A few questions--and that's what they are--re: the backpack/pressure cooker google police story.

[geek tragedy]

1) If these guys supposedly do 100 of these types of house calls per day/week/whatever (this is just Long Island police) wouldn't we have heard about other people getting police visits based on google searches? That doesn't mean it didn't happen here, but if this is a widespread practice, why is this the first real case where we have someone getting police (local pd at that) inquiry regarding internet searches?

2) Why is Catalano refusing to do interviews? If this is truly what happened, and she's an online journalist, one would think this would be a huge, huge, huge story that would need all the relevant facts put out, not randomly distributed piecemeal via tweets.

Again, not accusing or making any claims, but critical thinking isn't something that should be done only part of the time.

[JDPriestly]

1. "backpack/pressure cooker google police story"?

I missed that story. Do you have a link please?

[geek tragedy]

3. soitenly

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014554344

[JDPriestly]

38. Funny coincidence. I had just opened that post when I noticed your reply. Thanks.

[Zoeisright]

2. I have a cooking web site.

I search for pressure cookers all the time, and I have never heard a peep from the FBI or anyone else in government.

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. So because it didn't happen to you

it can't have happened to her?

[Rex]

5. Why would you? You state that you have a cooking website.

That would take all of 5 seconds for them to find out and dismiss.

[Nye Bevan]

6. I Googled "pressure cooker bomb" a few days after the bombing,

just because I'd never heard of such a weapon and wanted to get more information. No official response AFAIK.

[Cali_Democrat]

7. How dare you ask questions instead of displaying unmitigated hyperbolic outrage. n/t

[liberalhistorian]

12. lol, how dare, he, indeed!

These are some very good questions to which I would also like the answers. Sometimes we can be as bad as the other side in immediately believing things and whipping up outrage before actually doing any questioning or investigating.

[Cali_Democrat]

15. Exactly

[treestar]

45. lol this ^^^^^^^^^^

the police state is coming for us now!!!!!11

[The Straight Story]

8. Allow me to answer this

It does not matter if the story is true.

It matters that we believe, in our society today, that it very well could be true and do not find it at all far fetched.

And if it is 100% true....I don't think we will do a thing about it.

[geek tragedy]

10. It matters a great deal if it's true.

If it's true, then Snowden and Greenwald were understating the case.

If it's not true, this has been a giant hoax.

[kiva]

17. It matters.

We constantly - and justifiably - criticize Republican liars, but this only works if we care about the truth...as in verifiable truth.

There's currently an OP on this page that uses a headline that is deceiving, but a handful of people have accepted as accurate. I suspect if called on their blind belief they would use your rational - it could be true!!! But is isn't, and if we are foolish enough to respond to...I don't know what to call them without resorting to terms like dogwhistle, which isn't accurate...then we deserve to be fooled.

[The Straight Story]

20. My point is simply

1. If it is true, what does anyone plan on doing about it

2. If not true we could see where it would be true given the current situation - and if we believe it could be true, even if it isn't, then shouldn't we still be wanting to do something to change things so we no longer believe it would be true?

Either way it says a lot about how we see our country now.

[kiva]

22. I agree that the fact some people believe this

is an important statement about society, I agree.

I just think that it's important to know the difference between facts and opinions. You post a lot of interesting news stories and I don't remember seeing anyone criticize the accuracy of them, though I do know you've taken some flack about their topics. Maybe I'm assuming here but I suspect that if you discovered a story you linked to was wrong/inaccurate/a lie you would withdraw the story.

[The Straight Story]

25. And I have done so in the past when pointed out to me

(or, in some cases, when I just posted something stupid...which I do at times)

In fact, just last week someone emailed me about a story that turned out was false (that I posted) and I deleted it (no one was replying anymore).

But there seems to still be some questions on this one right now.

[kiva]

33. I agree there are questions,

so not calling for anyone to not post about this story, just hope people use critical thinking in considering it.

And glad to know my belief in your standards is correct.

[LanternWaste]

19. I imagine many people will allow mere perception to cloud both reality and judgment...

"It matters that we believe, in our society today..."

I imagine many people will allow mere perception to cloud both reality and judgment... I'd imagine that matters too, regardless of whether it makes many people look like nincompoops or not.

[KittyWampus]

21. There's a sizable number of our society who think there were dinosaurs on the ark.

[The Straight Story]

23. I hearken back to an old tale from Tibet I once read

(and I am, as always, paraphrasing from something many years ago)

A young student ask his monk about the people of the lake. They flew flags around the lake to honor the spirits of the lake.

But, alas, we do not follow their beliefs. Are they not wrong, no spirits reside there.

The monk told the student: It does not matter if we believe or not. They do. And how, and what they believe, affects their lives and how they deal/trade with others.

In this sense the spirits DO exist because they exert an influence on them, so you should respect that.


---In our case we believe, and rightly so, that the government sees us as a threat. They DO watch things from online postings to emails to texting, and they are on the look out for people they consider terrorists (they will confiscate a bottle of water at the airport, run your name through lists, etc and so on).

We believe something like this could happen because we have been given reason to believe it could.

And the government believes there are terrorists everywhere, and we best keep that in mind when dealing with them.

[Cali_Democrat]

28. It matters that people believe it could be true? You cannot be serious. That's BULLSHIT

70% of Americans thought there was a link between Saddam and 9/11.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm

Also, for a while didn't half of Republicans think Obama was born in Kenya?

I'm sorry, but a lot of Americans are dumber than a sack of hammers.

[The Straight Story]

30. I think, perhaps, you missed the point

Why do people believe it to be true?

Because they don't trust our government, they have too much power, they spy on us, and they arrest people for something as simple as pot on a daily basis.

We don't believe, we KNOW, our government sees us all as a potential threat (hence their actions over these many years).

If this story is not true I think more people would be surprised than if it were. And that says a lot about how we view our government.

[geek tragedy]

31. Why do people believe it's true?

Because it's on the Internet, and a stunningly high percentage of people believe everything they read on the Internet.

[Cali_Democrat]

32. Why do people believe it to be true?

It could be because they don't trust the government. Or it could be because a lot of Americans are gullible idiots who believe Saddam was personally involved in 9/11 and Obama was born in Kenya.

[Cali_Democrat]

51. Well the story turned out to be complete bullshit, but that doesn't matter

All that matters is that people believed it

[The Straight Story]

52. Indeed, that is the most telling thing here

WHY did people believe it?

Would we have done so 20 years ago (back in webcrawler days...)?

Tell me - why do you think people did?

[Cali_Democrat]

58. You don't understand how many people believe something just because they read it on the internet

Why do so many people believe Obama is born in Kenya? Because they're fucking idiots who buy bullshit fed to them by people like Michele Catalano.

[The Straight Story]

59. Yeah, I get that...but

why would people believe that our government would do something like this?

Maybe because we don't trust them? Maybe for a good reason?

[pnwmom]

72. Because Rand Paul and his pals are pushing this in the media

and many people here are sucking it up.

[wandy]

76. +1 "that it very well could be true".....

What matters is what we believe.

[Luminous Animal]

9. I have no answer to the first question

but, as to your second, I bet the family has retained a lawyer at this point and has been advised to keep mum.

[geek tragedy]

11. Hmmmm. Possibly, but even if that's the reason that doesn't

quite resolve things (criminal defense lawyer? plaintiff's civil rights lawyer?)

Also, note that the husband is the one who had this encounter. We should probably hear from him firsthand at some point.

[jberryhill]

60. Counselor, did you notice this

I don't know if I'm current with all the alleged facts, but did you notice how it was the husband's ex-employer.

Someone at his old company doesn't like him much. I wonder what went down to render him an ex-employee.

There's a nasty little story hurried under this pile.

[geek tragedy]

61. That's almost always the case with an involuntary termination.nt

[jberryhill]

63. My question is...

...for what other reason were they going through his computer.

[geek tragedy]

66. Depends on the specialty of company and employee

reason/nature of termination etc.

[kcr]

13. I agree. If you read carefully, it's her assumption that the googling is what prompted the visit.

THere's no evidence that's what did it. We don't really know. An FBI spokesman says it was local police who visited. No one has yet stated why. So who knows at this point. It might have been something else entirely that triggered the visit.

[geek tragedy]

14. I can think of any number of explanations.

Could be that some neighbor decided to fink on them over something.

Could be that there's some error in transmittal between what her husband told her and what she's telling us.

Could be that they did a google search and linked on the wrong website (i.e. one known to be used by bomb builders or something like that) which caused it to get flagged.

[kcr]

18. I can see how unsettling such a visit would be

and then you'd rack your brains, and think OMG, that one time when I googled pressure cookers! That must be it! I've thought of the weird things I've googled at times when I'm bored, or when I'm watching something on TV and want to find out more about whatever it is, and how that might look out of context. All the weird shit that people google every day.

[leftstreet]

24. And why would it take them 'weeks' to show up?

This was weeks ago. I don’t know what took them so long to get here.

Michele Catalano
Former music contributor at Forbes, freelance writer published in The Magazine, Maura Magazine and at Boing Boing http://www.michelecat.wordpress.com

Published
August 1, 2013
https://medium.com/something-like-falling/2e7d13e54724

[tiredtoo]

16. Personally

I think the whole thing is fake but it is kind of fun to play with. I have been posting tweets to NSA telling them when i am walking the dog and will be offline for a bit. and asking them not to send out a black van in search of me i will be back shortly. Let's have a little fun with this while we can.

[Vinnie From Indy]

26. I agree with you!

The story and Catalano's behavior appear odd to me. I also agree that everything she wrote MIGHT be true or it might not.

You are absolutely correct to wonder about this story.

Good post!

Cheers!

[MADem]

27. I think, after the bombing in Boston, that EVERYONE googled "how to make a pressure cooker bomb."

I sure did, I thought it was the oddest thing, too, to use such a common implement--and they are VERY common in the middle east (it's hot, they're quick--like old school microwaves). I also googled the type of cooker he used, because I was curious about it.

I've done some squirrelly travelling in my time, too.

No one in dark cars and suits has turned up at my door yet, and I am much closer to the site of the crime than some people in NY are.

[geek tragedy]

29. that's what seems so implausible--those specific google terms seem way too innocuous

to draw a visit from the police.

If I had to guess, I would guess it was a nosy neighbor or someone who didn't like the pictures of M-66s on her FB page.

[MADem]

50. Either that, or the writer of the piece was googling pressure cookers WELL BEFORE the bombing, AND

in the very same close timeframe, her son was googling that "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" article from that Al Qaeda magazine before most people were aware of its existence.

Maybe sonnyboy was having school violence fantasies, while she wanted to tenderize her brisket....?

[Jenoch]

34. This whole thing started with one woman's blog

and apparently she is not talking. I don't believe this is a true news story. I don't know what the motivation was, but I'll need to see some video from this woman, her husband, and the LEO that supposedly took part in the inspection of her home.

[truedelphi]

37. Was she saying it was local police or the FBI?

I found it odd that there were no names of the officers, or agents, and not that much pointed out about which agency it was.

[geek tragedy]

41. she wasn't there, it was her husband, from whom we have not heard nt

[pnwmom]

74. She wasn't there, but she falsely claimed it was the joint terrorism task force.

It was actually the Suffolk County Police.

I guess she and her husband had a miscommunication.

[FreakinDJ]

35. FUCK Killing the Messenger - its so Lame

Try try try to read the message before the NSA wire tap Appology

[geek tragedy]

36. no one's trying to 'kill the messenger' here nt

[Cali_Democrat]

46. The OP which asks relevant questions is killing the messenger?

[maddezmom]

39. More questions than answers to this story....seems a bit off to me

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/01/google-pressure-cooker-get-a-police-visit-maybe-not/

[Progressive dog]

40. I just searched for backpacks and pressure cookers,

I'm eagerly awaiting my visit from the joint terrorism task force, the FBI, the county police or whoever actually showed up in Massachusetts or Long Island. I guess out of 1485 house calls since the marathon, only one woman has reported her visit.

[maddezmom]

42. FBI and police are denying it happened.

http://news.yahoo.com/-police-and-fbi-deny-alleged-search-of-new-york-home-stemming-from-journalist’s-web-searches--200309173.html

A report by The Guardian on Thursday said the FBI also has denied involvement but said members of the Nassau and Suffolk County Police Departments visited Catalano’s home.

“We’ve received over 70 calls in the past hour,” Garcia said. “We think the comment from the FBI was a mistake based on the fact that she lives in New York. But we have no record of her in our system: no parking tickets, nothing.”

Garcia added, “We did some research on our own, reached out to anyone who could have possibly been involved, and we have no record of anyone in our department visiting the Catalano home.”

Despite the denials from local police and the FBI, Catalano's claims have ignited a flurry of attention online, especially following recent allegations concerning the National Security Agency’s domestic intelligence gathering program first reported by The Guardian.

[Raine1967]

49. I posted something below and it jives with what you found:

“They were officers from the Nassau County Police Department who identified themselves as such,” said Kelly Langmesser, the FBI spokeswoman. But mysteriously, neither the Nassau nor Suffolk County Police would confirm their involvement in the investigation Thursday afternoon. An officer from the Nassau County Police repeatedly refused to even give her first name; a Public Information Officer in Suffolk County said she would comment when she had more information.

Source.

The story sounds questionable.

and then there is this:

The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement Thursday saying detectives questioned the man after interviewing representatives from his former employer, which reported suspicious computer searches.


On Thursday, a Long Island woman writing under the name Michele Catalano speculated in a blog post that six agents from what she describes as the joint terrorism task force came to her home Wednesday because agents were monitoring the family’s Google searches. She writes that her husband was interviewed by police and that her son was asleep when they arrived. She did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

[phleshdef]

43. Just let me say I won't be surprised if this story turns out to be absolute bullshit.

I'm not proclaiming that it is, but it sounds pretty far out there.

[Raine1967]

44. You're not the only one wondering. Check this out:

From WaPo:

“They were officers from the Nassau County Police Department who identified themselves as such,” said Kelly Langmesser, the FBI spokeswoman. But mysteriously, neither the Nassau nor Suffolk County Police would confirm their involvement in the investigation Thursday afternoon. An officer from the Nassau County Police repeatedly refused to even give her first name; a Public Information Officer in Suffolk County said she would comment when she had more information.

All of this sounds very shady, but it doesn’t exactly scream of an insidious, privacy-invading terrorism investigation. At least it’s impossible to make that conclusion without more information. As Catalano wrote in her post, the investigators asked her husband pretty innocuous questions:

And a small point of order from the original article.

Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husband's hunt for backpacks, and her "news junkie" son's craving for information on the Boston bombings had combined somewhere in the internet ether to create a "perfect storm of terrorism profiling".

No one lives IN LONG ISLAND.

They live on Long Island. (I was born on Long Island. I lived in a few towns and worked in a few others ON the Island.)

[OilemFirchen]

47. The key here...

is, and has been, from the outset of this questionable fiasco:

if you are my exceedingly curious, news junkie 20-year-old son, you click a lot of links when you read the myriad of stories. You might just read a CNN piece about how bomb making instructions are readily available on the internet and you will in all probability, if you are that kid, click the link provided.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/government-tracking-google-searches

Golly. Wonder what baby boy's Facebook page looks like...

[geek tragedy]

48. or what stupid shit baby boy was bringing home, or saying to the neighbors, etc etc nt

[MADem]

53. I'm the friendliest person in the world, but I would want to see credentials--and not just a badge--

before I started answering questions. If I didn't get answers, I'd very politely dial nine one one and report my concerns before proceeding.

If I talk to a cop about anything, even something innocuous, like "Why have they put this detour up?" or "Say, that's a swell dog--what's he trained to do?" I look for a nametag, or I introduce myself and get their name as well. It's just inconceivable to me that these folks would let nameless strangers tromp through their home without any accountability, or without really being clear on where they were from.

Perhaps the writer is a newcomer to Long Island and doesn't know the lingo? It's funny, people always say "Ensign Schmuckatelli served ON the USS MIDWAY" when they should say that the Ensign served IN the MIDWAY--this is true even for surface ships, not just submarines. It's a peculiarity of Navy speech, much like the "on Long Island" thing is.

What's also amusing is, back in the dark ages when I was at university, I briefly had a roommate who was FROM Long Island, and who corrected me, in a rather condescending way, as though I were some sort of country hick-foreign rube who didn't know "the rules" when I used the "in" instead of the "on!!!"

[Raine1967]

64. MADem:

I would have loved to have had you as a roomie. Sorry that your roomie was condescending.

It's a thing tho -- Long Island is what you live/d on. I haven't lived on the Island since 1995, but when I tell people they ask, Nassau or Suffolk? ... then we get down to towns...

You're probably right, the writer may very well may not know better.

That said, the credentials part is an important part to this story.

[MADem]

65. It was no biggie. My roommate liked after hours clubs, and the bars closed early.

I knew where all the good ones were (old speakeasies, repurposed for partying till dawn); they were in neighborhoods where the roommate wouldn't dare go alone.

I got plenty of free drinks in my reckless youth as a consequence!

I think we'll find out more about this story in time--it looks like the fact checkers are at work, calling the cops, etc. They'll get to the bottom of it!

[snooper2]

54. notice certain Alex Jones type posters missing from this thread?

I do!

[MADem]

55. What I notice is how surprising civil the conversation is...for a change.

I kinda like that.

[snooper2]

56. I as well, and reasonable conversation

instead of the hyperbole...which gets old...quick

[geek tragedy]

57. The LaRouchies have me on ignore. nt

[struggle4progress]

62. 100/week is 14/day and 5200/year. Whether it's odd or not depends on what "100 of these"/week means

The police Department might very well send some folk over to talk to somebody or other regarding some complaint or other 14 times a day: "Some guy walking down the street told me he was going to kill me and eat me" or "My neighbor is a crazy dude who sits on his porch when the school bus comes by so he can ogle the middle school girls" or "I have a restraining order on my ex but I think he's the one who rang my doorbell at 3 AM"

But "I told my employee to shape up and he started googling 'pressure cooker bombs'" -- probably not 14 of those calls every day

[morningfog]

67. How dare someone question a state action!

[geek tragedy]

68. There was no questioning, just irresponsible

rumor mongering based on confirmation bias rather than anything approaching adult reasoning.

People wanted to believe this was the NSA, so they did so and voluntarily checked their independent thought capability to join the Outrage Stampede.

[morningfog]

69. My independent thought capability remaining,

I question this state action. I still would like to know why 6 terrorist tack force members interrogated a person and searched his home. Did the at-home google searches have anything to do with it?

Was the company's concern based solely on at-work google searches?

[geek tragedy]

70. Company reported it, and the PD was probably required to follow up.

Did they need to bring 6 officers? No.

But, this is a small potatoes story with very few facts available. What's more telling is the reaction it got.

[pnwmom]

75. Answer: Six terrorist task force members did NOT go into this woman's home.

She wasn't there -- she was at work -- so maybe that explains why she got some facts wrong. (She acknowledged later that her first post was "misleading.&quot

It was actually the local police, and they came in response to some kind of tip from the husband's ex-employer, after they found some things on his work computer that concerned them.

Or so Catalano now says . . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/no-fbi-isnt-snooping-york-google-users-002041892.html

In other words, a business worried about a recently fired employee going postal called the cops and they checked it out and the police handled it with relatively kid gloves. Did the former employer over-react? Almost certainly. But you can't chalk this one up as evidence of an internet surveillance state gone wrong.

It's worth remembering that people call in worries to the police all the time and they check it out. The original story tracks reasonably with this explanation from the local police and I'm inclined to believe them. Perhaps Michele Catalano, the originator of this story, will agree.

To be sure, claims are made about people all the time. When Russian intelligence reported to the FBI that they should look into the Tsarneav brothers who later carried out the Boston Marathon attack, they had a sniff. They didn't find anything and left them alone. In hindsight a tragic mistake, but there wasn't any evidence or reason to haul them in. They erred on the side of leaving people who had carried out no crime (as yet) alone.

Such was the case with Ms. Catalano and her family. In this case, clearly, there was nothing to worry about. But neither is there evidence about the FBI running a vast intelligence operation against everyone who uses the internet in the US.

[Cha]

71. "Big Brother is coming!!111"

Turns out it was a Big Dud and you were on top of it to question its veracity from the get go.

[pnwmom]

73. It was the local police who checked out a tip from the husband's employer.

Kind of like they were supposed to do.



They didn't arrest anyone. They didn't trash the house. They didn't even wake up the sleeping son. They just followed up on a tip and then left.

[MrYikes]

77. maybe they are looking for a fawn?