
FBI used Etsy, LinkedIn to make arrest in torching of Philadelphia police cars - fortran77
https://6abc.com/fbi-etsy-linkedin-used-to-make-arrest-in-police-car-arson/6252215/
======
bosswipe
LinkedIn has become basically a requirement for applying for many jobs making
it one of the hardest public profiles for the privacy conscious to hide from
Google. I have a pretty common name, which is normally a good anonymity cloak,
but if you also know my profession then my Linkedin profile pops up as the
first Google result revealing many accurate personal details about me.

~~~
akersten
Is it really that popular nowadays? I remember it feeling like it was an
antiquated platform 6 or 7 years ago before my latest job, and in my head I
now imagine it as a MySpace-like dinosaur website. Has it made a resurgence? I
might just be ignorant.

~~~
bosswipe
The reason employers love LinkedIn is that it makes it a lot harder to lie
about your work history since it links all your companies and coworkers. In a
way it serves a similar function to credit reporting bureaus in providing an
accurate background check. This is also why cops love it.

~~~
tomc1985
Terrorists too. I've read about ISIS using it to learn more about people they
kidnapped

------
neonate
Jesus. A 33 year old massage therapist with a peace tattoo. This is getting
surreal. I feel a little sorry for her, not because she got caught (the crime,
if she did it, is what it is) but because over and above that, she is about to
become the target of a torrent of pent-up rage and counteragression from the
right, who now have a perfect symbol to direct it at. (I feel the same way for
the targets from the left too. My sympathies are with witches, not witch
hunters.)

~~~
NE2z2T9qi
Under normal circumstances, society gets pretty angry at arsonists
irrespective of their political beliefs. Do you also feel bad for the guy who
mailed CNN pipe bombs?

~~~
BoorishBears
I don't expect to see this kind of childish logic on HN. You really think
burning an abandoned police car is the same as mailing explosives to a news
team?

~~~
NE2z2T9qi
Is this some sick joke? Do you really not see how arson and explosives are
absolutely comparable crimes? The arson which accompanied looting in
Philadelphia caused a massive fire in downtown Philly which could have easily
killed people. Your apologism for serious crimes because I guess it suits your
political biases is not OK.

~~~
antihero
Repeat after me: Cars do not have feelings. Cars do not have families.

~~~
leereeves
Fire spreads.

~~~
kerkeslager
Are you claiming that fire from an unoccupied police car somehow spreads over
non-flammable cement/asphalt? If so, you may have some misconceptions about
the nature of fire.

I think it's fairly clear that this fire was not intended to spread and had
little chance of spreading.

To be clear, I'm not saying what she did was right--but I am saying that if we
look at intentions and what was likely to happen, this clearly was not done
with the intent of destroying anything but property.

And to be clear, if you look at the George Floyd murder and protests, and your
biggest concern is the torching of two unoccupied police cars, you aren't
concerned about justice or public safety.

~~~
leereeves
Cars are usually filled with gasoline that can spill and spread. Sparks and
flames can blow quite some distance and start secondary fires. Police cars
probably have ammo inside too, that can ignite. Toxic fumes can blow quite
some distance, even into people's homes.

I'm sure that wasn't her intention, but serious fires are started by people
who didn't intend to do anything more than have a campfire or fireplace. It's
reckless, and it's counter-productive, turning people against the protests.

And just to be clear, it's entirely possible to be concerned about both police
brutality and arson.

~~~
kerkeslager
> And just to be clear, it's entirely possible to be concerned about both
> police brutality and arson.

Well, first of all, "police brutality" is not the worst problem or the problem
that incited these protests. Police _murder_ is.

Second, if you're concerned about both of these things, then there's no reason
to talk about putting protestors in jail. She didn't set fire to a police car
because she didn't know there might be consequences. She set fire to a police
car because those consequences _don 't matter to her_. If you care about both
police murder and arson, then you should be talking about stopping police
murder, because that's the cause of the arson.

Focusing on the violent components of the protests is part of a strategy that
controls the narrative. At every turn, kneeling on a man's neck for 8 minutes
and 46 seconds while he begs for his life and slowly dies is being downplayed
--calling it "police brutality"\--the same term used for slamming someone
against a cop car while you handcuff them. And at every turn, things like
burning a police car are being _played up_ , calling it arson--the same term
used for torching a city block with children inside. And in fact, people in
this thread won't even call it arson when Philly PD actually _did_ torch 61
homes, killing 5 children[1]. Where are the people insisting that we call
_that_ arson and bring the perpetrators to justice?

So yeah, it's possible to be concerned about both police brutality and arson,
but "police brutality and arson" is not what's happening. "A police officer
murdering a man and a woman setting fire to two unoccupied, isolated police
cars" is a much more proportional description of the events. And if your main
concern here is making sure that the woman who lit the police cars on fire is
brought to justice, you _aren 't proportionally_ concerned about both these
things.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#1985_bombing)

------
d2v
Fun fact: the Philadelphia Police Department also likes starting fires. 35
years ago, they used plastic explosives to blow up the house of the MOVE
group, killing most of the people inside (including five children). Instead of
putting out the fires, the city allowed a good chunk of the predominantly
black working class neighborhood to burn to the ground. The city did get sued
in 2005 in a civil trial for burning down the houses, but no one from the city
government has been criminally charged for the attack. That seems like the
kind of terrorist act that the FBI would investigate, but I guess they have
different priorities.

~~~
qbaqbaqba
How is that related? Are you justifying violence?

~~~
antihero
Just saying, certain people are very very happy to point out the violence of
the oppressed, yet throw a hissy fit when people point out the violence of the
oppressor.

~~~
qbaqbaqba
Justifying is not pointing out.

------
guerrilla
This is precisely why black bloc tactics [1] are employed: cover tattoos, wear
generic clothes and everybody looks basically the same. I'm sure it's far less
effective today but avoiding this kind of thing was the original point.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc)

~~~
aaronchall
Well we do want arsonists brought to justice, don't we?

~~~
mindslight
Sure, but let's prioritize murder and aggravated assault before property
crime.

~~~
jeffdavis
Arson is not generally considered a property crime, because it is a major
threat to public safety.

~~~
Agentlien
The Swedish word for arson is even "mordbrand", literally "murder fire".

~~~
AllanHoustonSt
That’s pretty metal.

------
millzlane
I'm surprised that the people charged with investigating her clicked on every
single link in google and read every review. That shirt is all over the
internet. Seems like a needle in a haystack.

~~~
neonate
Parallel construction?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction)

~~~
Smoosh
I'm also suspicious that the article keeps emphasizing "amateur photos given
to authorities" as if they are deliberately steering away from the term
"police surveillance footage" or perhaps "images obtained by scanning social
media".

While I have no issue with police investigating lawbreakers, the public should
know what the police are doing and how, so they can be confident that police
are correctly following the law while executing their duty.

But perhaps I'm reading too much into that wording, and in fact some
protesters who took photos thought the arson was over-reach, so they supplied
the photos to the police.

~~~
elliekelly
You’re definitely right. This twitter thread uses excerpts from the charging
documents to explain the steps the FBI took:
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1273098216775524355.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1273098216775524355.html)

~~~
icebraining
That thread suddenly disappeared, and one which is claimed to be a
"reconstructed" copy in another profile has disappeared too, it's so weird.
It's not like the original PDF isn't online still.

------
schnable
One interesting note - she's being charged federally, not by local Philly PD.

~~~
vaadu
She crossed state lines?

~~~
qes
It isn't necessary to "cross state lines" to be charged with a federal crime.

~~~
clamprecht
Did it affect interstate commerce?

~~~
roywiggins
I don't have a copy of the indictment, but in other police car cases they've
used the fact that the car itself was imported, therefore destroying it
affects international commerce.

------
justaguyhere
The article says she faces upto 10 years in prison plus $250K fine. Doesn't 10
years in prison seem excessive for destroying two cars?

~~~
jussij
Not as bad as 38 years in prison for a $9 robbery.

[https://www.essence.com/news/willie-simmons-life-prison-
alab...](https://www.essence.com/news/willie-simmons-life-prison-alabama-
habitual-offender/)

~~~
jacobush
Meanwhile, Wall Street is still at large.

~~~
jussij
And funnily enough it looks like the top end of town is at it again:

[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wirecard-shares-slump-over-
mi...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wirecard-shares-slump-over-
missing-110421720.html)

------
manfredo
While it's not exactly a novel technique (I've read similar stories since the
early 2010s at least), I'm continuously surprises by how much people are able
to glean from inferences and online sources. The saga of the "he will not
divide us" flag is particularly impressive.

~~~
def8cefe
It's called OSINT and it's been around a lot longer than 2010.

~~~
reaperducer
_It 's called OSINT and it's been around a lot longer than 2010._

I listened to a 1940's episode of Dragnet a couple of days ago, and it was
pretty much the same thing. Burglar was identified by photographs, his job,
and a tattoo.

This is just normal police work. People make a big deal out of it because it's
"Cyber" this and "e" that.

~~~
taborj
_Dragnet_ is good, but I much prefer _Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar_

~~~
reaperducer
The man with the gold-plated expense account!

~~~
svieira
"action-packed" expense account, actually :-D

------
fortran77
It's impressive how anyone can be "doxxed" these days. A few clues, each with
a few bits of information, and soon enough you have a unique identifier.

~~~
daenz
Related: an analysis on Light's mistakes in Death Note
[https://www.gwern.net/Death-Note-Anonymity](https://www.gwern.net/Death-Note-
Anonymity)

~~~
evan_
Maybe the FBI has someone with Shinigami eyes on staff

------
ponsin
> During the violence that began around City Hall following peaceful protests,
> Blumenthal allegedly set fire to both vehicles.

I love how the msm feels the need to specify that the protests that resulted
in Police cars bring burned, stores bring looted and cops being shot were
"peaceful protests" up until the incident. Imagine if they talked about the
Charlottesville rally as largely peaceful until the deadly car attack.

~~~
lostcolony
I dunno; I feel like there's something about white supremacy, fascism, and
literal nazism, that maybe precludes calling it "peaceful".

~~~
ponsin
That sounds sort of like the reverse-halo effect fallacy. Believe it or not
terrible people don't necessarily do terrible things every time they do
somethings. For example, Fidel Castro caused Cuba to have one of the highest
literacy rates in the world. That is true no matter how many people he
imprisoned, tortured or killed. Similarly people can peacefully protest even
if they are white supremacy, fascism, or _neo_ nazis (pet peeve of mine, but I
wouldn't call someone a literal nazi unless they were literally a member of
the National Socialist German Workers' Party between 1920 and 1945).

~~~
lostcolony
When people are wearing swastikas on their arm and giving Hitler salutes, I'ma
call them a literal nazi regardless of it no longer being 1945.

I'm also not really concerned what 'positives' their agenda might include,
given the violence that is explicitly part of the ideology they are
identifying with.

Even for those who aren't literally wearing symbols of the Nazi party, white
supremacy isn't a non-violent ideology. It fundamentally seeks to supress,
remove, or otherwise contain non-whites. Putting non-whites in camps is still
violent. Expelling them from the country they were born into and lived in
their entire lives is still violent. Etc. And if there's a "nice" white
supremacist, who is "well, I think whites are better, but you know, live and
let live, right?" I'm pretty sure they're not out marching.

------
electro_blah
Probably used [https://clearview.ai/](https://clearview.ai/) ?

~~~
vmception
lol, no. they just looked at the t-shirt she was wearing in the videos, found
where the t-shirt was sold, saw a review which said they were in philadelphia,
googled the username of the reviewer, and eventually found the place they
worked

actually investigative work

no subpoena's, no user profile aggregators

its the most acceptable use of public resources and is hardly news in 2020 but
its nice to read that public servants will do some basic stuff like this.

~~~
electro_blah
or parallel construction.

~~~
Thorrez
Would finding this path through parallel construction be easier than finding
it through forward construction? The forward construction just seems more
logical to me.

~~~
chishaku
The point is that the path potentially being concealed could be illegal.

It if were parallel construction, the intent would be for the forward
construction to seem more logical to you.

In this case, you could be proving the efficacy of the tactic.

~~~
Thorrez
> It if were parallel construction, the intent would be for the forward
> construction to seem more logical to you.

Yeah I agree that when parallel construction happens they make the parallel
case a logical one. But that involves making a parallel case. You're saying
that the shirt -> Etsy -> Poshmark -> Linkedin chain was not created in that
order and was created in some other order. I don't see how it's logical that
it could be created in some other order, even with illegal evidence.

~~~
chishaku
I don't know what happened and haven't looked closely enough to have an
opinion. I was only noting in response to your comment that in the
hypothetical case of parallel construction, the parallel case would seem
logical.

Beyond this specific case, I think the point of parallel construction is an
interesting one because it makes it really difficult to know the "truth" where
law enforcement have significant control over the flow of information.

Sometimes traditional or other media can help with the information asymmetry
but sometimes, perhaps, not.

~~~
Thorrez
Yeah, I think I agree. My main original point wasn't simply that the accused
parallel case was logical, but that it was more logical than any other case
even if we assume illegal evidence was involved.

This is as opposed to say a police officer pulling over a drug dealer's car
full drugs for failing to use a turn signal. If we assume illegal evidence was
involved there, it's most logical the police were given some heads-up that
there would be a drug dealer with a car full of drugs in the area to pull
over, and the failing to signal on a turn was just used as a convenient
excuse.

------
dafoex
Part of me wants to argue if this is even newsworthy. "Person arrested for
arson was identified through investigation of publicly available information"
is not a novel headline, but the moment you mention that the information was
online is the moment Jo Public thinks the police hacked the internet. People
in this thread have already mentioned Open Source INTelligence, or OSINT, so I
don't think I need to say that Google search is not the same as cracking
accounts.

------
itchyjunk
Seems like these two links might be relevant. The case [0] and the charge [1]

[0] [https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17253155/united-
states-...](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17253155/united-states-v-
blumenthal/)

[1]
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/844](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/844)

------
mywittyname
There's no way the evidence listed is sufficient to pursue prosecution. A
peace tattoo and an etsy t-shirt? I certainly wouldn't allow that to go to
trial if I were on a grand jury.

She'll likely plead out, so we'll never know what they actually have on her.

~~~
catalogia
Not just any peace tattoo, but a particular peace tattoo. A particular color,
position, size, etc. There are plenty of bits of information encoded in such a
thing, I think you're understating it a bit.

------
bra-ket
awesome work

------
tootahe45
Massage therapist lol. Bet she has a PHD too.

------
m0zg
Maximum sentence is 10 years, she's unlikely to get that, but _minimum_ is 5
years IIRC. That's a _long_ time. And then you're a felon and you can't find a
decent job. What was the calculus there, I wonder? Under what circumstances
would a person rationally consider torching a police cruiser to be worth the
risk of 5 years in the slammer?

~~~
koyote
Apparently she picked up an already burning piece of wood and threw it in. So
it's less likely that she left the house that morning with the intent of
torching cars.

In the moment, with everyone and everthing going on around her, I doubt she
was thinking rationally or even knew that torching a car would be a long
prison sentence. (if someone asked me before reading this article, I would
have assumed a large fine + some community service maybe; then again I am not
American so I have no idea how sentences compare).

~~~
reaperducer
_In the moment, with everyone and everthing going on around her, I doubt she
was thinking rationally or even knew that torching a car would be a long
prison sentence_

"Everyone else was doing it" didn't fly with my mom, and probably won't get a
pass from Judge Wapner, either.

~~~
GurnBlandston
"Everyone else was doing it" is pretty close to "nobody else got in trouble
for it".

Which is the logic behind Qualified Immunity.

~~~
drocer88
No. The reasoning is to protect police from frivolous lawsuits and financial
liability in cases where they acted in good faith in unclear situations. If
you want to get rid of it, get rid of it for all government employees,
including elected officials.

------
noxer
I wonder if when they found someone who set a police car on fire, will he be
charged to pay for it or whill they put him in prison and feed him with tax
(or printer goes brrrrr) money?

~~~
jeffdavis
She was charged criminally. The PD could also bring a civil suit for her to
pay for the damage, but they probably won't bother.

------
def8cefe
I'm shocked less by the fact the person was identified and more by the fact
the person didn't feel the need to cover up an identifying tattoo or a
limited-run t-shirt _they left a review for_ while committing a felony. I'm
starting to think criminals are stupid.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
> _I 'm starting to think criminals are stupid._

That is a really dangerous move and doesn't really line up with my
experiences. This woman was pretty stupid. She's not a criminal though, she's
a massage therapist.

~~~
rurp
Wait, what!? How does torching a police car not count as a criminal act?

~~~
throwawaygh
There are at least three readings of hoorayimhelping's post:

1\. This person is not a criminal in some particular all-encompassing sense of
the word. I.e., some people commit one-off crimes of passion while others make
a lifestyle/career out of crime. Presuming that the latter are stupid because
the former are stupid is dangerous because organized criminals have learned
good internet op-sec. That's interesting.

2\. Thinking of people who commit crimes as "criminals" and making blanket
assumptions about the criminal element is a mistake. That might be a well-
trodden critique, but it's interesting enough that there have been some (quite
influential) books written around the topic. This seems like the more likely
intent. Thinking about how the social phenomena induced by the internet and
social media interact with those 20th century ideas about identity and
subjectivity might result in an interesting conversation. E.g., suppose
torching a cop car was an act of passion and this person's name is now forever
associated with a crime of passion. That seems... new and different...
relative to 30 years ago. Back then, you could just move somewhere new where
no one knew your past; as long as you didn't become a criminal in that new
place, you could basically start over. What might be the societal implications
of continuing to assign "criminal" as a dominant identity in the age of an
internet that never forgets?

3\. hoorayimhelping believes that there is no law in the US which prohibits
the torching of cop cars.

The first two are charitable interpretations that might result in curiosity-
driven conversation (in which you may or may not want to participate). The
third.... isn't so charitable and is unlikely to go anywhere.

~~~
ryandrake
Whether someone "is a criminal" should have something to do with how much of a
regular part of their life it is. Just like someone who smoked a joint once 20
years ago isn't considered a drug user, someone who committed a one-off crime
isn't a criminal.

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
We are down pretty deep into pedantry at this point, but... Current definition
is that someone who has committed a crime and been convicted is a criminal. If
that crime is a felony, they are also a felon. Depending on the state of
residence, felons may have voting rights suspended, may be disqualified from
jobs, loans, educational grants, etc.

You are right to point out that we usually use the noun "criminal" more to
refer to someone that makes a habit of crime or makes their living from crime.

And I'll also add that the word "criminal" is often used to imply someone is
subhuman. Possibly subconsciously, but it's common to see people outraged by
police brutality only if they think an innocent person is the victim. Things
like "no innocent person should be treated that way." I think this is the
primary objective of the ever-present ad-hominem attacks such as "well he was
no angel."

~~~
throwawaygh
I don't think this is "deep into pedantry". I think it's probably one aspect
of _the_ most important conversation we need to have about the effect that
"organizing the world's information" has on society.

The extraordinary permanence of certain aspects of identity ("criminal",
"felon", "rapist", "racist", etc.) in the information age is radically
different from how identity has worked for the past 100 years or so. The
possibility of "starting over" is gone.

------
beervirus
I mean... good?

Sounds like the kind of internet sleuthing I'd expect to see on 4chan. Glad to
see the FBI was able to leverage those techniques too.

~~~
alwayseasy
I'd expect the FBI to be better at it than 4chan though.

~~~
csmiller
HWNDU and that air strike in Syria were pretty impressive though.

------
microtherion
TL;DR the suspect wore a T-shirt sold by an etsy shop where they left a
review.

Reading the title, I was wondering whether an artisanal torch was used on the
police car.

~~~
manfredo
[https://youtu.be/TBb9O-aW4zI](https://youtu.be/TBb9O-aW4zI)

~~~
kmstout
Keep some of this on hand:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUv7NQelex0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUv7NQelex0)

------
drewcoo
They catch them with Etsy and LinkedIn. Or at least construct that evidence
path post facto? Ok, sure. Seems normal.

But is there a Kickstarter legal defense fund?

~~~
rsweeney21
I'm curious if you really think that it is ok to set fire to a police car? If
so, what's the logic? Because my understanding of the first amendment (i.e.
the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances) does not protect you if you commit crimes.

~~~
thewebcount
If the police are indiscriminately killing members of my race simply because
they're afraid of people from my race, I don't think a little property damage
to draw attention to that fact is really an equivalent response. So yeah, I'm
OK with setting fire to a police car in this circumstance.

But the bigger question is, did they really find the person doing the work
they claimed or did they use parallel construction to hide illegal use of
surveillance tools?

~~~
GhostVII
Based on the metrics I have seen, police are not indiscriminately killing any
particular race - deaths from police are not too far off of the crime rates by
race. Police killings is a problem, but does not seem to be a problem targeted
at any particular race.

~~~
lostmyoldone
I looked into it a few years ago. Because it's also about structural racism,
you need to compare rastes and numbers with comparable international figures,
as there are biases stacked upon biases if you only look at domestic relative
rates. Those crime statistics you cited, try to compare them to some other
first world countries. Look at incarceration rates, convication rates, ratio
of jury trials, and percentages of subpopulations in prison at any one time,
and as long as you are willing to accept it, you'll soon start to see a very
clear pattern. You'll see that US crimes statistics over ethnicity and income
doesn't look like anything, or anywhere else at all. It's bizarrely skewed,
not subtle at all.

~~~
GhostVII
Crime statistics are definitely skewed, and discrimination is a huge part of
that. But the question is not whether black people are being killed at a
higher rate due to discrimination, the question is whether black people are
being killed at a higher rate because the police are targeting them due to
their race. The answer to the former is definitely yes - due to a variety of
factors including discrimination black people commit more violent crimes and
as a result are killed by the police more frequently. I think the answer to
the latter is no, there is not strong evidence that police officers are more
likely to kill black people over white people in the same situation.

------
aaron695
I'd bet the police did none of this but a hive mind somewhere which handed the
info over.

~~~
jedberg
You're getting downvoted but you're probably 1/2 right. It probably wasn't a
"hive mind" but it probably was a 3rd party that is an expert in computer
forensics. It's pretty common for the government to hire 3rd party contractors
for this type of thing.

~~~
tick_tock_tick
4chan internet detective!

------
gohbgl
Now they have to find the clown who stole the rifle from a police car in
Seattle and got disarmed by Shooter Rughi.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVAMUejexa0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVAMUejexa0)

------
frabbit
This is why black bloc: it's a tactic, not a group. Mass anonymity, reduce
individual identifying marks.

------
slg
Ironically, doesn't this partially disprove one of the major complaints
against the abolish police movement that we need police to solve crimes?
Preventing and solving crime usually doesn't require a gun. It may be time to
specialize and have less generic police and more non-violent investigators,
social workers, mental health experts, crisis workers, etc.

~~~
Gibbon1
I think most countries most cops don't carry guns. Even in the US most
security guards don't. My preference would be ban handguns and have far less
armed police. And much higher vetting for cops that do carry.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> My preference would be ban handguns

We can’t even get assault rifles banned, good luck banning hand guns.

~~~
jeffdavis
All rifles combined -- including "assault rifles" \-- are involved in fewer
murders than knives. Also involved in fewer murders than hands/fists. This is
true even in states where laws for obtaining them are very lax:

[https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-
the-u.s.-...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-
the-u.s.-2018/tables/table-20)

~~~
Gibbon1
That's my point. For all the demonization of rifles and assault rifles,
handguns are the bulk of the problem.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
But I think handguns would be even harder politically to ban.

~~~
Gibbon1
Big problem is the Supreme Court said states can't ban handguns. Which is sort
of insane because they allow states to ban 'assault weapons' and sawed off
shotguns.

