Technology and Crowdsourcing in the Boston Bombing Investigation

Introduction

The Boston Marathon bombing was an act of terror that took place on April 15, 2013, during the annual Boston Marathon. During the event, bombs were positioned near the race's finish line. The blasts killed three individuals and injured over two hundred fifty others who were in close proximity. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were identified as the primary suspects by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the days following the bombings, a massive manhunt ensued. One of the most notable aspects of the case, however, was the method by which the FBI was able to identify the suspects. An unprecedented volume of digital data was available, and the FBI along with other organizations utilized crowdsourcing techniques to help sift through it.

The advent of digital technologies, coupled with the falling costs of data storage, has created a situation in which massive amounts of digital information can be generated at any given moment. The power of crowds can be harnessed to help sort through enormous troves of data in pursuit of a common objective. Crowdsourcing has been applied across a wide array of situations to accomplish tasks that require more human resources than any one person or team could provide. For instance, a crowd can supply enough collective effort to achieve in hours what an individual could not complete in years. When enough people contribute, the total output can reach staggering proportions. This analysis considers the technologies and opportunities available to the FBI during the Boston Bombing investigation, discusses how those technologies were used to apprehend the suspects, and examines the ethical and legal implications relevant to the case.

Closed-Circuit Television Surveillance

Boston had a network of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in place during the Boston Marathon bombing. The camera network captured images of the suspects, though these images were described as "grainy" and of low resolution. Many major U.S. cities have implemented surveillance technologies to help monitor urban areas. These cameras increase the likelihood that a suspect will be recorded; however, they simultaneously generate such massive volumes of footage that it can be difficult to make practical use of the data. New advancements in facial recognition software and related technologies are improving the ability of law enforcement to use this data more efficiently (Kelly, 2013).

Privacy, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance Debate

Although new surveillance technologies may benefit law enforcement, they also raise a wide range of privacy concerns. The debate between national security and individual liberties—particularly the right to privacy—has intensified as technology has expanded the state's capacity for mass surveillance. Terrorist events such as those that occurred on September 11, 2001, increased the government's use of surveillance and monitoring programs through the USA PATRIOT Act and other legislation. In the aftermath of 9/11, the balance between privacy, individual liberties, and security was decidedly tilted toward security.

Arguments in favor of curtailing certain civil liberties were made in an effort to prevent future acts of terrorism in the United States. Although many countries took similar measures, most were not as comprehensive as the policies implemented in the U.S. Edward Snowden, who worked for the National Security Agency through subcontractor Booz Allen Hamilton at the NSA's Oahu office, alerted the world to the scope of surveillance being conducted domestically. After Snowden fled to Hong Kong, newspapers began publishing the documents he had leaked, many of which detailed invasive surveillance practices targeting American citizens (Bio, 2014). Snowden stated that his motivation was as follows:

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sorts of things. I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

Snowden's disclosures about the level of surveillance being conducted across the internet and through all communication channels—combined with the growing use of CCTV cameras equipped with facial recognition—sparked a national debate about balancing privacy and security. Technology has enabled society to look intrusively into the lives of everyday citizens. Many have questioned the practical effectiveness of these systems. For example, London possesses one of the most advanced CCTV networks in the world; yet in 2008, only one crime was solved for every 1,000 cameras, according to the city's police. CCTV cameras across Britain also cost authorities nearly $800 million over a four-year period, according to civil liberties group Big Brother Watch (Kelly, 2013). If surveillance systems are not effective in practice, that fact would tip the scales back toward the privacy side of the debate.

Crowdsourcing in the Investigation

It has been estimated that people around the world collectively spend 600 years every day playing Angry Birds. The processing power latent in crowds is immense, and this collective effort can potentially be redirected toward more meaningful work. Sebastian Seung, a professor of computational neuroscience, attempted to harness crowd power to build a "connectome"—a map of the vast number of connections in the brain underlying vision, memory, and disease (Johnson, 2012). His research team designed a game that lets players help map the brain by filling in colors that trace neural processes across images captured with an electron microscope. Completing this work even with computer assistance would take one individual an estimated thousand years; crowdsourcing makes it achievable. In many cases, there is no substitute for human perception.

Crowdsourcing was also one of the tools deployed in the wake of the Boston Bombing. After the attack, the FBI leveraged the power of crowds to help analyze the massive volume of data available. "There have to be hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs, videos, and other observations that were made down at that finish line," said Timothy Alben, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, at a press conference (Powers, 2013). Many individual citizens who were present that day built websites enabling them to collaborate, post, and analyze the digital material collected about those in attendance.

Reddit's "Find Boston Bombers" forum attracted more than 1,700 users, who highlighted suspicious persons and objects through collected photographs and videos. On Imgur, dozens uploaded snapshots of the crowd near the 26-mile marker (Powers, 2013). Users could upload their private videos and add annotations identifying what they considered potentially suspicious persons or images. Thousands of potential leads were generated in this manner. However, a significant problem emerged: many users identified individuals who were not genuinely suspicious. When the general public investigates a crime independently, it often lacks the training required to distinguish truly suspicious activity. As a result, the crowd-sourced data was enormous and difficult to work through. Whether crowdsourcing will prove to be an effective investigative technique in future incidents remains uncertain.

Conclusion

The Boston Bombing clearly illustrates how new technologies can assist in the apprehension of criminals and terrorists. It also illustrated the potential for crowdsourcing techniques to be employed in incidents where large crowds are present. Members of the public, largely on their own initiative, collaborated to identify suspicious activity. At the same time, serious questions remain about the effectiveness of mass surveillance and its encroachment on civil liberties. These technologies may become more effective as facial recognition software continues to develop. Nevertheless, nearly every aspect of modern life is now monitored in some way, leaving many to question whether the security benefits truly outweigh the costs to privacy.

References

Bio. (2014, April 3). Edward Snowden biography. Retrieved from Bio: http://www.biography.com/people/edward-snowden-21262897

Boston, C. o. (2014). After action report for the response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Boston.

Johnson, C. (2012, July 16). Scientist's game helps map the brain. Retrieved from The Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/07/15/mit-scientists-crowdsource-effort-map-connections-brain/v1CEwhwl90GDjKzL6oTC4L/story.html

Kelly, H. (2013, April 26). After Boston: The pros and cons of surveillance cameras. Retrieved from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/26/tech/innovation/security-cameras-boston-bombings/

O'Neill, A. (2015, April 7). Boston bombing trial: Jurors send out questions during deliberations. Retrieved from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/us/boston-marathon-bombing-trial/

Powers, M. (2013, April 17). On Internet, thousands sift through Marathon photos for clues. Retrieved from The Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/2013/04/17/can-public-solve-marathon-bombings-web-users-crowdsource-offer-plenty-theories/enQ9zVkF6xwgGwLz4bj8vN/story.html