starts to feel as though we’re Pavlov’s dogs—subjects in a vast experiment in

operant conditioning. The craving for information leads to behaviors that are
alternately rewarded and punished. If instantaneity is what we want, television
cannot compete with cyberspace. Nor does the hive mind wait for officialdom. While
the FBI watched and tagged and coded thousands of images from surveillance cameras
and cell phones, users on Reddit and 4chan went to work, too, marking up photos
with yellow arrows and red circles: “1: ALONE 2: BROWN 3: Black backpack 4: Not
watching.”

Virtually everything these sleuths discovered was wrong. Their best customer was
the New York Post, which fronted a giant photo of two “Bag Men”—who, of course,
turned out to be a high-school kid and his friend, guilty of nothing but brown
skin. If the watchword Wednesday was crowd-source, by Thursday it was witchhunt.
Total Noise. But when the FBI’s database of 12 million mug shots offered no help,
what could the authorities do but enlist the hive mind in the search?

Then, if you were really hooked, you joined the manhunt in cyberspace. Reporters
tweeted as they ran. @Boston_Police tweeted warnings and at least one license
plate. Cambridge residents tweeted the sound of sirens, the chatter on the police
scanner, and photos of bullet holes. Outsiders tweeted their love of crowd-sourcing
and their disdain for the old media.

“A dozen officer going into our yard …”

“@msnbc says brothers had bomb, @FoxNews says only a trigger @CNN is clueless …”

“SWAT is out on Laurel St.…”

“Boston Police to Twitter: ‘Stop making up fake Twitter accounts, stop tweeting our
scanner, stop telling people where we’re going.’ ”

We’re starting to sense what may happen when everything is seen and everyone is
connected. Bits of intelligence amid the din; and new forms of banality. Within
hours of his death, the world could examine the videos Tamerlan Tsarnaev watched in
his YouTube account and, on his Amazon wish list, some books he wanted.

See Also
• In Consensual Lockdown a Good Thing?
• The Roar of Young Male Rage
• What Does a Terrorist Look Like?
• Heartache in Melting-Pot Cambridge

Have good intel? Send tips to intel@nymag.com.

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