The FBI used a Philly protester's Etsy profile, LinkedIn, and other internet history to charge her with setting police cars ablaze

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philly-protests-arrests-fbi-lore-elisabeth-blumenthal-george-floyd-20200617.html

By Jeremy Roebuck
The Philadelphia Inquirer
June 17, 2020

As demonstrators shouted, fires burned outside City Hall, and Philadelphia 
convulsed with outrage over the death of George Floyd, television news 
helicopters captured footage of a masked woman with a peace sign tattoo and 
wearing a light blue T-shirt setting a police SUV ablaze.

More than two weeks after that climactic May 30 moment, federal authorities say 
they’ve identified the arsonist as 33-year-old Philadelphia massage therapist 
Lore Elisabeth Blumenthal by following the intricate trail of bread crumbs she 
left through her social media history and online shopping patterns over the 
years.

The path took agents from Instagram, where amateur photographers also captured 
shots of the masked arsonist, to an Etsy shop that sold the distinctive T-shirt 
the woman was wearing in the video. It led investigators to her LinkedIn page, 
to her profile on the fashion website Poshmark, and eventually to her doorstep 
in Germantown.

Their pursuit, described in court filings this week, sheds light on the extent 
to which the FBI and Justice Department have used news footage, online 
histories, and social media footprints to track down and identify demonstrators 
believed to be responsible for acts of violence or property destruction.

[...]

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