Employer Tipped Off Police To Pressure Cooker And Backpack Searches, Not Google

[geek tragedy]

Source: Tech Crunch

The Suffolk County Police Department has just released the following information related to the case:

Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.”

After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature.

Any further inquiries regarding this matter should be directed to the Suffolk County Police Department



Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/01/employer-tipped-off-police-in-pressure-cookerbackpack-gate-not-google/

---

Credit to all those who expressed skepticism.

[arely staircase]

1. but it won't die

it will live on infowars, etc. it will work its way into the lore of the fever swamps.

[diabeticman]

5. IT is still Big Brother. The business is acting as the Governments eyes and hears on the employees.

But let's look into to this more. The first article I read stated it was a home computer NOW it belongs to the company the father use to work at.

[phleshdef]

17. No, not really.

If the current state of the story is true anyway... it would seem that the guy was fired or let go from the job for some reason, the employer, likely an IT person working for the employer, was doing something to the computer he used, saw those searches, reported it and someone got all paranoid about the former employee going postal on the office or something and they called the police.

[diabeticman]

24. Ever read 1984? People are encouraged to report neighbors, family, co-workers for ANY strange

activity.

We hear it in news broadcast all the time.


Report anything suspicious no matter how small it seems.

[phleshdef]

27. People have been encouraged to report suspicious stuff to the authorities way before Orwell.

Its kind of a typical thing.

[dipsydoodle]

45. That was the basic manner in which the Gestapo functioned too

right down to watch your neighbour, as you mentioned , and report accordingly.

[jberryhill]

51. Nobody ever worried about a fired employee retaliating

It would be kind of interesting to know the circumstances of his firing.

[pnwmom]

20. I don't think it was unreasonable for a company that had let an employee go

to worry when they saw he'd been making searches about backpacks and pressure cookers.

No one should ever expect privacy when using a company computer since the company is held responsible for everything that it's used for.

[diabeticman]

29. And when your employer starts putting camera by bathroom enterances and wondering why you seem

to go to bathroom more than anyone else in the company OR you seem to go to the bathroom everyday at the same time say--right before lunch or right after lunch or mid afternoon say around 2pm and makes a call to the local authorites about strange behavior on your behalf. Than you think about it.

If you saw the earlier reports it was the family computer. The wife was interviewed saying her search set it off.

I don't know if it is strange but when my wife's mother worked my wife would go to her mother's office to do minor research or while she was waiting for her mom to end work she wait in her mom's office and again use the computer.

I'm sorry but This type of safety is not worth my freedom. I believe strongly in Ben Franklin point of view.

[pnwmom]

30. The early reports were wrong, as they often are. It was the work computer.

Businesses are responsible for the computers they own, so no one can expect privacy on them.

[diabeticman]

31. IF that is what you wish to believe FINE! It isn't the America I want to live in. I have a friend

who does freakin research for a living for a company and basically she is contacted by people asking them to get certain info together. IF you look at her searches for a week span "red flags" would be popping up for her all the time.

Could be a list of searches that fell into position that "felt dangerous" to a paranoid person.


I'm saying you if you are okay with this that's fine. I'm not. I want more info and I want to know just how much freedom should I be willing to give up now that 9/11 happened and we have PRISM and the PATRIOT ACT and bunch load of bull crap.

[pnwmom]

33. The company owned the computer and when they let the employee go,

they noticed searches for backpacks and pressure cookers. So they decided to report it and the police investigated and quickly dropped the matter. They didn't arrest anyone. They didn't wreck the house. They just investigated. What if it had been a real bomber and we found out later that the police had ignored the tip? Everyone would be screaming about that.

With regard to the employer, presumably they would have known if this employee in the course of his job would have had a reason for doing a search like that (like your friend). The search concerned them, so I think we can safely assume the search wasn't something he would have done in the normal course of business -- and that's what work computers are for.

[diabeticman]

35. I wouldn't assume. I never assume in this day and age.

[pnwmom]

40. Well, I would never assume privacy on a work computer. Would you? n/t

[diabeticman]

41. I EXPECT respect in the workplace and my employer spying on me is not respect.

[pnwmom]

42. I think you're making a big mistake if you think the employer who just let you go

is likely to respect your privacy with regard to the computer you left behind.

[diabeticman]

47. So by your thinking it is okay for them to spy on me. Than it SHOULD be no problem for me to report

the employer to state labor board so they can investigate them for what I might consiider Ill treatment.


This is the problem with America today.

You like this America that's fine. I said I don't! We should agree to disagree and move on. But I have the feeling you are the type of person who needs the last word

[maxrandb]

55. Ummm, I'm not sure where you have ever been employed

but every place I've worked where I've been given the use of a "company" computer and LAN, I've been required to sign a use agreement that explains that my computer activity is SUBJECT TO MONITORING...AND...a bunch of other stuff like agreeing to use the IT equipment for work use only...etc.

Sorry, but if you use a company computer YOU ARE SUBJECT TO MONITORING.

Heck, we even had some folks in the Navy that we caught surfing porn sights on government computers. We busted them and took their access away, and all we needed to catch then was our IT folks.

The bottom line here is that this story is about as far away from Orwell as you can possibly get...not to mention that 1984 was and is a work of FICTION.

I swear, I could make a fortune selling tin-foil hats on DU.

[jberryhill]

52. Respect? They fired him, apparently.

Do you expect an employer can never fire anybody?

[Xipe Totec]

38. Your loyalty is duly noted and will be reflected in your next performance review.

[sweetloukillbot]

6. That's what bothers me so much...

In the rush to blame the NSA, government, Google, FBI, Obama, whoever, everyone overlooked the lack of details in the story.
I'm a journalist, who wrote for a high circulation newspaper (don't know if I'd call it respectable, but it was in the top 10 in the country), if I went to my editor with that story I'd be told to get quotes from everyone else before they even thought about publishing. And by the same token, if I wrote a blog entry saying the FBI was questioning my wife, and dropped that my stories have been published in USA Today, does that make what I say credible? (Ignoring the joke in that they were published in USA Today). How do you know I'm not delusional or talking out my ass?

And Guardian and Atlantic are the worst offenders - they ran with a story that was lacking in details in order to generate page views, then trickled out the updates as the truth came out - The Atlantic story even suggests that the truth doesn't matter because the NSA might be doing it anyway.

This is yellow journalism at its worst - and those who breathlessly jumped on the story as proof of Snowden's allegations should feel like fools.

[Cha]

16. "fever swamps"

[mysuzuki2]

2. We'll see ...

I googled pressure cookers, backpacks and Al Qaida today. We'll see if the cops come knocking on the door. Actually, I'm thinking of getting a pressure cooker and I need a new backpack. I just threw Al Qaida in there to see what would happen.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. Knock Knock.

[jtuck004]

4. Just don't search for Al Quinoa. That's big troujble. n/t

[Kablooie]

7. So many people will be doing that today that even if it did flag you no one would notice.

And of course I can put on my tin foil hat and come up with the explanation that:

The NSA called the police department today and told them to report that the workplace contacted them instead of the NSA even though it wasn't true.

That good old hat can keep you as paranoid as you want, day and night.

[geek tragedy]

19. Just like one could claim that this woman

is getting a paycheck from Rand Paul to spread lies.

[Link Speed]

12. This post, alone, will put you in Gitmo. nt

[pnwmom]

22. Did you do it on your company's computer? n/t

[Octafish]

8. LOL. First the outrage was that it didn't happen.

Now the outrage is that it wasn't the NSA, it was a disgruntled employee's ex-boss.

Two Minutes Hate™

[sweetloukillbot]

10. The original story said the FBI questioned the husband.

That didn't happen.

[Octafish]

23. Thanks for clearing that up. I marveled at all the outrage for merely stating an opinion...

...regarding the veracity of a news report. If the person's a nut, great. If the person's a good reporter, great.

No reason to skewer him or her, from my point of view, without getting the whole story.

Now, if she had ordered the Pentagon to destroy an innocent country or the Treasury to bail out the thieves on Wall Street, I'd probably let fly before all the facts were in.

[muriel_volestrangler]

46. No, the original story said it was a 'joint terrorism task force', which is correct

The original story did not say it was a work computer; but the task force had not told her husband that.

[sweetloukillbot]

49. You're right

She TWEETED that it was the FBI first, then fixed it in her blog to Joint Terrorism Task Force.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. You're right - I had skimmed over that tweet (nt)

[geek tragedy]

14. The story did not happened as she claimed.

The paranoids, nutjobs and trolls used this to bash the Obama admin.

[Octafish]

18. Huh. I call them ''Fellow DUers.''

Everyone's entitle to an opinion, I believe.

[geek tragedy]

21. Opinion yes, separate facts no. nt

[another_liberal]

9. Hey, I have a coworker . . .

I have an Arab-looking coworker who I noticed was researching airline fares to New York. And get this: he sometimes uses a box cutter to open packages!

[longship]

11. Knew it was rubbish.

And BTW, there is no expectation of privacy at your work computer.

But somebody jumped the shark here.

[tinrobot]

13. So it was a Bay Shore based computer company that read his searches...

...not a Mountain View based computer company (i.e. Google)

I honestly don't see much difference. Companies are still snooping on people's internet use with impunity. Should be illegal.

[geek tragedy]

15. It was their computer, not his. Nt

[tinrobot]

34. Yes, and internet searches happen on Google's computers, not his.

So Google uses the same laws to justify and handing over personal search data to government agencies.

Slippery slope...

[geek tragedy]

36. If someone borrows a computer you own, you have an absolute

right to examine the hard drive afterward as well as the browsing history. Indisputably.

[pnwmom]

25. If the company owns a computer it is free to limit its use and to snoop.

No one can expect privacy on a work computer.

[sweetloukillbot]

26. If you are using their equipment you don't have a leg to stand on

What you do with company equipment on company time is their business. I'm not surprised in the least that the company has records of searches. They probably have screen captures and a record of his browser history and cache. Because it's their computer.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

32. Just an fyi 2 all

I wrote a very good screen capture pgm 20 years ago, that allowed the company owner to see exactly what was on every salesman's screen. Nothing you do at work is private. Zip.

[pnwmom]

44. There's a big difference: the companies own their computers

and control and are liable for what they are used for.

[Historic NY]

28. Boy they'd be banging on my door evey week.

[TriplD]

37. The press release isn't posted on Suffolk County PD's press release page

3 press releases listed on 8/1, but the one referred to in the OP isn't one of them:

http://apps.suffolkcountyny.gov/police/morepress.htm

[geek tragedy]

39. I guess all those news orgs are lying about getting it from them,

also, Crazy Catalano has admitted it was a local matter and offered the standard wingnut non-apology apology for deceiving everyone.

[TriplD]

48. It wouldn't be the first time the media got played

Remember the fake Bengazi White House emails that ABC published and everyone else ran with.

This press release is still not on the official police website.

[pnwmom]

43. There must be a lag on posting. Here's an article from ABC news.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ny-man-questioned-computer-search-history-19846979

SNIP



The man was questioned after detectives from the department's intelligence unit received a tip from a Long Island-based computer company claiming the recently released employee's computer had suspicious searches, the police said. After interviewing company representatives, they questioned the man at his home where they determined there was no criminality.


The police issued their statement after receiving numerous media inquiries in response to a blog post written Thursday by a woman writing under the name Michele Catalano.

SNIP

Catalano took to the Internet on Thursday night, writing in a new blog post that she wrote her original piece without knowing police had been tipped off about her husband's search history at his former job.

[TriplD]

53. No delay, it's just not there

They've added press releases from 8/2. No 8/1 or 8/2 press release as described in the media:

http://apps.suffolkcountyny.gov/police/morepress.htm


Did the media get punked again?

[pnwmom]

54. No, the media didn't get punked. The PD made a formal statement that they gave the media.

How do you know that every news release is always put on the website? Why would it make it any more real to put it on the website?