Sedition Hunters

August 15, 2023
An overstuffed yet fascinating study of the citizen sleuths helping chase down the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The buffoonish "QAnon Shaman" was quickly identified after the Capitol invasion mostly because he was a publicity hound. Another criminal shouted out ads for her Texas real-estate business. Many perpetrators, though, took great pains to scrub evidence of their presence and felonies--an effort that, notes NBC News justice reporter Reilly, might have been successful had it not been for the efforts of a loose-knit band of volunteer investigators whose apps and algorithms have "aided in hundreds of cases against Jan. 6 defendants," to say nothing of hundreds of other cases that have yet to be prosecuted. As the author shows, the Department of Justice's handling of the project has been "a clusterfuck," hampered by inadequate technology and officials who appear to sympathize with the aims of the rioters. Agents and investigators are not allowed to use file-sharing services and have email accounts that can accept only the smallest of attachments, meaning that the "Sedition Hunters" have to provide them with thumb drives containing the videos and photographs they've unscrubbed, along with the case files identifying the criminals. Institutional roadblocks also include the FBI's emphasis on foreign terrorism, even though the vast number of terrorist acts have been committed by the homegrown variety: "The federal government had spent more than two decades going after one kind of terrorism," writes Reilly, "so it should come as no surprise that it has struggled to pivot to handling the growing threat of domestic terrorism." Chasing down the facts via citizen crowdsourcing has proved essential to bringing Jan. 6 criminals to justice. Indeed, as one searcher said of a well-known radical whom government agents failed to identify, "He probably would've gotten away with it...if it weren't for these meddling sleuths." A strong, fast-moving story that exposes systemic flaws while lauding the work of true American patriots.

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Starred review from September 11, 2023
NBC journalist Reilly debuts with a detailed and riveting report of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot that illuminates the work of a little-known cottage industry involved in the subsequent federal investigation: the “sedition hunters.” A loosely organized group of idiosyncratic individuals working “out of their home offices, from their couches, kitchen tables, bedrooms, garages,” these civilian sleuths made ingenious use of video footage, Twitter posts, and other online sources to identify participants in the siege. Over the course of the coming days and months, they would then convey the identifying information to federal authorities, becoming, according to Reilly, “the most effective tool of the FBI’s Jan. 6 investigation.” Reilly embeds the story of the sedition hunters—their methods (using everything from Facebook to dating apps), their commitment, the community they formed, even their sense of humor (they gave suspects nicknames based on their attire: “Pippi Long Scarf”; “Tricorn Traitor”)—within an almost minute-by-minute narrative of January 6. He also provides new information about some notorious participants—including the Proud Boys, Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, and Bigo Barnett, who put his feet on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk—and reveals the frustration of Justice Department and FBI investigators with their institutional inability to arrest the entire mob. The result is a crucial new window onto a historic event.