot hide....especially when you

take selfies in the capitol with famous statues in the background.