You have never worked for a government law or military agency have you?
"Listen, the FBI already saw everything that this subreddit has found. Much faster and with better technology than we have."
The FBI agents working this case are operating on very little sleep. They don't go home after 8-10 hours and rest so their brains work optimally the next day. Most of them have probably been working with no time-off and 5-6 hours of sleep per night since thee bombing. Consequently, they ARE NOT better at analyzing the details than millions of well-rested redditors. Also, there is not some fancy FBI training course for analyzing pictures. It's just attention to detail. But I had to chuckle at your notion that the FBI is using "technology" to analyze the pictures. Nope. They are probably just printing them out at significantly lower resolution than is available in the digital photos. Then they hang them on the walls. Then a bunch of tired agents stare at them. So, no, it is ignorant and naive of you to assume that government agencies have some sort of awesome photo analysis software that enables them to match pixels between pictures. The FBI buys COTS software to do its analysis. And they're never using the latest version because it's too expensive and the have to wait until the following year for it to drop in price and to budget for it. Stop acting like the FBI is some James-Bond-esque organization. The team that is working this is exhausted, understaffed, and lacking the best software and equipment to get the job done right. The investigation would be much more efficient and effective if the FBI posted ALL the pictures available on a website. Imagine if the FBI simply circled people that they are seeking information, and crossed out people that they don't need any info. Imagine if the FBI even posted notes that said things such as, "The blue robed guy has been identified; we need to additional information on him." Or, the blue robe guy and the track-suit-wearing dude (and his friend) could simply be "crossed-out" on the gov website which would clue the rest of us that they aren't the guilt party.
Now, in realty, the FBI is a giant gov bureaucracy. Many mid- and senor-level managers are thinking to themselves, "Hmmm, if I break this case, it will make my career! I don't want anyone else breaking the case before me. So, I will keep all the photos in-house until I find the bad guy(s). Eventually, if I don't find the bad guys, I'll release the photos to the public and let FUCKING MILLIONS of people study them." You give the gov way too much credit.
No one's "privacy" needs to be invaded if the FBI simply created and UPDATED a website with pictures of people they are looking for. And millions of people will identify issues and suspects more quickly than a dozen or so exhausted agents working on obsolete equipment. Link
Vs.
Uh huh... if you think the "intelligence community" isn't taking note of the masses and the impact of their freedom to connect for now... well.