When they stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s supporters left a massive digital footprint of their rampage. As law enforcement agencies launch a search for the rioters, they are being helped by online sleuths and investigative teams poring over a trove of images and clips posted on social media by people in the act of breaking the law.
On January 6, as mobs
ransacked the US Capitol, chat groups lit up with incredulous questions from observers across the world watching scenes of mayhem inside the sanctum sanctorum of American democracy. In a country infamous for its prevalence of guns and heavily militarised law enforcement services, the security failures were difficult to comprehend.
But in numerous chat groups, stunned comments about the inadequate security at the Capitol were met with other observations. President
Donald Trump’s pumped-up supporters may have been destroying, desecrating and pillaging the premises in plain sight, but their exultation on mainstream and social media would also be their undoing: the rioters were leaving so many digital traces, it was only a matter of time before they were identified and tracked.
It wasn’t long before the
FBI and Washington, DC, police departments put out notices seeking public assistance in identifying people “who made unlawful entry” into the US Capitol building. The DC police notice included a 27-page document featuring photographs of “persons of interest” facing federal charges “due to insurrection at the US Capitol”.
