> I’ll bet people like flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy weren’t discussing _their_ plans in such public forums.
I dunno, some of those folks were pretty brazen. Remember they thought all this was, if not "legal" exactly, "sanctioned" by their sitting president. They weren't trying to hide.
But even if we grant that the premise (which is clearly true) that serious criminals will always have the ability to hide from surveillance, the presence of an easily found public forum is still a prerequisite for real insurrection.
Flexcuff guy and pipebomb guy may have been hardened experts, but they couldn't have sacked the capitol with only their militias behind them. The preventable part of this is the mob violence. And mob violence requires a mob, which requires that the members of the mob (by definition amateurs) be able to find forums to radicalize them.