Hmm. It turns out that around the same time that Thomas Crooks was making these searches and posting overt threats of violence against public figures on YouTube. The FBI was issuing contracts to private sector tech surveillance firms to harness the power of mass data collection tools that would monitor social media for people just like Thomas Crooks. It's hard to imagine that Thomas Crooks, who was making these posts publicly and in his own name had not been identified and looked at closely by federal law enforcement. (17:03–17:15)
CLAIM
Asserts that the FBI contracted private firms for social media surveillance.
This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.
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