Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

T R E 4 5 O N

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

This blog will pay for itself.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / My Biggest Enemy Is Me / Pop A 911

My Biggest Enemy Is Me / Pop A 911

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I’ve been pointing this out for a while, but it’s nice to see the DOJ make it official. If your cell phone is turned on then towers are triangulating you constantly. If you brought a cell phone to the capitol riot then it’s time to call a lawyer.

With so many defendants, you have to figure the odds of several breaking omerta and narcing out their handlers higher up the food chain is pretty good.

Reader Interactions

200Comments

  4. 4.

    scav

    Apple was out to get them! Fake Tweets! The dog filmed, no CGIed that video! Religious Freedom: their Orange God told them to!  Geography lies!

  6. 6.

    Gin & Tonic

    Is “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance” still a rotating tag here? That’s what the Yanukovych government in Ukraine made the cell operators send to every phone in Kyiv during the Maidan uprising. And that was seven years ago.

  7. 7.

    Lyrebird

    @Amir Khalid: Hey Amir, thought of you when my search for my kids’ favorite snack led to mysnekku dot com … I think it’s in your vicinity.

     

    re: OP

    With so many defendants, you have to figure the odds of several breaking omerta and narcing out their handlers higher up the food chain is pretty good.

     

    sing!

    sing!

    sing!

  8. 8.

    burnspbesq

    The U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. is going to be busy for a long time. And God help the poor suckers whose cases get randomly assigned to Judge Walton.

  9. 9.

    The Moar You Know

    Dumbfucks. I don’t take my phone near the marijuana store. Everyone should know this by now.

  10. 10.

    VOR

    That’s like Protest 101 in the 21st century: don’t bring your own cell phone. Clearly it never occurred to these people they could get caught or they were doing anything wrong.

    Watch for the pros who had burners or non-cell communication devices.

  13. 13.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    With so many defendants, you have to figure the odds of several breaking omerta and narcing out their handlers higher up the food chain is pretty good.

    Most likely they already posted that to Facebook along with an org chart of their group of “patriots”

  14. 14.

    Soprano2

    @VOR: Clearly it never occurred to these people they could get caught or they were doing anything wrong.

    They’re white conservatives, of course they didn’t think there would be any consequences for this. I think for many of them it was a lark more than anything else. My husband said they’re dilettantes.

  15. 15.

    gene108

    With so many defendants, you have to figure the odds of several breaking omerta and narcing out their handlers higher up the food chain is pretty good.

    That’s only if they can get someone, who’s part of an actual group that did any planning. A lot of random people just wandered into the Capitol building, because they could.

  16. 16.

    Kent

    Plea deals.  No defense attorney in their right mind is going to want to try a case of white supremacist sedition and disenfranchisement of black voters in front of a majority-black jury at the US District Court of the District of Columbia.  Which is 2 blocks from the Capitol building that they trashed.

    These people are all severely fucked and they will grasp at guilty pleas once the gravity of their fuckedness eventually sinks in.

    They are also going to squeal like stuck pigs and rat out all the higher ups if it means leniency.  These aren’t drug cartel sicarios who live in fear that they will be shived and their entire families will be gutted and tortured if they squeal.

  17. 17.

    Tom Levenson

    I like the line I saw somewhere recently: every day they remember to breathe and stand upright is a testament to dogged hard work.

    It takes effort to be so comprehensively self-incriminating..

  20. 20.

    Hoodie

    @The Moar You Know: Admittedly, they’re dumber than a bag of hammers, but this does bring out how cable TV and the internet has caused many people to live in what is essentially a virtual reality.

  22. 22.

    West of the Rockies

    @scav:

    They were all merely going on a walking tour, ten thousand Wordsworthian history buffs.   Relax.  Show’s over, move along, nothing to see…  Oh, and it’s time to heal anyway, you fragile liberal snowflake.

  23. 23.

    catclub

    @The Moar You Know: I don’t take my phone near the marijuana store. Everyone should know this by now.

     

    The tin foil hat brigade – and others as well – also worries that the towers are triangulating your phone when you think it is turned off.

  26. 26.

    catclub

    @Gin & Tonic: Wonder why that is?

     

    At many klan rallies the FBI plants were doing a lot of the instigating.

    I would be impressed to find out there are many FBI informants in that MAGA crowd.

  27. 27.

    JoyceH

    @Soprano2:

    They’re white conservatives, of course they didn’t think there would be any consequences for this. I think for many of them it was a lark more than anything else. My husband said they’re dilettantes.

    Some of them were, but some of them were not. Some of them were dead serious in their plan to overthrow the government and install some sort of Strong Man autocracy in its place.

    If it’s true that the panic buttons were removed from Cong Pressley’s office with malign intent, and it wasn’t some misunderstanding/maintenance thing, that shows premeditation. To… what? Kidnap, murder? But what struck me about that is that it indicated that whoever did it didn’t expect to get caught – because they assumed that their attempt to take over the government was going to succeed, and it wouldn’t matter who had colluded before the fact. I’d like to know if any other members of the Squad or other multi-threatened members had panic buttons that were disabled or removed. But I think it’s pretty clear, now that the Uprising has failed, that the perps WILL be identified. Interesting times we live in…

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    their handlers higher up the food chain

    Is it wrong of me to hope that said handlers include a few LoonyGOP congresscritters?

    ETA: Or their staff, of course.

  29. 29.

    Tim F

    @gene108: 

    I agree that we have to round up a core group, many of whom likely had the brains to leave their phones at the hotel. However the Parler leak could prove to be a goldmine, along with the surprising success of volunteers in tracking down rioters wearing masks and tactical gear.

  31. 31.

    catclub

    @Kent: in front of a majority-black jury at the US District Court of the District of Columbia.

     

    Change of venue to West Virginia

  32. 32.

    Tim F

    @catclub: 

    It usetabe that if you got involved in any kind of “serious” activism, someone with experience would train the newbs on how to spot the fed plants. In liberal groups this has generally been pretty easy – look for the guy dressed like a conservative’s idea of what a hippie would look like, 10+ years out of date, who’s rudely interrupting discussions and pushing people towards illegal acts. Supposedly right wing extremists had a much harder time spotting feds since the agents (cough) didn’t have to look up how to dress or act.

  33. 33.

    Another Scott

    Relatedly, … ProPublica:

    […]

    Retired Lt. Frank Adams sued the department in 2001 and again in 2012 for racial discrimination. A Black, 20-year veteran of the force, Adams supervised mostly white officers in the patrol division. He told ProPublica he endured or witnessed racism and sexism constantly. He said that before he joined the division, there was a policy he referred to as “meet and greet,” where officers were directed to stop any Black person on the Hill. He also said that in another unit, he once found a cartoon on his desk of a Black man ascending to heaven only to be greeted by a Ku Klux Klan wizard. When he complained to his superior officers, he said he was denied promotions and training opportunities, and suffered other forms of retaliation.

    In an interview, he drew a direct line between racism in the Capitol Police and the events that unfolded last week. He blamed Congress for not listening to Black members of the force years ago.

    “They only become involved in oversight when it’s in the news cycle,” said Adams, who retired in 2011. “They ignored the racism happening in the department. They ignored the hate.”

    The department’s record in other areas of policing have drawn criticism as well.

    In 2015, a man landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn — top officials didn’t know the airborne activist was coming until minutes before he touched down. In 2013, when a lone gunman opened fire at the nearby Navy Yard, killing 12 people, the Capitol Police were criticized for standing on the sidelines. The force’s leadership board later determined its actions were justified.

    Last month, days after a bloody clash on Dec. 12 between militant Trump supporters and counterprotesters, Melissa Byrne and Chibundu Nnake were entering the Capitol when they saw a strangely dressed man just outside the building, carrying a spear.

    He was a figure they would come to recognize — Jacob Chansley, the QAnon follower in a Viking outfit who was photographed last week shouting from the dais of the Senate chamber.

    They alerted the Capitol Police at the time, as the spear seemed to violate the complex’s weapons ban, but officers dismissed their concern, they said.

    One officer told them that Chansley had been stopped earlier in the day, but that police “higher ups” had decided not to do anything about him.

    We don’t “perceive it as a weapon,” Nnake recalled the officer saying of the spear.

    Chansley told the Globe and Mail’s Adrian Morrow that Capitol Police had allowed him in the building on Jan. 6, which would normally include passing through a metal detector, although he was later charged with entering a restricted building without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. As of Tuesday, he had not yet entered a plea.

    […]

    Too many cops divide everyone into: a) Us and our supporters; b) Them. Even obvious kooks like Chansley were in group a). This attitude must be rooted out, starting with the leadership, but going through the whole ranks.

    But the failures on January 6 were not just (and probably not even mainly) the Capitol Police. It’s a systemic problem.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    Doug R

    I only have location and bluetooth on because that’s how Canada’s Covid app works.

    These maskless dipshits who obviously DGAF about Covid and are supposedly paranoid ALL have location on? Yeah, I know the tower they’re on can roughly locate them but these ain’t the brightest bulbs are they.

  36. 36.

    Michael Cain

    Back in the 1990s, when I was (among other things) a futurist at a large telecom company, I wrote white papers about the demise of personal privacy.  Most people would be appalled at how much meta data their wireless provider collects about them.  Should it ever come to pass that I’m part of a violent conspiracy, it is going to be much harder for the authorities to find our data bits than just calling the phone companies.

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    @VOR:

    or they were doing anything wrong.

    Us? Do anything wrong? Overthrowing a ligit election just because we lost – is that wrong? How can that be, our savior is as righteous and as racist as we are…….

  40. 40.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @SiubhanDuinne: Somebody unlocked a side door that’s always locked. Somebody gave them drawings of the tunnel system. Somebody took the panic buttons out of Ayanna Presley’s office. Somebody led recon tours on Jan. 5 (which kind of puts a damper in the “spontaneous” characterization of the invasion).

    There was also a report I heard of a lady with a bullhorn who seemed to be getting real-time intel from some highly-placed insider.

    Yeah, there were Congress people involved. I’m certain of it. I just hope there are lots and lots of electronic fingerprints.

  41. 41.

    Aleta

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC

    One thing that always astounds me is the GOP’s talent for neglecting key issues until it affects them personally. They couldn’t care less when Trump used his mob to put their colleagues’ lives in danger, yet are only noticing how bad it is when the threat’s been turned on them.

    For two years many of us have been subject to extremely violent threats, attempts, stalkers, & targeted misinfo. When I went to the border, there was a mob w/ knives & guns feet away and CBP refused to protect the delegation. What did we do? We did the press conference anyways.

  43. 43.

    Chris Johnson

    @SiubhanDuinne: What do you mean ‘hope’? More like, let’s hope it PROVES that, and that action is taken about it. There is no chance said congresscritters aren’t seditious. Some are not even clever about it, and ate their own propaganda. I’m less interested in those than in the ones who are much smarter.

    What are the odds that Mitch McConnell arranged for all this? Because that is the number one guy who would not get caught making noisy mad seditious speeches. That’s the behind the scenes guy, among others. If Paul Ryan was still in Congress I’d be looking side-eye at him, too. I’m also interested in how well Madison Cawthorn is hiding being seditious.

  44. 44.

    Punchy

    Cap Police:  I dialed 911 a long time ago….cant you see how late they reactin’?

    DoD: they only come and they come when they wanna

    CP: so get the morgue truck and embalm the goner

    Dod: they dont care cuz they stay paid anyways….if your life is on the line, you be dead today

  45. 45.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Tim F: My understanding is, there’s a thing called an “IMEI ping”.  But not really so sure.  If I were truly worried, I’d get a Faraday-cage-capable bag.  I mean, they’re cheap.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    Don’t have one of the gadgets, don’t want to have one. Being neither a firefighter nor a surgeon, no reason whatsoever to be immediately phonable.

    /curmudgeon

  47. 47.

    p.a.

    Remember the W admin when the Italian gvt at least contemplated arrest warrants for (IIRC) CIA operatives in Italy for kidnapping a Muslim on terrorism charges.  They used cellphone data: the (IIRC) CIA agents had their phones off but the batteries weren’t pulled.  CIA!!!

  49. 49.

    JanieM

    @JoyceH:

    But what struck me about that is that it indicated that whoever did it didn’t expect to get caught – because they assumed that their attempt to take over the government was going to succeed, and it wouldn’t matter who had colluded before the fact.

    Absolutely this.

  50. 50.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @NotMax: They’ll track you with the Bill Gates microchip instead.

    /tin-foil hat

    It’s Microsoft. It doesn’t work.

    /Mac devotee

  51. 51.

    Kent

    @catclub:Change of venue to West Virginia

    Good luck arguing to a black or Hispanic judge that black juries can’t be impartial.   That’s going to be a heavy lift.  If they get a change of venue it is more likely to be some place like Baltimore or Philly, not West Virginia.  Federal criminal court isn’t like a lawsuit where you can forum shop.

  53. 53.

    Kent

    @p.a.:Remember the W admin when the Italian gvt at least contemplated arrest warrants for (IIRC) CIA operatives in Italy for kidnapping a Muslim on terrorism charges.  They used cellphone data: the (IIRC) CIA agents had their phones off but the batteries weren’t pulled.  CIA!!!

    How do you pull the battery on an iPhone?

  57. 57.

    PaulWartenberg

    @catclub: the trial has to happen in the jurisdiction where the crime takes place. That’s why there’s a Zone of Death in the corner of Idaho overlapped by Yellowstone National Park: the jurisdiction is technically with Wyoming but there are not enough residents in that part of Idaho to panel a jury.

  58. 58.

    Kent

    @debbie:

    @catclub:

    Doubtful. They would have tried to get word to the FBI, police, etc. that shit was about to hit the Capitol.

    For all we know, they did send warnings up the chain of command and their warnings went unheeded or dismissed and countermanded by political folks at the top.

    There were FBI agents waving the flashing red warning light before 9-11 too, and they were also ignored.

    There is a LOT about this event that we still don’t know.

  59. 59.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @NotMax: Come sit six feet from me. We’re likely the last two in this hemisphere who don’t want cellphones.

  60. 60.

    CaseyL

    I wonder how many of the more dangerous, serious insurrectionists were aware of their phones’ surveillance capabilities, and took  countermeasures – from not bringing their phones at all to using burner phones that aren’t traceable to them and easily disposed of.

    Quite a few, I reckon!

    But, hopefully, the more serious and dangerous ones were cheek-by-jowl with their dimmer compadres and can be hunted down with data so thoughtfully provided that way.

  61. 61.

    Kent

    @patrick II:

    @Doug R:

    Most of them probably don’t know how to turn location off.

    Which only turns it off for aps, not for the phone itself.  The 9-11 system is constantly hand-shaking and obtaining GPS data regardless of whether you have location services turned on or off.

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:

    I agree that a lot of them will do as you state.

    But.

    I think many of them will be all righteous and stupid. They proved that by going in the first place. Yes, at some point they might wake up and realize that blinding whiteness is not the only way to go through life. That won’t be until they’ve had to actually pay for their ignorance and for some not even then. They are in a cult. Their cult says that the color of their skin makes them better and righteous. And that whiteness isn’t going to change so the only thing is actual discovery and admission that they are wrong. And as this cult has been going on for centuries non stop, I don’t see it being seen for what it is by all of those involved, ever.

  63. 63.

    Kent

    @CaseyL:

    I wonder how many of the more dangerous, serious insurrectionists were aware of their phones’ surveillance capabilities, and took  countermeasures – from not bringing their phones at all to using burner phones that aren’t traceable to them and easily disposed of.

    Quite a few, I reckon!

    But, hopefully, the more serious and dangerous ones were cheek-by-jowl with their dimmer compadres and can be hunted down with data so thoughtfully provided that way.

    I expect the most serious and dangerous ones were those who wound up the mob and pointed them in the right direction but were smart enough to never go near the capitol.

  65. 65.

    Martin

    Ask all of these questions in the context of Frank’s observation:

    Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

    It’s not about neglecting issues or not being clever. It’s about being true to conservatism – they believed (perhaps rightly) that all of this would be ignored or excused away – certainly that they wouldn’t be held to the same account as anyone who aligns with liberals. You saw this with them ignoring the metal detectors in front of Capitol police, or refusing to wear masks.

  68. 68.

    Fair Economist

    @Lyrebird:

    With so many defendants, you have to figure the odds of several breaking omerta and narcing out their handlers higher up the food chain is pretty good.

    sing!
    sing!
    sing!

    Sing or Sing Sing.

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    ?Jingle bells, go to jail, you seditious shits, fuck yourselves, fuck yourselves, then fuck yourselves some more.  Hey!?

  71. 71.

    germy

    I didn’t know Trump had his own personal bust of Lincoln:

    More stuff (appears to be Abe Lincoln bust) leaving the West Wing this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/4fjkVPmiMS— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 14, 2021

    I guess it’s fine he’s taking it with him when he moves out

     

    (The photo reminds me of the guy walking out with Pelosi’s podium)

  73. 73.

    Leto

    This was from 2 years ago:

    Fitness app Polar exposed locations of spies and military personnel Location data revealed the home addresses of intelligence officers — even when their profiles were set to private.

    Fitness app Strava lights up staff at military bases

    In today’s world, you are ALWAYS tracked. In some way, shape, or form. I for one can’t wait to hear the wailing/gnashing of teeth of the insurrectionists/traitors as they claim how “innocent” they were, then we point out they were in the middle of the shit and use their own stupidity against them. Fuck’em. Forever.

  75. 75.

    cain

    @The Moar You Know:

    It’s funny all these shitheels consuming all that conspiracy theories but didn’t remotely believe any of the ones around what govt knows while planning an insurrection. smh.

    Not even the vets? I guess there was no CIA/FBI Trumpers that didnt alert the mob?

  76. 76.

    Aleta

    RE: @Ceci n est pas mon nym:  About the tours, perhaps posted already:

    Rep. Sherrill describes how her military training taught her to “look for things that were out of place, look for things that were odd, and look at them with an eye toward security,” and how that led her to raise questions about visitors to the Capitol the day before the attack.

  77. 77.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    The looting begins

    What the fuck.

    Quote Tweet

    Howard Mortman

    @HowardMortman

    · 26m

    Abraham Lincoln bust … White House … 2:09pm

    You know for a fact that that Bust doesn’t belong to Trump, he is not that sophisticated.

  78. 78.

    Leto

    @germy: A quadruple checked inventory needs to be done on literally everything. Even if it was nailed/bolted down, check it. Everything needs to be treated the same as nukes (2 person positive control). This isn’t his stuff. It’s our/the nation’s history/legacy/items. The office holder is simply a caretaker. Gah, hate these fucks so much.

  79. 79.

    Immanentize

    Here is an example of how investigations work and why they may take time.  The son of a Brooklyn Judge is IDed and arrested.  One of the clear pictures of him coming down the stairs shows him next to/with notorious confederate flag dude (he of the murder drop tattoos).  So, the FBI questions Judge’s son (Dad wisely tells him to spill it all!). Son tells his new friends in the government about the dude he met and hung out with who was from, let me see, I have his contact info., Maryland.  Two days later, flag man and his son are in jail.

    It takes time.  Plus, for some of the more dangerous, but not smart, the FBI is letting them feel semi-safe so they can find out their contacts.

  81. 81.

    Martin

    @Tim F: No you can’t. A phone without SIM card can still call 9/11. It still handshakes, it doesn’t have a subscriber ID to transmit, but it does transmit the IMEI of the phone for the purpose of WDLS – wireless dispatch location services.

    We’re using this at work to keep track of occupancy in buildings during covid. You basically can’t avoid it short of not physically carrying a phone.

  83. 83.

    FlyingToaster

    A)  Burner Smartphone, bought with cash

    B) You can buy $20 prepaid cards for said burner phone, again with cash.

    C) At the end of the day, pop the SIM and smash it, leave the SIMless phone in a public place, and walk the fuck away.

    Yes, the device IMEI is trackable, which is why you buy a cheap phone for one day of use and then remove/break the SIM and abandon the device.

    If you’re lucky, some kid will pick up the device, provide their own pre-paid SIM, and muddy the fucking waters.

    ***

    These insurrectionists are just fucking dumb.

  89. 89.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Immanentize:

    Here is an example of how investigations work and why they may take time. 

    Eight days is taking time?  Seditious Trump trash seems to be getting cuffed left and right.

  90. 90.

    Aleta

    @Aleta: So…  since she’s talking about “tours” that were led by a member of congress… there would  be records of who led and who was on each  tour, yes?  Even congress members would have to make visitors sign in, even if under covid precautions …. or were these Rs able to skirt that?

  91. 91.

    karen marie

    @catclub:  It is – although it’s not necesssarily your cell usage that’s triangulating, it’s your Google account pinging off nearby wifi.

  94. 94.

    Immanentize

    @mrmoshpotato: It’s a quick round up of obvious folks.  The cops looked very bad last week and need to fly straight right now.  But the deeper stuff, links to Congress, funders, etc. (Ginni Thomas oh please God!) that will be coming in for months.

  96. 96.

    Martin

    @p.a.: No iPhone has ever had a removable battery. You’ve always had to dismantle the device. Apple was also very fast to support E-911, etc.

    iPhones are probably the easiest (relative to Android, etc.) to track via hardware protocols because they tend to implement things quickly, and the hardest to track via software location data leaking because of app store enforcement.

    They’re all pretty trivial to track now via hardware.

  99. 99.

    Immanentize

    @Aleta: There will be records, if only viddy.  But there should be sign ins too if they went to any members’ offices.

    ETA. Nancy knows.

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    @Tim F:

    With an e-Sim? My phone does not have a removable sim card and I’d bet that most don’t any more, that part is built in as part of the phone. You can try turning it off, but I’m not sure that actually shuts it off. And this is not all that new but is different than a lot of cell phones for the first 15-20 yrs of cell phones. How many new phones are like my 3 yr old phone?

  102. 102.

    karen marie

    @Tim F:   I can’t find an article about it but I have a memory of protests against Trump early on (2016/2017) where undercover police were identified because they were all wearing new shoes.

  103. 103.

    Martin

    @Aleta: No. Apparently it’s routine for members of congress to tell capitol police ‘fuck you, I’m an elected official’ and not register guests as they’re supposed to.

  107. 107.

    Immanentize

    @Another Scott: My son had a swift little local business when he was in junior high replacing screens on his friends’ i-phones.  Batteries too.  Those things are buried deep and glued in.

    I had a beloved razor flip phone phone which had a removable/replaceable battery.  How I wish I still had that one.

  108. 108.

    Chetan Murthy

    @lee: That’s why I suggested a Faraday-cage-capable bag.  A Faraday cage stops all electromagnetic radiation (well, within some frequency range — surely they don’t stop gamma rays).  Doesn’t matter if the phone is powered-up: its radio signals ain’t gettin’ out.

  109. 109.

    bemused senior

    The gwu case file database I linked above is a fascinating rathole to go down, if you want to see how the miscreants are being tracked down. Not a convenient UI.

  110. 110.

    lee

    Another tidbit I saw on twitter: There is a map of Parler images and videos with geolocation tags that show the protest moving from Trump’s rally to the Capitol.

  115. 115.

    JPL

    @JoyceH:  When Giuliani left a message for Tuberville, I heard that he was basically trying to disrupt the vote until the next day.      Maybe they had something else planned for the next day.

  116. 116.

    randy khan

    @VOR:

    I’m not sure there were any pros.  At least one of the semi-organized groups thought that it was good opsec to use a walkie-talkie app on their phones that recorded their conversations.

  119. 119.

    rikyrah

    @Soprano2:

    That there weren’t busses waiting for all of them once they finished.

    That those muthaphuckas were allowed to go home afterwards…

     

    If that wasn’t WHITE PRIVILEGE on steroids, I don’t know what is.

  121. 121.

    hueyplong

    The freshman congresswoman from CO is one of the few with any personal experience at all in The System.

    The others aren’t going to like it.  There may be a rat-out competition.

  123. 123.

    Another Scott

    @JPL: There were also noises that the invaders hoped/planned to stay in the Capitol overnight…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  124. 124.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Immanentize: iPhone batteries are easy to replace, once you open the phone(that’s not easy, but a little heat and some careful prying gets you in), but getting the battery out of a recent Samsung phone is a real chore(even after you open the case).

  125. 125.

    randy khan

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Some of the easy to identify people probably are being allowed to go about their business so the FBI can identify other people who were in the conspiracies.  Once you have video like that, it’s easy to get a warrant to wiretap someone and you can monitor social media, etc.

  126. 126.

    Immanentize

    At least the Airforce guy had actual walkie talkies, not phones.  And not a bullhorn.  I luv bullhorn lady.  Has she been wrapped up yet?

    @randy khan:

  127. 127.

    danielx

    @catclub:

    Actually, if the battery or SIM card isn’t pulled…

    I remember reading a story years ago abut how the FBI listened to the conversations of Mafiosi types via cell phones that were powered down, supposedly.

    In these parts there was a pretty horrible case a few years ago, when a man fired by the owner of a landscaping company went to the owner’s house and murdered his wife and daughter in a particularly brutal fashion. One of the key pieces of evidence against the murderer was cell phone tracking info indicating his proximity to the crime scene.

    Among the smarter criminals at this point it’s pretty well established that these days if you use a cell during the commission of a crime you are very likely to end up in one. Hence the use of burners etc.

  130. 130.

    RaflW

    Meanwhile, check out this implied threat from Newt.

    @MattGertz
    Gingrich on “corrupted” election, Jan. 5: “I think this is the most dangerous assault on the very nature of America, certainly in our lifetime, and maybe since the previous Civil War.”

    We’ve only had one Civil War. And of course it was previous to this moment. So … ??

  132. 132.

    randy khan

    @catclub:

    Change of venue to West Virginia

    Maybe North(ern) Virginia.  Or how about suburban Maryland, perhaps Prince George’s County?

  135. 135.

    JaySinWA

    @Ruckus: the e-SIM is still rare, but as others have pointed out even without a SIM the phone can be tracked. I wouldn’t expect e-SIM adoption all that quickly, a number of carriers (many MNVO cheap phone providers) don’t support it yet.

  136. 136.

    LevelB

    The bar for getting put on the No Fly List is pretty low, but insurrection easily clears it. I will also note that this would go a long way towards kneecapping future events.

  138. 138.

    FlyingToaster

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: He has; I already knew this from [redacted].

    Boston PD used to park an “intelligence” van outside of the Occupy zone by South Station.  All it was doing was tracking cell phones.  I assumed that everyone had learned the “don’t bring your own cell phone to a protest with under 100K people” lesson.

  139. 139.

    Martin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: It depends. Phones are never really ‘off’. So it depends on whether they have a low enough power radio to still ping towers for 911 services.

    Additionally, we know that nation states have developed software that when installed on your phone (usually through some innocuous app) makes it look like you’ve shut down the phone but leaves it in standby mode still broadcasting. This is why having an app like TikTok tied to the Chinese govt isn’t a great idea.

    Understand that most phones are running multiple operating systems. iPhones run at least 3 – one inside the CPU, one for the radios, and iOS. You can shut down iOS to patch it but the radio OS is still going. That’s why it’s hard to say.

  140. 140.

    Subsole

    @gene108: So then why in the thundering purple-headed hell did they tell me “see something, say something”!?

    Damned GOP even automated the informant market!!!!

  147. 147.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:

    I don’t disagree that a lot of them are cocooned in their whiteness and stupidity and will cry like infants at their fate from that stupidity but there will be those who are hardened and understanding about the cost of their beliefs and willing to pay that price, they are called martyrs.

  148. 148.

    Michael Cain

    @danielx:

    Hence the use of burners etc.

    If you ask me to bet, I’d bet that within 18 months it won’t be possible to buy any sort of cell phone without showing a REAL ID or passport or something equivalent.

  149. 149.

    mrmoshpotato

    @randy khan:

    a walkie-talkie app on their phones that recorded their conversations. 

    Did the app record, or was someone having a listen on the public channel they used?

    Serious question – I’d never heard of this app before.  But then I just call people if I need to talk.

  150. 150.

    JPL

    Now I know!  Only bring a burner phone when staging a coup.   Where do you buy burner phones?

  152. 152.

    Another Scott

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Supposedly you can simply wrap the phone with aluminum foil.

    True? Dunno. Doesn’t always work with tinfoil hats:

    In 2005, a group of MIT students, prodded by “a desire to play with some expensive equipment,” tested the effectiveness of foil helmets at blocking various radio frequencies. Using two layers of Reynolds aluminum foil, they constructed three helmet designs, dubbed the Classical, the Fez, and the Centurion, and then looked at the strength of the transmissions between a radio-frequency signal generator and a receiver antenna placed on various parts of their subjects’ bare and helmet-covered heads.

    The helmets shielded their wearers from radio waves over most of the tested spectrum (YouTube user Mrfixitrick likewise demonstrates the blocking power of his foil toque against his wireless modem) but, surprisingly, amplified certain frequencies: those in the 2.6 Ghz ( allocated for mobile communications and broadcast satellites) and 1.2 Ghz (allocated for aeronautical radionavigation and space-to-Earth and space-to-space satellites) bands.

    While the MIT guys’ tongue-in-cheek conclusion — “the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC” — maybe goes a few steps too far, their study at least shows that foil helmets fail at, and even counteract, their intended purpose. That, or the students are aliens who fabricated these results in an effort to get you to take your perfectly functional helmet off.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  153. 153.

    Miss Bianca

    @hueyplong: Yeah, and even she is going to find *federal* prison a rude awakening after the county jail.

    I hope so, at least. God, do I hope so.

  155. 155.

    Roger Moore

    @FlyingToaster:

    These insurrectionists are just fucking dumb.

    Some of them are dumb.  Many of them think the rules don’t apply to them because they’re white conservatives doing what the President asked them to do.  The smartest ones are the ones who egged others on but kept their own hands technically clean.

  156. 156.

    Aleta

    Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

    Very much looks like an inside job. Any members found to have played this murderous role must be expelled from Congress — and then criminally prosecuted. They should also be deemed ineligible to hold any public office in the future. See 14th Amendment Sec.3.

     

    @politico

    More than 30 lawmakers are now asking Capitol security officials for details about which lawmakers or staffers allowed visitors into the Capitol on Jan. 5. They say they witnessed “suspicious” visits and even reported them the day before the violence.

    copy of letter:  https://twitter.com/politico/status/1349729266842402816/photo/1

  157. 157.

    Another Scott

    @Michael Cain: AFAIK, it’s already difficult to get a cellular service account without things like an in-country bank account these days (makes it problematic for legitimate travelers to buy a local SIM).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  158. 158.

    Ruckus

    @Martin:

    We’re using this at work to keep track of occupancy in buildings during covid. You basically can’t avoid it short of not physically carrying a phone.

    I see that people don’t actually understand the basic concept of a mobil phone and how it works to be, mobil. It has to know your basic location to have any function at all, to be able to be connected to cell service from a stationary transmitter. That’s the basic premise of the device in the first place, everything else is how you pay for the voice/text service.

  164. 164.

    Ruckus

    @FlyingToaster:

    You forgot finger prints.

    Not that anyone might look for them or search for who they belong to, but many, if not most of us have a record of at least one, likely thumb print, on file at say the DMV. I have a set on file with the federal government because I had a clearance in the navy concerning my job. I doubt very seriously those ever go away.

  166. 166.

    Roger Moore

    @karen marie:

    It is – although it’s not necesssarily your cell usage that’s triangulating, it’s your Google account pinging off nearby wifi.

    The cell towers are also recording all the phones that are pinging them, so it’s often possible to triangulate an approximate location even for a dumb phone that doesn’t have GPS or any other location capability.  That’s going to be a big deal.  I read that big chunks of the Capitol block reception from external towers, so the whole place has its own internal micro-cell so people can continue to get service*.  That means lots of phones would be recorded as connecting to the Capitol’s internal cell, which would conclusively place them in the building.

    *This kind of thing is fairly common in big buildings that block reception.  They make even smaller cells, even ones small enough for a single house.  When I lived in an area that was badly served by my phone company, they provided me with a femto cell that provided signal for a single dwelling.

  167. 167.

    Michael Cain

    @Another Scott:

    AFAIK, it’s already difficult to get a cellular service account without things like an in-country bank account these days

    Burners are prepaid, using cash.  Retail outlets — your local grocery, 7-11 — will usually sell them to you without requiring actual id.  Buy it well in advance so that your image on the security video has been overwritten.

  168. 168.

    Steeplejack

    Gizmodo: “Parler users breached deep inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS data shows.” Pertinent to this discussion, with an interesting graphic.

  171. 171.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Another Scott: I’ve not yet had a problem buying pre-paid SIMs in the countries I’ve traveled to. Every major city has an area where predominantly immigrants live, that has skeevy-looking phone shops that will be happy to sell you what you need without any intrusive questions.

  172. 172.

    Roger Moore

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I think the best strategy is to leave your phone at home.  It’s inconvenient if you need to contact someone, but it protects you from your phone leaking information.  It also protects you from the police getting quick access to your phone if you get arrested.

  173. 173.

    Miss Bianca

    @Roger Moore: This would be my strategy if I were going to take part in a “mass disturbance.” I’d just be sure to write my lawyer’s phone # on the inside of my arm in case I needed it.

  174. 174.

    Roger Moore

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Letting the people walk out seemed weird at the time, but it made sense.  They simply didn’t have the personnel or time to arrest everyone in the building, and they thought it would make them resist.  Letting them walk out let them think they had gotten away with it, which as we now see was not necessarily the case.

  175. 175.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: What is the point of a “walkie talkie app” anyway? I mean, I know I’m a bear of very little brain and all, but isn’t a cell phone itself a sort of walkie talkie?

  180. 180.

    Ruckus

    @Immanentize:

    Why? It makes no difference in the operation of the phone and does make it far easier if I want to change service providers. I’ve had to do this with my last phone and it was a pain finding the right sim and getting it to work. Functionally this is better.

    As well Android – my last phone, become outdated very rapidly, I could not up grade my op sys and the old one became non op on some features. To me Android is just a way to make up for cheaper phones than Apple has, in the long run it’s the same or even more costly.

  181. 181.

    karen marie

    @Another Scott: I’m going with:

     

    the students are aliens who fabricated these results in an effort to get you to take your perfectly functional helmet off.

  183. 183.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    In an iPhone, at least all that are current, there is an e sim built in, there is no removable sim card, just as there is no removable battery. I’m not saying they can not be replaced, that might be possible, it’s just that the phone has to be taken apart to replace them if they are. And there is no easy way to take one apart, at least no easy way without the proper methods and tools. At least if you want it to actually work afterwards. As I said above my last phone was an Android and it became outdated in short order even with replaceable sim card slots and replaceable battery. I know of people with iPhone 5s that still are going strong and being used every day. That’s I think 7 generations ago. Apple is still selling phones that are 3 generations old, because they still work and will for some time to come. It’s a bigger investment but it doesn’t seem like they are trying to create a throw away product.

  184. 184.

    Kattails

    @Leto:  Ummm…seem to remember rapper buddy of Trump’s..had his cell phone out inside the Oval Office a little while back?  Adam commented snarked on it, you apparently could see the number clearly, lots of little foreign google-eyes on it.  (Yes I know Kayne West)

  186. 186.

    randy khan

    @Michael Cain:

    If you ask me to bet, I’d bet that within 18 months it won’t be possible to buy any sort of cell phone without showing a REAL ID or passport or something equivalent.

    Oh, you’ll be able to do it.  Maybe not legally, but there will be ways.

    And today you can buy what are effectively burner phones at Wal-Mart.  You don’t need to go anywhere sketchy.

  189. 189.

    randy khan

    @Ruckus:

    I know of people with iPhone 5s that still are going strong and being used every day.

    My wife has a 4S.  Of course, she uses it for phone calls and as her morning alarm and nothing else, but nevertheless it still works.  We are thinking about getting a replacement this spring, which I think will shock her.

  190. 190.

    Miss Bianca

    @NotMax: 

    Maybe not in Hawaii, but I can’t even remember the last time I saw a functioning pay phone anywhere in rural CO. It’s been years, at least!

  191. 191.

    Ruckus

    @randy khan:

    I bet it would. The world of cell phones has changed just a bit in that time. I’ve had a cell phone for over 20 yrs. The level of what they do and how well they do that is actually pretty amazing. The first really useful ones were just about 20 yrs ago or just over and they had nothing over the current phones.

  192. 192.

    Michael Cain

    @Miss Bianca:

    Maybe not in Hawaii, but I can’t even remember the last time I saw a functioning pay phone anywhere in rural CO. It’s been years, at least!

    Even in the long-ago days when I worked for the Bell System, pay phones were money losers, kept in service only because there were state laws or regulations that required it.

  194. 194.

    The Moar You Know

    For all those wondering:  turning off an iPhone – full “power off” – does not, in fact, turn it all the way off.  There are still components drawing power in there.  What those are, I do not know.  But you can pop one open that’s shut off (you should not “pop one open” under any other circumstances, actually) and put a voltmeter across the battery and see for yourself – it’s still pulling power.

    Same deal for their newer iPods (the ones that look like their phones) and all iPads.

  195. 195.

    NotMax

    @Miss Bianca

    Pro tip: Look in otherwise wasted space behind staircases or escalators in shopping malls. Or inside any bus station.

    Not universal, but here there’s one or two outside any post office.

  196. 196.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: What is this “shopping mall” you speak of??

    I don’t think I’ve seen a payphone since well before the turn of the century.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  197. 197.

    Mart

    Trump signed an Executive Order to punish BLM and other groups tearing down monuments celebrating treasonous assholes defending slavery. It included a provision for trespassing on Federal Property (assume Portland Federal Bldg. “Antifa” punishment).

    Thanks to the Dear Leader’s EO, all those Trumper criminals ramming past Capitol barricades are subject to up to ten years in prison, and a fine of up to $250,000, or both. Kinda wonderful in its own way.

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-american-monuments-memorials-statues-combating-recent-criminal-violence/

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/politics/donald-trump-vandals-statues-prison-fact-check/index.html

  198. 198.

    RSA

    @Immanentize:

    Plus, for some of the more dangerous, but not smart, the FBI is letting them feel semi-safe so they can find out their contacts.

    <beep> “Dude, I just wanted to let you know that the FBI hasn’t stopped by to ask about you-know-what in DC. Your plan worked!”

  199. 199.

    J R in WV

    Our first cell phone was the size of a paving brick, with a wired antenna you could stick on your car’s roof with its magnet base. Another wire to the handset from the big brick holding the radio equipment. The whole set of equipment was in a black nylon bag with Velcro to fasten everything inside.

    I don’t think we still have that, it would be an interesting antique in a few more years. Like a Remington typewriter…

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