How do the American security services determine the identities of congressional intruders
In the wake of US President Donald Trump's supporters storming Congress on January 6 to boycott the vote validation hearing, the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies have launched an aggressive campaign to identify and arrest the intruders.
According to the American "Bloomberg" agency, what helped the FBI the most in identifying and arresting a large number of intruders was the reports it received from citizens who met people they saw in the photos and videos that record the incidents of the intrusions, whether those taken by journalists or those taken by them. The participants in the protests themselves and posted it through their accounts on social media platforms.
For example, the FBI has arrested a man working at a restaurant in Maryland who was reported by his co-worker, and another man from Texas reported by his ex-wife after she saw him in one of the photos.
As for the most famous prisoner of congressional storming, who was known in the Arab media by the nickname "Dhul Qarnayn", the FBI recognized him from pictures that he himself published on his Facebook account.
The agency stated that the FBI has so far managed to identify 275 people, depending on the incursion footage, and the number is likely to increase, of course, and has arrested 98 of them so far.
The FBI has viewed more than 140,000 photos and videos, according to Stephen Dantuno, assistant director of the FBI in Washington, DC, as the office has designated telephone and Internet communication channels to receive citizen reports about congressional intruders.
The FBI did not disclose the methods it uses in searching and identifying the identities of congressional intruders, but at least one US state police stated that it helps the office to identify names based on pictures and by using modern electronic facial recognition techniques, and the GPS is equipped with phones. Intruders greatly facilitate the task, as the law requires companies that provide GPS services to disclose suspects' data in such cases.
There is no doubt that social media platforms and the companies that own them play a very important role in determining the identities of suspects. By virtue of the law, companies such as Facebook and Twitter are obligated to hand over the security authorities' data on the suspects who appear in the photos and videos. Digital, and sometimes broadcast it themselves directly or recorded, including their posts, lists of friends, and even phone numbers and contact information stored on their phones.
Likewise, telecommunications companies are also obligated to hand over the security authorities to the data and records of the suspects' calls to determine their locations or the people who contacted them at the time of the occurrence of a particular crime.
Facial recognition techniques also helped in identifying a number of suspects, through the use of advanced programs to match the features of congressional intruders who appear in photos and videos with photos and citizen data stored with security services and government agencies.
