If Capitol Hill protesters took Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s advice, some might not have gotten into so much trouble.
- Disclaimer: Nothing in this post should be construed as a suggestion, or encouragement of, anyone to engage in acts that are unlawful—including, but not limited to, rioting or inciting a riot, trespassing, looting, arson, or any other activities that may be construed as any of the aforementioned or insurrection.
Since the Capitol Hill protest on January 6th, police and federal agents have been finding and arresting many of those who participated in going through police barricades and unlawfully entering the Capitol Building.
While some face more serious charges, most of those charged have been charged (by varying degrees) unlawfully entering the Capitol Building.
Many of those charged were caught by local and federal agents pouring through hundreds of videos taken and published online–many by the protesters themselves, as well as the actual statements that protesters made before and after the mayhem at the Capitol.
Others, however, may be being rounded up through data transmitted from their own phones.
You see, for those few people who may not know, technology allows people to be tracked…everywhere (even places where they should not be).
For example:
Gizmodo mapped 70,000 geo-located Parler posts and isolated hundreds from January 6 near the Capitol.
All this data is courtesy of Parler's lax security, which allowed researchers to scrape users' posts, metadata, and GPS coordinates. https://t.co/eRcfBMD7L1
— Nicole Perlroth (@nicoleperlroth) January 12, 2021
Then, of course, there is use of possible use of ‘Geo Fencing’ by law enforcement to track down the Capitol Hill protesters.
FBI is seeking a Geo-fencing warrant which basically means if your cell phone was inside the US Capital and was not supposed to be there, you are going to be getting a visit from Federal Agents.
Pleasant dreams #maga insurrectionists.
— SCPO’s Combination Cover Speaks (@dire_distress) January 16, 2021
So, what is Geo-Fencing?
Geo-Fencing, as the name suggests, is a location-based technology which creates a virtual boundary (or fence). It uses global positioning system (GPS) or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for this purpose. It combines a user’s (or object’s) location with a map-based, specified area of interest. The technology uses latitude-longitude coordinates and radius to define an area. Using a user’s (or even an object’s) location, it becomes possible to tell when he/she enters and exits the specified area of interest.
In other words, for those protesters not used to protesting, your phones (and those around you) are the devices that may have gotten you busted.
‘The whole point of protesting is to make people uncomfortable.’ — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY)
Unfortunately, most of the pro-Trump supporters who unlawfully entered the Capitol Building are not professional activists. They are, in a word, neophytes when it comes to protesting.
For the most part, the Right does not have training “boot camps” on how to peacefully protest without crossing the line, like the Left does.
While there are other noteworthy left-wing activists, few are as well known as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
As such, when she’s not actually leading protests of her own inside the U.S. Capitol, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez gives her followers some advice when going to protests: Namely, DON’T BRING…
- Cell phone without turning off Face/Touch ID, going on airplane mode, and disabling data
- Jewelry
- Anything you don’t want to be arrested with
- Contact lenses
Presumably, not wearing contact lenses during a protest is a safety precaution…just in case one is pepper sprayed. However, only AOC and her comrades can clarify that.
Clearly, AOC knows that “peaceful protests” become “mostly peaceful protests”—like the one that happened on January 6th—when the chaotic actions of a few overtook the peace of the many.
Perhaps, rather than storming the Capitol like a bunch of amateur Visigoths, pro-Trump supporters should have done a little homework…or just stayed home.