Public participation in criminal investigations should be sharply limited. I agree with commentators who point to the serious negative consequences of crowdsourcing investigations. Crowdsourcing can seriously erode privacy rights. Incorrect or partial information can be magnified to the point that innocent parties are ensnared. Reddit’s role in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing is a case in point. As Nick Bilton of the New York Times noted, Reddit members took on characteristics metaphorically reminiscent of mobs with pitchforks and torches. Their unfounded speculation led to real harm to innocent parties.

On the other hand, crowdsourced intelligence gathering—rather than investigation could be useful. As Tarun Wadhwa wrote in Forbes, crowds can be quite helpful for providing information—as opposed to taking action based on that information. Thinking in low-tech terms, when a defense investigator canvasses a neighborhood by putting up flyers seeking witnesses, she is relying on the crowd. But the defense team takes the input and moves the investigation forward. Hence, the use of crowdsourcing in this fashion would be worthwhile: where participants make individual, independent contributions and the assimilation and other use of that information remains in the hands of the defense team.

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