Dumb US Capitol rioters called Nancy Pelosi's office looking for items they lost or left behind

[snigs]

This one overlooks Native American genocide, but “No More Kings” is a good take home message for the people clamoring for a Trump monarchy. SchoolHouse Rock - No More Kings - YouTube

[TinFoilHatReview]

[snigs]

I don’t think Raskin is relaying this in order to push an alternative narrative. I didn’t read any news story suggesting that this was how the majority of the rioters were caught. There were many major news stories since January of last year that said that people were identified based on their cell phone data and app usage.
Raskin is on the committee publicly subpoenaing for cell phone records of principle suspects, doing that in plain sight is not consistent with the concept that Raskin is trying to hide that the gov’t is tracking our phones. Especially Raskin, who has been pushing for more limitations on exploitation of cell phone data, as well as limitations of gov’t investigation of the press. Privacy Legislative Agenda, Introduced by Senators Raskin, Shank and More | ACLU of Maryland Press Statement: Raskin, Lieu, Yarmuth Introduce Federal Press Shield :: News Media for Open Government

[GilbertWham]

“You know. Morons”

[Stripes]

@JohnEightThirty

The phones weren’t merely announcing they were in DC. They were announcing that they were in the Capitol.

Sure, but my point wasn’t so much “in DC, maybe not in capitol building”, but “you saw my IEMI, not me, and there are many ways it could have been not me”

@JohnEightThirty

The Capitol is a massive stone structure; cell reception would be terrible if there weren’t cell phone “towers” inside the building. (A lot of people who regularly go into that building make heavy use of cell phones, and have the leverage to get good service from their providers.)

That is actually a great point.

@JohnEightThirty

Some of those Trumpanzees were clever enough to spoof their IMEIs, perhaps.

Probably not, but after the fact they can claim someone else spoofed the IMEI. It won’t work out for them if they also need to explain why someone bought an airplane ticket in their name, and forged ID well enough that the airlines thought it was Ok. Alternately why someone payed for gas on their credit card (and maybe gas station surveillance “tapes” were saved and matched up). Still I think some will claim this, and manage to have not left other evidence (for example someone who got a ride with a buddy and someone else paid for the motel room and so on).

@JohnEightThirty

Or at least had the low cunning to turn their devices off.

Yep.

@JohnEightThirty

But you and I both know that quite a number of them didn’t have that level of sophistication, and indeed (as TFA mentions) many didn’t think they were doing something they had to conceal.

Yep, either they thought it was something they had a right to do, or that they would succeed and retroactively be granted not just the right to do it but hero status for doing it.

@JohnEightThirty

So the feds would have had a list of cell phones that were in the Capitol. This would have been a starting point for the investigation. I don’t blame the feds for trying to keep this all on the down low.

Yep, and for non-prepay cell phones it would be easier to start here than from camera footage.

@JohnEightThirty

I do consider that articles, like the one linked in this post, that ignore these facts to amount to journalistic malpractice.

I guess you have a higher bar for malpractice than I do.

We do however agree that that article failed to present a lot of relevant information that people would find informative and useful (and for most people it would not go over their heads).

We might disagree on the use of parallel construction here. You seem to think it is so they can keep cell tracking capabilities hush-hush (I hope I am not misrepresenting you here!). I think it is to provide a more robust counter argument to any defense claims that tracking a cell phone is not at all the same as tracking the defendant.

I’m not hot on your theory because cell tracking has been used in court cases for decades so I see no particular reason they are attempting to keep it quiet now.

That doesn’t make it a dumb theory though, I’ll admit the less focus on that in the media the fewer criminals will remember to turn off cell phones and/or use prepaid phones…but at the same time any criminal that has watched Breaking Bad knows to only use a prepaid flip phone and to break it in half and leave it in the parking lot with all your fingerprints on it.

So maybe we are both right? They want to batter away at any “my phone, but not me!” defense, and also have more media stories about dumb criminals getting caught by calling the lost and found hotline then because they forgot to turn off their phone while attempting to violently overthrow the government?