SEDITION HUNTERS: How January 6th Broke the Justice System, a primer on how to build a useable dossier

SEDITION HUNTERS: How January 6th Broke the Justice System
RYAN J. REILLY
PublicAffairs Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$32.50 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The January 6th attack is an unprecedented crime in American history. Sprawling and openly political, it can't be handled by the traditional rules and norms of law enforcement—threatening the very idea of justice and its role in society.

The attack on the Capitol building following the 2020 election was an extraordinarily large and brazen crime. Conspiracies were formed on social media in full public view, the law-breakers paraded on national television with undisguised faces, and with outgoing President Donald Trump openly cheering them on. The basic concept of law enforcement—investigators find criminals and serve justice—quickly breaks down in the face of such an event. The system has been strained by the sheer volume of criminals and the widespread perception that what they did wasn't wrong.

A mass of online tipsters—"sedition hunters"—have mobilized, simultaneously providing the FBI with valuable intelligence and creating an ethical dilemma. Who gets to serve justice? How can law enforcement still function as a pillar of civil society? As the foundations of our government are questioned, the FBI and Department of Justice are the first responders to a crisis of democracy and law that threatens to spread, and fast.

In this work of extraordinary reportage, Ryan Reilly gets to know would-be revolutionaries, obsessive online sleuths, and FBI agents, and shines a light on a justice system that's straining to maintain order in our polarized country. From the moment the police barriers were breached on January 6th, 2021, Americans knew something had profoundly changed. Sedition Hunters is the fascinating, high-stakes story of what happens next.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Keep up the good work, join the good work, do not stop shadowing the 1500 pardoned criminals in all these ways. We cannot afford to lose sight of the ugliness despite the shift at the top. We are not off the hook or out of danger by any stretch...the examples and the morals pf these folks are not to be betrayed now by not continuing the good work they did despite the betrayal at the very top.

“The essence of a democracy is that each citizen gets to express his views, exercise his choice with the right to vote,” {a judge} said. “What you were trying to do was undo the indisputable result of other people’s votes and to do it by force. And you were trying to stop the singular thing that makes America America, the peaceful transfer of power. That’s what "stop the steal’ meant. And that’s exactly the opposite of what the Constitution means.”

“Over the course of...thirty months, about 594 defendants pleaded guilty to at least one federal charge, and another ninety-eight were found guilty at contested trials. Of the 561 defendants who were sentenced, 335 were given periods of incarceration. At that point, online sleuths said, nearly 1,000 additional Jan. 6 participants who committed chargeable conduct at the Capitol had been identified, but not yet arrested. (emphasis added) That number included more than 100 rioters who were featured on the FBI’s Capitol Violence webpage.”

Do you listen to true-crime podcasts? Today's the day to try your hand at sleuthing. There's no reason to let your skills get rusty while the current regime is in power. Those in power are not going to do the sleuthing now when they wouldn't then. It is worth remembering that literal hundreds of tips that January 6th was going to get bad were given to law enforcement...and ignored. Use your internet skills to keep tabs on these people, keep watching what they say they're going to do, and believe them when they say out loud what their plan is.

It might not prevent whatever is planned, but good records will always help a reckoning come about.

It really is up to us. Read this (overcomplicated, if well-sourced) book to see how effective collective action can be.