THEGLEANER.COM TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2021 5A WASHINGTON The FBI arrested one man after a co-worker at a western Maryland restaurant reported seeing him in images of people assaulting the U.S. Capitol. A Texas man was charged after his ex-wife recognized him in a social- media video and called authorities. Perhaps the most easily recognized interloper wore the same bearskin headdress with horns, and carried the same 6-foot spear, as he did on his Face- book page. Prosecutors called it tinctive in charging documents.
These and more details gleaned from court documents reveal how the FBI has quickly more than 275 sus- pects the number is expected to grow quickly related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. More than 98 have been arrested, often with the aid of video taken or so- cial media posted by the participants themselves. And investigators, aca- demics and citizen sleuths are still combing though broadcast footage and websites such as Twitter YouTube and even archives of the now-defunct Parler platform favored by right-wing activists. More than 140,000 pieces of digital media have been obtained by the FBI.
we are scouring every one for in- vestigative and intelligence said Steven assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Of- continue to ask for The FBI has opened a portal to accept tips and digital media depicting rioting and violence in and around the Capitol on Jan. 6, when a mob supporting Presi- dent Donald Trump swarmed the build- ing, scaling walls, breaking windows and beating police The siege left people dead, delayed the cation of President-elect Joe victory and sparked a backlash among lawmakers who impeached Trump on Wednesday. The FBI has declined to provide many details of how conducting the search, but one police department says helping the bureau link names and faces with facial recognition software. And a trail of location data left behind by the mobile phones could prove useful. Service providers are obli- gated to turn over information in re- sponse to search warrants.
While the digital dragnet has proven useful to law enforcement, it carries risks for the many volunteer sleuths who are reposting screen shots they al- lege are lawbreakers. Misidentifying someone as a rioter or even correctly identifying someone who was at the Capitol but not involved in criminal acts can be libelous, poten- tially triggering lawsuits and ex- pensive settlements with the people on the other end of those Twitter and Face- book Inc. posts. Authorities, meanwhile, are sifting methodically through the digital trail left by the mob. Arrest documents speak to the clues left in images, detail- ing all the co-workers and acquaint- ances led authorities to suspects after spotting their images in news re- ports or on social media.
Michael Sherwin, acting U.S. attor- ney for the District of Columbia, said there are of potential wit- that may lead to of criminal in an investigation that will stretch over months. Despite its magnitude, the investiga- tion to name and those who swarmed the Capitol will be relatively simple, said Milan Patel, former chief technology of the Cyber Di- vision. The agency can enlist Facebook and Twitter as well as the mobile carriers whose airwaves were used by rioters, Patel said. Patel outlined standard procedure.
Investigators can take one data point a photo, or a name or a social media iden- tity and subpoena Facebook or Twit- ter. ask for additional data, like that online persona, their posts, friends list, associated phone number, and data on their location. take this data and you start mapping out where these people are, where they were in the past and you start putting them at the scene of the Patel said. Like social media companies, tele- coms will be essential to investigations, and be obligated to maintain and turn- over subscriber call logs and location data once subpoenaed or presented with a warrant, said Jennifer Lynch, Surveillance Litigation Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Facebook has to quickly pro- vide responses to valid legal said Andy Stone, a spokesman for the company.
are removing content, disabling accounts, and working with law enforcement to protect against di- rect threats to public Wireless carriers also help authori- ties track suspects in investigations. are teams already working with law enforcement regarding what hap- Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Executive Hans Vestberg told reporters Jan. 10. At least one police department is helping investigators using facial recog- nition software.
Detectives in Miami have been uploading photos of potential suspects in the Capitol riot into a system provided by the closely held company Clearview AI. The are screening photos of potential suspects from materials pro- vided by the FBI, as well as from images they spot on social media and in news reports. So far, they have passed on at least six potential matches to the FBI, said Assistant Miami Police Chief Ar- mando Aguilar. only half the battle when we have video Aguilar said. other half is trying to identify the person in the video and making the case that the person we think is, in fact, our Clearview Chief Executive Hoan Ton-That said that since the Capi- tol riot his company has seen a spike in usage of its services.
Clients upload a photo and the sys- tem compares it to a database of billions of images scraped from LinkedIn, Face- book, Twitter and other social media platforms. raised concerns among civil liberty and privacy advocates. FBI has thousands of tips on the Capitol attack, and people posted their own information online from inside the said the Electronic Frontier Lynch. should be where this investigation begins, not on face-recognition rioters leave trail FBI has obtained more than 140,000 images A man seen in photos and video wearing a fur hat with horns was charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
MANUEL BALCE Todd Shields, Kartikay Mehrotra, Naomi Nix and Jennifer A. Dlouhy Bloomberg News Tribune News Service LOS ANGELES Richard Virgin Orbit reached space on Sunday, eight months after the demonstra- tion of its air-launched rocket system failed, the company said. A 70-foot-long LauncherOne rocket was released from beneath the wing of a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft the coast of Southern California, ignited moments later and soared toward space. The two-stage rocket carried a clus- ter of very small satellites known as Cu- beSats developed and built as part of a NASA educational program involving U.S. universities.
The launch occurred after the Boe- ing 747-400 took from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles and out over the Pacif- ic Ocean to a drop point beyond the Channel Islands. to telemetry, Launche- rOne has reached Virgin Orbit tweeted later. on the team who is not in mission control right now is going absolutely The upper stage coasted for a period, reignited to circularize the or- bit and then deployed the nine Cube- Sats. The developments were an- nounced on social media. The launch was not publicly livestreamed.
Virgin Orbit, based in Long Beach, California, is part of a wave of compa- nies targeting the launch market for in- creasingly capable small satellites, which may range in sizes comparable to a toaster on up to a home refrigerator. Competitor Rocket Lab, also head- quartered in Long Beach, has deployed 96 payloads in 17 launches of its Elec- tron rocket from a site in New Zealand. Another of its rockets was nearing launch Sunday. Virgin Orbit touts the of its capability to begin its missions by us- ing airports around the globe. Virgin Orbit attempted its dem- onstration launch in May 2020.
The rocket was released and ignited but only under power be- fore it stopped thrusting. The lost pay- load was only a test satellite. Virgin Orbit is separate from Virgin Galactic, the company founded by Branson to carry passengers on subor- bital hops. Virgin Orbit Boeing 747-400 rocket launch platform, named Cosmic Girl, takes off from Mojave Air and Space Port north of Los Angeles. MATT Virgin Orbit reaches space on second try John Antczak ASSOCIATED PRESS Kentucky reported far fewer coro- navirus cases in the week ending Sun- day, adding 23,050 new cases.
down from the previous toll of 26,799 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19. Kentucky ranked No. 12 among the states where coronavirus was spread- ing the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week, the United States added 1,523,301 reported cases of coro- navirus, a decrease of 11.1% from the week before. Across the country, nine states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.
Testing has changed around the holidays, making comparisons cult. Labs and testing sites closed. People traveled or prepared for the holidays instead of getting tested. Some counties and states report data as quickly. Across Kentucky, cases fell in 86 counties, with the best declines in Jef- ferson, Warren and Fayette counties.
The share of Kentucky test results that came back positive was 25.6% in the latest week, compared with 26.8% in the week before, a USA TODAY Net- work analysis of COVID Tracking Pro- ject data shows. In the latest week, 89,942 tests were administered; a week earlier, that was 99,995. Experts say it is important to look at the share of tests that come back posi- tive, not just case counts, to get a bet- ter idea of whether the rate of new in- fections is changing or if in testing are playing a role. The World Health Organization says places should be conducting enough tests to have fewer than coming back positive. Places where the percentage is higher could struggle to complete contact tracing soon enough to prevent spread of the virus.
Within Kentucky, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Morgan, Oldham and Clinton coun- ties. Adding the most new cases overall were County, with 3,498 cases; Fayette County, with 1,402 cases; and Kenton County, with 1,151. Weekly case counts rose in 34 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior pace were in Old- ham, Pulaski and Kenton counties. In Kentucky, 226 people were report- ed dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday.
In the week before that, 178 people were reported dead. A total of 326,674 people in Kentucky have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 3,127 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 23,933,368 people have tested positive and 397,574 people have died. New COVID-19 cases plummet in Kentucky Mike Stucka USA TODAY NETWORK Deaconess Henderson Hospital Emergency Room Physician Brandon Chappell receives one of the public Moderna COVID-19 vaccines from Medical Assistant Roxanne Buckman in Henderson. MACABE BROWN THE GLEANER.
