Boston’s Surreal Crowdsourced Manhunt

For several hours each year on the third Monday of April, the 600 block of Boylston Street in Boston is the most surveilled place on Earth. Television crews, news and commercial photographers, Web videographers, friends, family, tourists -- and, not incidentally, law enforcement -- all have their electronic eyes trained on the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

This partly explains the whiplash speed of the investigation into this week’s bombings. With so much information, a break in the case was inevitable. So were missteps. That’s what happens when you crowdsource a manhunt.