Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/22/sack-of-u-s-capitol-was-the-first-mass-selfie-incrimination-event.html
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Mass self-ownage is just the kind of thing you’d expect at a moron convention.
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To be fair, you’d also expect better behavior at an actual moron convention.
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They probably believed that, by recording everything, they were ensuring that they wouldn’t be charged with any crimes. Sovereign citizens have some weird legal logic.
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Can we start calling self-incriminating pictures of criminal activity skellfies? Or has it been too long since NYPD Blue went off the air.
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Remember, these guys thought they were about to initiate some glorious revolution, they didn’t think they were incriminating themselves, they were providing footage for future artists to create accurate paintings of the “Battle of Capitol Hill” to be hung in the schools and National Guard Armories that would bear their names.
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While some of these guys were actual militia-types and did some planning, the crowd was not homogeneous, there were a lot of “casual insurrectionists” there. I am thankful that more didn’t show up with body armor, and that the face of the riots ended up being a shirtless guy in a horned fur cap and face paint.
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Even though we have ample documentation of who exactly was there that day, and we have ample evidence of them talking about it before the fact, I’m still seeing memes being shared by conservatives (or bots) on social media that it was all antifa’s fault-- find one person in the crowd you can call “antifa” and BOOM, it’s like he/she was a tiny sliver of Ice-9 that was the catalyst for all the violence.
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It’s because they felt they were 100% in the right. Why hide the fact they are righteous?
The signers of the Declaration of Independence also “self-incriminated” and would have all been hung most likely had the whole Revolution thing not worked out.
While people taking a step back can see they aren’t anywhere close to the same thing. Those deep in it see it as the same thing.
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They thought the footage would show them as national heroes when they took back the ‘fraudulent election’. It didn’t occur to them that it would be used against them.
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How many times did we hear “It can’t be a crime if it done openly and in public” during the impeachment hearings? They just took it to heart.
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You’d think the people who idolize the vandalism at the Boston Tea Party would pause to consider why participants were in disguise.
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That, and (I think) this quote from Incredible Mr. Ripley explains a lot:
Well, whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn’t it? In your head. You never meet anybody that thinks they’re a bad person.
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I certainly don’t want any of them to walk free, but legit question: Is there any precedent that would make their selfies are inadmissible via the 5th amendment?
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Perhaps, then a cosplay-as-moron convention where they “overdid” it?
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I have been having more belly laughs in the past two weeks than the past four years combined. The last one was when I read the bOing article yesterday informing me that he had a fucking Diet Coke Button Installed On The Resolute Desk!!! 
Thanks for another one!
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It was indeed stupid of those people to record and post videos of themselves (or, for that matter to support Trump in the first place, let alone go to his stupid rally, let alone besiege the Capitol). It will supply further evidence, and a good laugh, at their trials. But let’s not kid ourselves that that’s how the feds know they did it. Just carrying a cell phone identifies you to the towers it connects to (including the many installed inside the Capitol, which is a massive complex structure through which radio permeates spottily).
Haven’t you heard of “parallel construction”? Don’t you read BoingBoing? It’s great that the current subjects of our surveillance state’s unblinking eye are scumbags who need to be imprisoned. But that doesn’t make that fearsome apparatus a good thing. Let’s keep some perspective here.
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I feared he’d deface it somehow. But I underestimated how stupidly he’d do so.
One more for the road. 
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As Native Americans, to ensure that if there was blowback it went elsewhere. Of course, that is probably where the “It was Antifa in disguise” thing came from.
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Much like how the “Qanon Shaman” guy tried to pin his crimes on the Flintstones.
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I can’t imagine that a court would rule that way. After all photos, documents, and recordings do not violate the 5th amendment and can be subpoenaed.
edited to add: You can’t be forced to testify against oneself, but you CAN be compelled to provide incriminating evidence.
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