zlacker

I think the more plausable explaination is a FBI agent watched a few videos online. Ran a cellphone location/time query. Looked through the results and referenced owners drivers license photos. Then tried to find some way to explain it without tipping off rioters to not carry their phones with them.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/07/google-location-pol...

>>catsda+(OP)
In that explanation, this purported investigative chain would still require just as much work to create. That's a lot of effort just to deflect from cell phone surveillance, especially for a cop - an aggro type personality would just rely on downplaying the cell angle in the media, rather than spending time coming up with a plausible excuse.

If there's an obfuscation of the actual investigation here, I'd guess it's more a hiding of highly automated tools that process open source intelligence, probably by policy of the federal agency with the tool. Imagine a FBI/DEA/NSA tool that links and summarizes social media activity based on identities. So facial recognition + cell database -> trail of pictures to craft a link-narrative, without the work of having to dig much or do automated facial recognition. Tangentially I wouldn't be surprised if declaring "antifa" a "terrorist" organization is actually an internal dog whistle that blesses the use of XKEYSCORE etc against American citizens.