# Why can't the FBI just trace every phone inside the capitol building during the coup attempt **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 8, 2021, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-the-fbi-just-trace-every-phone-inside-the-capitol-building-during-the-coup-attempt/930069 "2021-01-08T22:03:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 41
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2021, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-the-fbi-just-trace-every-phone-inside-the-capitol-building-during-the-coup-attempt/930069/41 "2021-01-10T14:03:13Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > … the people who bear the most responsibility for inciting and driving the rebellion. … Actually, that part is trivial. It was Trump. 😉 It’s the intermediate ones who will be, as you say, difficult to pick out of the crowd. OTOH, one of the features of mobs in general is that they often aren’t really led. Once a group of vaguely like-minded people show up in one location, so called “mob psychology” takes over. Like a more sophisticated version of bird’s flocking behavior, everyone takes their cues from the surrounding people and waves of different behavior, be that violent or peaceful, just spread spontaneously through the crowd. Which is also why a tiny cadre of _agents provocatuers_ can be so effective. They can deliberately trigger very specific behaviors in the vastly larger crowd by being a critical mass of common behavior in one or two small clusters. That speaks to the events after the group was assembled and began marching towards the Capitol. How that particular list of individuals happened to show up that day may be much more amenable to identifying the movers and shakers who made it so. Or maybe not, and the “blame” lies entirely with the amorphous nature of the R.E.T.C.H. : > [@What's next for the pro-insurrectionists?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-next-for-the-pro-insurrectionists/929994/53): > > > [@What's next for the pro-insurrectionists?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-next-for-the-pro-insurrectionists/929994/52): > > > > The CEC has poisoned their minds. > > “CEC”? > [@What's next for the pro-insurrectionists?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-next-for-the-pro-insurrectionists/929994/54): > > Conservative Entertainment Complex. Led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck. > [@What's next for the pro-insurrectionists?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-next-for-the-pro-insurrectionists/929994/55): > > … > But it should be the “Reactionary Entertainment Complex”. Those folks left “conservative” some time back around 1985. 1990 at the latest. There is _nothing_ left of conservatism in their messages or their spokespeople. > [@What's next for the pro-insurrectionists?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-next-for-the-pro-insurrectionists/929994/56): > > Now it should be the Reactionary Entertainment Trump’s Complex of Hate. > > R.E.T.C.H. for short… 🙂 --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-the-fbi-just-trace-every-phone-inside-the-capitol-building-during-the-coup-attempt/930069)._