Based on the original news coverage I though this mob was just a few clown youtube activists leading a bunch of angry protesters. Someone here on HN corrected me and digging a bit deeper it appears that the corporate news missed a lot of details.
It turns out that everyone knew who would be there, what weapons they would have and their intentions. The only thing they got wrong AFAIK was the clothing. The militia that usually wear Hawaiian shirts were in plain clothes but they were still spotted instantly. Here is a documentary that covers this fairly well and everything leading up to it. [1] No covert communications. The militias were using public podcasts and social media sites to communicate and coordinate with one another and people were using machine learning to predict their actions quite accurately.
The bit I don't quite understand is why the Whitehouse had only a normal contingent of police in standard gear. These police were barely equipped to deal with a black Friday sale at Walmart much less a massive mob with some militia stirring them up.
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Based on the original news coverage I though this mob was just a few clown youtube activists leading a bunch of angry protesters. Someone here on HN corrected me and digging a bit deeper it appears that the corporate news missed a lot of details.
It turns out that everyone knew who would be there, what weapons they would have and their intentions. The only thing they got wrong AFAIK was the clothing. The militia that usually wear Hawaiian shirts were in plain clothes but they were still spotted instantly. Here is a documentary that covers this fairly well and everything leading up to it. [1] No covert communications. The militias were using public podcasts and social media sites to communicate and coordinate with one another and people were using machine learning to predict their actions quite accurately.
The bit I don't quite understand is why the Whitehouse had only a normal contingent of police in standard gear. These police were barely equipped to deal with a black Friday sale at Walmart much less a massive mob with some militia stirring them up.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v22xC09WSVc