‘It’s your house now:’ Kentucky man and cousin face federal charges in US #Capitol riot – #lockthemup

A Kentucky man and his cousin accused of joining the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot that killed five people are facing federal charges, according to court records. Robert L. Bauer, of Cave City, and his cousin, Edward Hemenway of Winchester, Virginia, have pleaded not guilty to trespassing and knowingly entering a restricted building or grounds. They appeared in federal court Friday in Bowling Green. Penalties for the trespassing charge carry up to 10 years in prison if significant bodily injury resulted or if the individual used or carried a dangerous weapon or firearm during the offense. Charges are being filed against hundreds of protesters in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots spurred on by President Donald Trump, who has been impeached on a charge of insurrection for provoking the mob to contest Congress’ certification of the presidential electoral vote. According to the complaint, the FBI received an anonymous tip that Robert “Bobby” Bauer and his wife, Jenny, were at the Capital riots. In separate interviews with the FBI, they both said they walked down Pennsylvania Avenue with a crowd of people from the rally. (…) Bauer and Hemenway told the FBI after rushing into the building with the crowd, one Capitol Police officer greeted them with a hug and handshake and told them, “It’s your house now,” according to the complaint.

via journal: ‘It’s your house now:’ Kentucky man and cousin face federal charges in US Capitol riot

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Off-duty Virginia police officers arrested, accused of storming US Capitol

Two Virginia police officers, including one who bragged on social media that he didn’t do anything illegal by storming the U.S. Capitol, now face charges from the Department of Justice for their roles in the riot. Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson, who work for the Rocky Mount Police Department, were arrested Wednesday, the Justice Department said. Both were charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. The two men, who were off-duty at the time, were photographed inside the Capitol in front of a statue of John Stark, a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. At least one of the men made an obscene gesture in the photo, which was included in the DOJ’s statement of facts. The men then posted about the riot on social media, the federal agency said.

via usatoday: Off-duty Virginia police officers arrested, accused of storming US Capitol

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#Capitol #Police intelligence report warned three days before attack that ‘#Congress itself’ could be targeted – #terror


Three days before thousands of rioters converged on the U.S. Capitol, an internal Capitol Police intelligence report warned of a violent scenario in which “Congress itself” could be the target of angry supporters of President Trump on Jan. 6, laying out a stark alert that deepens questions about the security failures that day. In a 12-page report on Jan. 3, the intelligence unit of the congressional police force described how thousands of enraged protesters, egged on by Trump and flanked by white supremacists and extreme militia groups, were likely to stream into Washington armed for battle. This time, the focus of their ire would be members of Congress, the report said. “Supporters of the current president see January 6, 2021, as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election,” according to the memo, portions of which were obtained by The Washington Post. “This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent. Unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter-protesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th.”

via washington post: Capitol Police intelligence report warned three days before attack that ‘Congress itself’ could be targeted

DC Capitol Storming IMG 7948.jpg
By <a href=”//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TapTheForwardAssist&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1″ class=”new” title=”User:TapTheForwardAssist (page does not exist)”>TapTheForwardAssist</a> – <span class=”int-own-work” lang=”en”>Own work</span>, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

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Online far-right movements fracture in wake of #Capitol riot – #terror #QAnon

According to researchers who study the real-life effects of the QAnon movement, the false belief in a secret plan for Jan. 20 is irking militant pro-Trump and anti-government groups. Online far-right movements are splintering in the wake of last week’s Capitol riot, as some radical anti-government movements show signs of disillusionment with the relatively hands-off approach of some QAnon conspiracy theorists amid warnings of future violence. Users on forums that openly helped coordinate the Jan. 6 riot and called for insurrection, including 4chan and TheDonald, have become increasingly agitated with QAnon supporters, who are largely still in denial that President Donald Trump will no longer be in the Oval Office after Jan. 20. QAnon adherents, who believe Trump is secretly saving the world from a cabal of child-eating Satanists, have identified Inauguration Day as a last stand, and falsely think he will force a 10-day, countrywide blackout that ends in the mass execution of his political enemies and a second Trump term. (…) QAnon believers have spent the last week forwarding chain letters on Facebook and via text message, often removing the conspiracy theory’s QAnon origins, in an effort to prepare friends and family for what they believe to be the upcoming judgment day. According to researchers who study the real-life effects of the QAnon movement, the false belief in a secret plan for Jan. 20 is irking militant pro-Trump and anti-government groups, who believe the magical thinking is counterproductive to future insurrections.

via nbcnews: Online far-right movements fracture in wake of Capitol riot

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A Game Designer’s Analysis Of #QAnon

Playing with reality. I am a game designer with experience in a very small niche. I create and research games designed to be played in reality. I’ve worked in Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), LARPs, experience fiction, interactive theater, and “serious games”. Stories and games that can start on a computer, and finish in the real world. Fictions designed to feel as real as possible. Games that teach you. Puzzles that come to life all around the players. Games where the deeper you dig, the more you find. Games with rabbit holes that invite you into wonderland and entice you through the looking glass. When I saw QAnon, I knew exactly what it was and what it was doing. I had seen it before. I had almost built it before. It was gaming’s evil twin. A game that plays people. (cue ominous music)
QAnon has often been compared to ARGs and LARPs and rightly so. It uses many of the same gaming mechanisms and rewards. It has a game-like feel to it that is evident to anyone who has ever played an ARG, online role-play (RP) or LARP before. The similarities are so striking that it has often been referred to as a LARP or ARG. However this beast is very very different from a game. It is the differences that shed the light on how QAnon works and many of them are hard to see if you’re not involved in game development. QAnon is like the reflection of a game in a mirror, it looks just like one, but it is inverted. (…)
QAnon is a mirror reflection of this dynamic. Here apophenia is the point of everything. There are no scripted plots. There are no puzzles to solve created by game designers. There are no solutions. QAnon grows on the wild misinterpretation of random data, presented in a suggestive fashion in a milieu designed to help the users come to the intended misunderstanding. Maybe “guided apophenia” is a better phrase. Guided because the puppet masters are directly involved in hinting about the desired conclusions. They have pre-seeded the conclusions. They are constantly getting the player lost by pointing out unrelated random events and creating a meaning for them that fits the propaganda message Q is delivering.

via medium: A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon

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Far-right website 8kun again loses internet service protection following Capitol attack

Shell company owned by two Russians cut ties with internet host of 8kun, which has been linked to other acts of violence. A far-right website that was among the platforms used to organize the deadly violence at the US Capitol has again been forced to find new internet service protection after a shell company owned by two Russians and registered in Scotland cut ties with the platform’s internet host. The website 8kun, which was previously known as 8chan, has long been one of the preferred platforms of the far right and followers of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon. It was used by rioters ahead of the 6 January attack to mobilize other “patriots” to “help storm the Capitol”, with some on the message board debating which politicians to kill once they got inside. In the aftermath of the riot, users continued to post content fomenting violence, including maps of government buildings to target and combat techniques for a proposed civil war.
But the site also cannot function without platform protection services that prevent DDoS attacks, or distributed denial of service attacks, and few providers have been willing to work with it. Following its removal from Cloudflare, 8kun, throughVanwaTech, worked with Oregon-based CNServers LLC for DDoS protection. That company, too, cut ties with 8kun when it was alerted to the site’s violent history. Since October 2020, 8kun received DDoS protection from DDoS-Guard, a company that provides protection to a number of controversial websites, including neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer. 8kun’s ties to DDoS-Guard were first reported by the security researcher and journalist Brian Krebs. This week, DDoS became the latest company to cut ties with 8kun’s hosting company VanwaTech, following inquiries from the Guardian. 8kun is now being hosted by the US-based firm FiberHub, which is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to analysis from independent web researcher Ron Guilmette viewed by the Guardian. FiberHub does not provide infrastructure directly to 8chan but does support VanwaTech as a client, the co-founder and chief technology officer Rob Tyree confirmed to the Guardian by email.

via guardian: Far-right website 8kun again loses internet service protection following Capitol attack

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Nancy #Pelosi says #lawmakers who aided in #Capitol attack may be #prosecuted

House speaker’s comments come after a congresswoman said she saw colleagues leading ‘reconnaissance’ tours before the riot. House speaker Nancy Pelosi has said it is possible that members of Congress could face prosecution if found to have “aided and abetted” the violent attack on the Capitol earlier this month that left five people dead. “Justice is called for as we address insurrection perpetrated against the Capitol last week,” the Democratic speaker told reporters on Friday. “If, in fact, it is found that members of Congress were accomplices to this insurrection,” the Democratic speaker said on Friday. “If they aided and abetted the crime, there may have to be actions taken beyond the Congress in terms of prosecution for that.” Pelosi’s comments came after Mikie Sherrill, a Democratic congresswoman of New Jersey, said she saw colleagues leading groups on “reconnaissance” tours of the Capitol a day before the riot. More than 30 Democrats have signed on to a letter, spearheaded by Sherrill, seeking more information about the tours that took place at the Capitol on 5 January. At the press conference – her first since the House impeached Donald Trump for a second time over his role in encouraging the pro-Trump mob – Pelosi announced there would be a review of Capitol security.

via guardian: Nancy Pelosi says lawmakers who aided in Capitol attack may be prosecuted

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