Sedition Hunters: Amateur Sleuths in Online Manhunt

to analyze. They call themselves the sedition Hunters, a community of ordinary people turned Internet sleuths who've spent hundreds of hours examining the videos, sharing cross referencing, and dissecting information on Twitter or in private group jets to bolster the FBI's official inquiry. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter David Yaffee Bellini. David tell us a little about Chris Siggerson. So, Chris Stoherson is an out of work actor in Canada.

I think, like a lot of people during the pandemic, he struggled to find full time work, kind of trying to figure out what to do. He adopted a lot of the common pandemic pastimes, like making sour dough bread and renovating his house and that kind of thing to

try to kill time. Then we get to January six, and like so many people around the world, he's just transfixed by what's happening at the Capitol, appalled, outraged, and also sort of curious and wants to learn more about what had happened and what the origins of it were.

So pretty early on in the weeks after January six, Chris Sigerson joined a kind of sort of loose network of people who soon labeled themselves sedition hunters, and what they did basically was sort through the reams of footage and photographs that emerged from the Capitol riot to try to figure out who was there and what those people did. So the simplest form of that was just identifications. You know, here are three different crowd photos, and look, I've identified

the same person in each of the shots. So it's clear that originally they were just part of the Capital and then they broke through these doors and they were in the main verse. And that that's the type of work that these people were doing. And in some cases they'd share their work publicly on Twitter, and other cases they send it straight to the SBI or to investigative journalists who are looking into the riot. And that was the kind of initial wave of activism from these groups

where people arrested because of this information they found. Yeah, I mean the way I became aware of these addition hunting efforts is that I spent a lot of my day reading through the arrest affidavits that are released every time of Capital rioters is charged in federal court in Washington, and so I started to notice these references to online

sedition hunting efforts. And that's because the sets were giving credit to these online flutes, saying you know, look, this person identified these three photos of the same guy and in the red mack a hat who entered the capital, and that allowed us to build up enough evidence to arrest him. And so, yeah, they've been really amazingly successful in kind of achieving concrete results. Is the FBI using

the footage that these sedition hunters are isolating. Yeah, and in some cases there were images that were isolated by the stition hunters that have been used by the FBI. In other cases, the FBI will release a really clear image of somebody in the sgian hunters will identify that person in other videos and say, oh, look, you know that person who you photographed walking into the Capitol was also in this group that was spraying police officers. That was the type of thing that these sort of slews

were trying to figure out. And since then, that's it's evolved in the kind of more ambitious projects. I mean, there are still people out there who yet to be identified, and they're still online position hunters working on that. But you've also got people who, having court through hundreds of hours of footage over the course of months, are now trying to figure out, like, what did this particular group

of Proud Boys do at the Capitol? Were they mobilizing in a certain way block exits and prevent people from escaping. Could that be a sign of coordination and planning, and can I build a broader narrative about what did that could help the FBI charge them with something more serious like conspiracy. That's the type of work that's happening now. Are they doing it because they like being amateur sleuths

or do they have deeper reasons? I think you've got a mixture of motivation that there are certainly people who just felt a kind of righteous outrage when they saw the video of the storming of the capital in January six and who just wanted to contribute to some effort to hold people responsibles who felt like they had a

kind of civic obligation to help out. And there's a feeling, especially now that Republicans and Congress have blocked the formation of an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the capital riots, that this might be one of the only ways to hold people responsible. These sorts of informal techniques. Then there are people who are just really fascinated on kind of a nerdy level by the technical challenges of sorting through all this stuff. You know, how to you organize hundreds

of hours of footage so it's easily searchable. How do you create a database of these images so that people who are doing those more complicated projects have somewhere to go? You know, how do you mobilize these disparate efforts and kind of channeled onto something really productive. So there are people, I think who were drawn to it for that reason. Then, you know, I think the pandemic played a role as well.

Like I was saying with Chris Dickerson, people had more time on their hands, they might be out of work, and they were able to dedicate times they wouldn't have been in an ordinary year. That resorted efforts, so it's really been a kind of wide range of things that's sort of fueling the sedition hunting and some websites have popped up, like sedition hunters dot org and jan six Evidence dot com, and they have a lot of information.

They're well designed and often feature pretty complex and sophisticated tools. I mean, one of these websites has a map where basically fits of video footage have been matched with specific GPS coordinates around the capital, so you can, you know, navigate to the east side of the capital and locate all the footage that was taken in that geographic area. And one of the people I talked to is working on a due feature for that map which would enable users to sort of plug in new video as they

find it. To think it's moderated so that this map is a kind of crowdsource thing that's constantly growing. Um there's also a website that has the Facial Recognition Database where you can drag and drop a photo and then it will turn off other photos taken on January six that appear to feature the same people, kind of allowing you to do that cross referencing work that would otherwise

be pretty strenuous and time consuming. There is also a website that had a kind of gallery of the suspects with the best possible photos of to them, with hashtags that identify them, that make it easy for people in the online discourse to have the same sort of set of reference and say, you know, oh look it's hashtag red maga guy who's here? And even this other photo as well. There have been some mistakes and false steps made by the sedition hunters. Yes, there are major potential

tip faults with any crowdsourcing effort like this. If you think back to the Boston Marathon bombing, when Reddit users misidentified a suspect, that's the sort of risk the doubt there when you have untrained, essentially vigilantes conducting the sort of work in public. And so, yes, there was a retired firefighter from Chicago who was falsely accused online of participating in the riot. Actually he's hundreds of miles away doing nothing. That's the type Chuck Norris was falsely accused

of being there as well. But I think for the most part, these groups have done a pretty good job of limiting the amount of misidentification that goes on, and that's partly because they've learned from situations with the Boston marathon bombing, and these sorts of efforts have matured over the last decade. So you have major Twitter accounts that are organizing and mobilizing these efforts, saying to their followers, don't identify anybody publicly. You can refer to them by

their hashtags. That everybody in the community knows who you're talking about. Is that you can lay both different photos that's featuring the same person. But once you think you've identified this person by name, and send that information to the FBI or to an investigative journalists, to somebody who think do the final work of fact checking. And you know, for the most parts of these groups have stuck to that.

But look, it's an expansive network of people, some of whom were untrained, and you can't control everybody or stop people from breaking the rules, and some of them, maybe all of them, have fears themselves of being identified. Explain why a lot of people got into this, not for personal glory, but just because they wanted to participate in something like this and make a difference and fulfill some

sort of civic obligation. And so they kind of shy away from the limelight, and also I think rightly fear that were they to be publicly identified, they could be harassed online by Trump supporters or right wing groups could attempt to dock them to undermine their work in some way, And so a lot of the people that I talked to preferred not to be named, which was completely understandable. How many hours of day did they work at this, because it must have taken a mental toll for some

of them looking at these videos hour after hour. Yeah, it's arranged. I mean I talked to stay at home mom in the Pacific Northwest who would basically just spend a few hours every evening working on it once she was done with her regular daily obligations. But Chris diggrettson an actor in Canada because he was out of work with spending forty hours a week on this for the

first three months. Now, for some people, they've piled it back as they've moved on from that kind of initial rush of sorting through the footage and identifying people to the harder work of putting together these more complex conspiracy narratives. But you've still got people spending hours hours a day on this and there's still a kind of fast community that's fascinated by the riot. You describe it in your

story as an Internet subculture. How many people are involved in this, I mean, is it hundreds, is it thousands? That's sort of tough to estimate. I mean, if you were looking at the total number of people who were doing any form of tradition hunting at any point since January six, I'm sure it's in the thousands. The number who are still consideredly working on it is definitely much smaller, but it's still a kind of vibrant community that has its own sort of lingo and a set of hashtag

that it uses to communicate with each other. And it's become a really statisticated effort. Like I said, they've created this kind of online infrastructure, map, photo gallery, spacial recognition databases that members of the community can use to do these types of projects, which are becoming increasingly complicated in nature. You also have various academics who are starting to explore

January six related issues in more details. And so there's this kind of vibrant subculture that's forming around January six. You know, you can almost parallel it something like the Kennedy assassination and the sort of culture of obsessives that developed around that. I mean, here you've got people sort of fixating on the historical event and trying to understand it is that they can and to fill in the gaps that the government may have left it in its

own investigations. It's just fascinating. Thanks, David. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter David Jaffee Bellini. The first of President Joe Biden's judicial nominees were easily confirmed this week, beginning what Democrats who control the Senate have promised will be a fast moving effort to approve his picks for the federal bench. Joining me is Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond Law School, tell us about Julian Nils and

Regina Rodriguez. They were the first two district nominees who were confirmed. Judge Nils will fill one of six vacancies that's an emergency in the district of New Jersey. He's a long time lawyer in the district who was an Obama nominee but was never given a final vote. We nominated by Biden and confirmed pretty overwhelmingly six to thirty. Three to fill that emergency. And so that's great in terms of the priority that was set by confirming him.

The emergencies need to be filled in New Jersey is in an extreme situation because of the caseloads and the many vacancies. Rodriguez was confirmed for the District of Colorado, and I believe she fills an emergency as well. She also was a nominee President Obama, but did not get a hearing or committee vote. And she has been a federal prosecutor as well as a partner in a major law firm and done all kinds of interesting work in

the federal courts. It's interesting that neither of these got votes in the Senate when they were nominated by Barack Obama, but they did get Republican votes this time around. Yeah, And I think I speak to the quality of the nominees. They're both highly qualified, mainstream nominees with a lot of experience, and so Republicans don't really have a very good reason to vote again, and so that's why you see relatively

bipartisan votes still. I mean, there were Republicans who voted no, um, but they may just vote no on anyone unless the person is perfect. Uh, that's what I think you see reflected. But I would consider those votes for both of them to be bipartisan. Uh, and strongly so. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has teed up votes to limit debates on Judge Katangi Brown Jackson, and say, Karashi, why is he

limiting debate because he can't get unanimous consent? You need all hundred Senators to agree or not oppose before you cut off debate, and because some Republicans are withholding their consent, you have to have a cloture vote. Those have been used pretty frequently, both by Democrats with Trump nominees as well as Republicans, and it's fairly standard. But there are fifty votes if all the Democrats vote, and so there

shouldn't be an issue. So I think both Judge Jackson and Judge Kareshi, who's a magistrate judge in New Jersey, will have affirmative cloture votes, and then Karashi will have a confirmation vote later today after two hours of debate. You need thirty hours of debate for Judge Jackson because she's a nominee to the DC Circuit. Of all the Biden nominees, Totanji Brown Jackson is the one that I think most people know about. Tell us why, Well, she's

been a district judge. President Obama appointed her in two douzen thirteen. She's had a number of high profile cases. One that most people talk about involved the subpoena for Don McGann's testimony, where she wrote, I think a hundred page opinion and she had had a very strong hearing, answered clearly and comprehensively all of the question from both

sides of the aisle. And President Biden has promised to name a black woman to the first vacancy that he filled, and most people, let's say that she is the front runner for that position. Also, the DC Circuit is the second most important court in the country because of the kinds of cases that appears on appeal. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin pushed back on the Republican litmus test

for nominees that they must be originalists. Explain what originalism is and why the Republicans are so adamant about it at this point. Well, what Republicans are having about is a good question, and I think even strong originalists disagree about exactly what the definition is. But I think general notion is that originalists believe that you try to apply the Constitution away that the framers of the Constitution would have understood what they were doing in seventeen eighty nine,

and so that is somewhat controversial. But most people do also agree that you look at what the original meaning might have been to the extent you can tell what it is. But others say that the Constitution is a document that's meant to endure for over centuries, as it has.

And of course there are amendments, as Chuck Grassley said and yesterday as a retort to the chair saying, all of those amendments like the thirteen, fourteen and fifteen amendments, also must be looked at in terms of the original intent of the amendment strap and that's what the debate is about. Carl. When did originals become a doctrine of

such importance to Republicans? I don't recall questions about originalism being so important and Supreme Court confirmation hearings years ago as compared to today, well, I think it is relatively recent um and I think, for example, Justice Scalia was a strong proponent of originalism as to have been others. UM. And I think probably uh, partly it reflected some response to the Warren Courts Juris Britain. Um. Since you know

the nifties, nineteen sixties, seventies, UM. You know when um the for four fifth and sixth amendments and others uh, fourteenth Amendments were um read somewhat broadly. UM. And so there is in part originalism is a response to that. UM. But as Durban said and others have said, uh, in talking about originalism, UM, we know what the history of

the country was and and what the constitution looked like. Uh. And indeed women uh and African Americans were excluded really right because they didn't have votes and and slavery was written into the constitution until eighteen o eight. And so I think that's part of the response there. And of course women got the vote in nineteen or twice. So can you be an originalist and be what's considered a liberal judge, I don't know. Are there any well? Sure?

I mean, I do think even the justices like Kagan, uh and Soto, Mayor and Brier would say that you do look at the meaning originally, but they're not going to feel bound by what the understanding was at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, that's not all you look at, but you know, I think it's They would even agree, and many people who are moderate or centrist or even liberal would agree that you still start with the words and and understandings perhaps at the time

of adoption and then but again, as Marcel and others said from the Supreme Court um that the Constitution is a document for all times, and there has to be some flexibility in terms of understandings at the time and different understandings today as the nation evolved. At this hearing, there were Unice Lely, who's nominated the Second Circuit, and Veronica ross And who's nominated to the Tenth Circuit, tell

us about their backgrounds. Well. Biden pledged as a candidate and sinned to nominate and confirm people whom are diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ideology, and experience, and the White House Council, thea Remus and the President have stressed that with their first set of nominees and the subsequent ones, the two who were for the appeals courts, they both have law pretty long records as federal public

defenders and so they're basically criminal defense attorneys, and that reflects experiential diversity that is sometimes lacking. For example, in the second Circuit, Lee would be the only person who brings that experience is to that important court. And so

that's what you see reflected in those two nominations. It's no secret that many judges on both the district and appellate bench in the federal system our former prosecutors usually in U. S. Attorney offices, but uh, they overwhelmingly out number the federal public defenders or are their criminal defense attorneys. So trying to have some balance there in terms of experience, and so that's what you see reflected in the backgrounds

of those two nominees. The Republicans on the committee were focused on how these nominees with experience primarily in criminal cases, would fair in cases involved in civil litigation, which is more common on the appellate level. Does that really matter, Well, that's a good question. There were some questions, especially from Senator Cotton, about experiencing civil litigation, and I don't think

that there is a real problem here. Many people go on the bench, both at the circuit and district level, who come from a predominantly civil or predominantly criminal background, and so the questions always asked or often asked by senators, um, if you haven't engaged in that kind of practice, can you um master the other times a practice? And to me it's more critical perhaps at the district level than

it would be at the pellate level. And even the questions that we're asked, for example, by Senator Cotton are ones that are pretty basic that, um, you know, require you to look either at the Constitution or the federal rules of civil procedure, for example. And so I don't think there is a problem that warrants a no vote. UM. We'll see what happens, but I think that the senators

are probing, um, whether people have relevant experience. Rossman, on the other hand, did say that she had engaged in some civil practice prior to becoming a federal public defender. So that's that's the issue, And I think most senators are satisfied that Lee is extremely intelligent and done incredible work as a federal public defender state public defender for

a couple of decades. Republican Senator John Kennedy was very critical of Lee because she said she doesn't have a personal judicial philosophy, and he said, you're going to be on the United States Court of Appeals if you're confirmed, and you don't have a judicial philosophy about how the United States Constitution should be interpreted. I mean, do you need to have a judicial philosophy? Well, a lot of

people think you don't necessarily have to have one. And he really wasn't very clear about what he meant uh in asking a question, and so the nominee I think wasn't sufficiently responsive to him what he wanted. But I think he was looking for a commitment. Are you an originalist?

And that's in a way an unfair question um in the sense that you can't answer it in a way that necessarily satisfies the question to some extent, because it it's subtle, and originalism means different things to different people. And so I think she was saying basically that she understands about conciitutional interpretation, but she doesn't have a philosophy of it. She's not doesn't come to it as an originalist or the other kind of epithet that conservatives often

used is the living Constitution. Kennedy didn't say that, but I think it was implicit in his question, and again, as durban point has pointed out, UM the Republican nominees from Trump, Austen refused to answer the question. Questions of that sort as well coming from Democrats about UM their philosophies.

So I think what we're seeing a lot of times is just the reverse of what we saw with Trump is Democrats are also being cautious and using UM the same kind of defensive tactics to protect their nominee, which shouldn't be surprised. The Senators who oversee the federal judiciary are requesting ten years worth of travel records for Supreme Court justices. Why the travel records in it? What are

they trying to do? Well? There was a letter that came from Sheldon White, has his chairs the subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee on Federal Courts oversight the acts in Federal Rights and a center eternity as a ranking member on that committee, the highest ranking Republicans, and they sent a letter they want to have more transparency at the court in terms of possible conflicts of interest, I think, and perhaps some kind of standards or ethical code, which

of course does bind the lower federal court judges, but there isn't this sort of same requirement at the Supreme Court level. And so it's really, I think, an effort to have more transparency around possible conflicts and astex questions that might be at issue for the justices. There are

questions about that. It's ah and it's difficult. I think that people like Justice Kagan and others have said that Chief Justice Roberts is seriously considering whether it introduced a conduct code for the Supreme Court justices, and that may be a good idea, but there are concerns about separation of powers. You know, how much should Congress require the Supreme Court who comply with certain strictures that Senators might think are important. They have to tread lightly, and it's

a delicate issue. I think that eventually something will be put into place, because, of course, Keef Justice Roberts deeply cares about the reputation of the Supreme Court and its credibility with the American people. As an institutionalist, I think why might be moved in that direction. So I think that's what this initiative is about. More transparency at the

Supreme Court, perhaps more by way of ethics requirements. But I don't know whether Congress is going to pass legislation to that effect because of the separation of powers questions. Thanks Carl. That's Professor Carl Tobis of the University of Richmond Law School. And that's it for the sedition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always at the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot

bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg