Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa, oh my

https://medium.com/something-like-falling/2e7d13e54724

by steveklabnik • 13 years ago

514 272 13 years ago

medium.com

darien• 13 years ago

A part of me doesn't want to believe this story.

everTheSkeptic2• 13 years ago

I too, am skeptical.

jlas2• 13 years ago

Sorry, the novelty of your gimmick is quickly lost here, this is not reddit.

mindcrime11• 13 years ago

Same here, but... in light of everything we've learned about govt. surveillance in the past month or two, it seems a lot more plausible than it would have only a few months ago.

OTOH, if this is true, it screams "incompetence" pretty loudly, IMO. Two people googling for "pressure cooker" and "backpack" doesn't add up to squat. I mean, seriously, if I wanted a f'ng pressure cooker to build a bomb with, I'd just go to Wal-mart or Target and pay cash for it. Same for a backpack. You don't need to get on the Internet and do massive amounts of research to buy a pressure cooker and a backpack if you want to be the next Boston bomber. If they're really chasing down this many false positives with no additional evidence to suggest nefarious intent, they're wasting a shit-ton of tax money to do it, and probably overlooking all the real terrorists in the process.

cantankerous2• 13 years ago

You're right that it seems more plausible, but these surveillance programs have been going supposedly going on for years now. These guys in the story said they do this 100 times+ per week. Where are all the other stories of this happening? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I am saying it's weird that all of a sudden the FBI would start making house calls after all these still-largely-unverified-by-various-agencies leaks would take place. Anybody hear any other stories like this?

antitrust• 13 years ago

Weirdly, the part I find hard to believe is that the agents hadn't heard of "quinoa."

Until recently, I hadn't heard of quinoa because I am not hip or a foodie, but then I googled it. All became clear.

I imagine that law enforcement officers aren't idiots, and thus if they ran into some word that could be relevant to the investigation, they'd type it into a search engine.

IanCal• 13 years ago

They only hit on that in the middle of a conversation.

My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked

I could also understand not knowing what it is based on the pronunciation (I expected kwin-oh-a, but it's more keen-wah I think).

lovesgreen• 13 years ago

Regardless of whether or not this happened, it's scary because I actually find it plausible. Similar themes have appeared across countless headlines over the last few months and if we aren't already here, we soon will be. The sad part is that like all such power struggles, things are not going to change before a lot of bad things happen.

mox692• 13 years ago

It's not real.

1. They don't show up in black SUV's.

2. The FBI will ALWAYS be there. (NSA/CIA/Men In Black/etc cannot physically interact with american citizens on US soil)

3. They don't show up in plain cloths.

4. They would have showed up with a SWAT team.

billybob255• 13 years ago

That seems like a lot of conjecture on your part.

homosaur• 13 years ago

Give evidence for any of this and maybe we can start discussing it. You've made 4 random statements with nothing to back it up.

It would be important for savvy readers to remember that HN has government/NSA shills that lurk about. Be careful what you believe without evidence.

steveklabnik6• 13 years ago

Especially given that this is a new account, with only this comment.

matznerd2• 13 years ago

She is saying they are not from the FBI, but from the "joint terrorism task force"

https://twitter.com/inthefade/status/362729458806960129

jmccree2• 13 years ago

The JTTF isn't an agency, it's a task force lead by the FBI in a local region with membership of local and state law enforcement. First one was in NYC, there are now task forces in most major metro areas. Most states and major cities have anti-terrorism/homeland security departments of their police forces. The agents could have been any mix of FBI, ATF, State Police, Local Police etc.

ianstallings5• 13 years ago

They do have black SUVs so I'm not sure why the objection there. The joint terrorism task force is the FBI, whose agents are typically in plain clothes and not in a uniform. And they were asking questions why would they need the SWAT team? For all you know those guys were staged around the corner like they normally do anyway.

Wise up.

mox692• 13 years ago

she uses "join terrorism task force" 3 times in the blog post. She never mentions the FBI/police/government at all.

In my opinion 99% of america has no idea what a joint terrorism task force is (its basically an internal law enforcement word, not publicly used) and would simply say "the feds" or "the government" showed up. Her using that specific word all over the place leads me to believe she is hiding something.

cantankerous2• 13 years ago

You've got to admit that this story does seem a bit strange. If they know what you've searched for, why would they bother showing up and letting "potential bad guys" know that they're wise to them? Now said "potential bad guys" will be more coy about their search habits. Further more, if said "potential bad guy" is not a bad guy at all, now you've just freaked out a US citizen who might turn around and write their congress-members about how big bad government is on their lawn. It seems like particularly odd policy for a law enforcement agency. Granted, the aforementioned hasn't stopped similar policies in the past from happening. I dunno. I'm still skeptical.

guruz4• 13 years ago

Why not? The US has so many state and federal intelligence/terrorism/whatever agencies, I don't think those guys are just sitting in front of their XKeyscore :)

koudelka• 13 years ago

This is complete bullshit, I have first-hand experience with this.

The FBI showed up with two black SUVs and one local police car.

They were all in plain clothes except for the single uniformed police officer.

There was no SWAT team (in my case).

kabdib• 13 years ago

Secret Service shows up in a bunch of black cars, too. At least they did in the cases I'm familiar with.

I don't believe the story at all.

llamataboot4• 13 years ago

I've had the FBI at my door twice in my life. In both cases they were dressed in plainclothes (business casual), showed their badges, and gave me their business cards after I refused to talk to them without a lawyer present (and never came back). No SWAT team, no brandishing of firearms (though they were armed). Scarily pleasant talk. (I don't remember what their cars were. Nice sedan I think, not SUV.)

"Hello XXXX, We're here to ask a few questions about XXXX and were wondering if we could come in for a few minutes and talk with you"

"I'd prefer not to talk to law enforcement without a lawyer present."

"It's only a few questions, we won't take up too much of your time"

Repeat with different niceties for awhile, no threats.

Then, "Okay, I'm Special Agent XXX and here's my card if you change your mind"

On the other hand I've been arrested twice by local cops for refusing to talk to them, often with a bit of, ermmm, physical persuasion involved.

FBI are the smooth talking salesmen of the law enforcement world, at least when they want you to cooperate with them and don't have anything on you. They aren't really in the business of running around and cracking heads like your local beat cops.

But this story was "just" a visit from local cops, local terrorism task force, I think

matznerd2• 13 years ago

At first reading, I was wondering is this a think piece or is it real. Based on her twitter account, it appears it is real: "You don't believe my story? Ask any of my followers about my credibility. Then kiss my ass. Thanks." https://twitter.com/inthefade/status/362890947165564928 What do you guys think?

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

Seems to have difficulty keeping her word just talking to someone:

============

@jsin you're the only one doubting me, dude. Michele Catalano @inthefade 17h

To clarify, they turned out to be a terrorist task force, not FBI. I wasn't home, my husband and son were Michele Catalano @inthefade 16h

Going silent on the issue now. Michele Catalano @inthefade 16h

@jsin How the hell is it hearsay when it happened to ME? 4h

============

I don't think credibility like this can be meaningfully established by polling someone's twitter followers. How would they know if it were true or not?

I suppose if they've not been caught in a lie before, it's less likely that they're lying this time. But how persistent is their identity, how many do they have running at the same time, is it just a case that all the people who think they're lying have left? And are all the ones that question just banned?

-shrug-

I doubt the story. Whether it's a lie or not -shrug- It's not totally outside the realms of credibility I suppose, but her word alone isn't sufficient evidence.

paraboul• 13 years ago

It's on Internet? Must be legit.

mrt0mat0• 13 years ago

http://news.yahoo.com/google-pressure-cookers-backpacks-visi... also an article from yahoo. the problem is that we have to wonder if this is real. it shouldn't be. it should be found in a book written about a horrible distopia in the future... but it's not.

danso3• 13 years ago

Huh? That's not an article from Yahoo. That's a syndicated reprint from Atlantic Wire. And if you actually read it, you'll see that it contains no original material except, "This is what someone else said."

tenpoundhammer• 13 years ago

"We do what we must because we can."

duggieawesome• 13 years ago

I'm surprised that her husband allowed them inside in the first place.

steveklabnik6• 13 years ago

Many people do, that's exactly why they ask. It's not a good idea, but people do trust the police.

spiek• 13 years ago

Yeah there was no mention of any sort of search warrant.

guruz4• 13 years ago

Make yourself more suspicious by not letting them in?

EDIT: Has the point been reached where people are more afraid of being mis-targeted (e.g. my Chinese gf has a pressure cooker for rice) than being an actual "terrorist" attack victim? I sure hope so.

RBerenguel2• 13 years ago

If they don't have an order, they should not come in (unless invited to do so, of course). It has nothing to do with being "suspicious."

ianstallings5• 13 years ago

Or let them in to find bomb making material that's in every modern house and get sent to gitmo. Tough choice..

ISL2• 13 years ago

It doesn't actually make you suspicious, it just indicates that you're an informed citizen. If you paid attention in 8th grade civics class, you'll know that you get to ask if they have a warrant.

Reading the warrant will give you some indication of what they're interested in. If they don't have a warrant, then you can decide if you think you should let them in.

It's up to you; if I'm on a jury, I won't find you more suspicious if you question the police before allowing them into your home. I'd guess that there are other people like me.

ISL2• 13 years ago

To verify credibility, all of us can just google pressure cookers and shop around a little. If true, then a few HNers will get a visit.

drunkenmasta2• 13 years ago

don't forget the + الله أكبر search function

lizzard• 13 years ago

I would not have let them in with out a warrant.

mindcrime11• 13 years ago

Same here. I'm at a point now where I've basically wholesale adopted the "don't talk to the police" mindset.

A few nights ago, I went through one of those DUI checkpoints. I handed the cop my license, and then he started asking me questions:

Cop: "Where are you headed?"

Me: "That's none of your business."

Him: <surprised look>

Different night, different DUI checkpoint:

Cop: "Where are you coming from?"

Me: "Sorry, I don't answer questions for cops unless I'm under arrest and have an attorney present."

Cop: "That's a pretty intense position, any particular reason for it?"

Me: "It's just a matter of principle. This is a free country and we don't have a Gestapo or a Stasi here that we have to answer to, and somebody needs to remind you guys of that."

Cop: <looking in my window with his flashlight> "You always ride around with all this stuff in your truck?"

Me: <forgetting for a moment that I'm not planning to answer any questions> "Yeah"

Cop: "You moving?"

Me: "I just told you, I don't answer questions unless I'm under arrest and have a lawyer present. If you think you have probable cause to arrest me for a crime, arrest me, I'll call a lawyer and we'll do this right."

Cop: <finally noticing all the anarchist and anti-govt. stickers on my truck> "Oh, I see the stickers now. I guess you think of yourself as sovereign, huh?"

Me: "I guess that's an open question, isn't it?"

Cop: "Good luck with that. Have a good night."

So yeah, technically speaking I did answer a couple of his questions, one out of sheer instinct, and two that were "meta" questions in a sense. But the point is, this is now how I routinely deal with the police. You want to search my car? Get a warrant. You want to play twenty questions? Arrest me and wait until my lawyer is in the room. Etc.

cpursley2• 13 years ago

Interesting. Sounds like a pretty intelligent officer to ask "Oh, I see the stickers now. I guess you think of yourself as sovereign, huh?"

Most of the cops around me couldn't find their home town on a map if you pointed to it, let along understand what anarchism is.

magicalist3• 13 years ago

Yeah, this is called being unnecessarily combative with a cop, and is asking for some serious trouble. All you need is a cop that's at the end of a long bad day, and eventual vindication (with a possible settlement) probably won't make up for the several months of grief.

1) Don't talk to cops

2) Don't be rude to cops

lecturing the cops about your rights falls under #2. Ask if you're being detained, mention (politely!) that you only speak to cops with your attorney present if you must, and ask if you can go. Everything else in this not completely believable dialog is asking for trouble.

aet2• 13 years ago

Do you realize police look for people changing their behavior or "acting strange"? That is what you were doing.. inviting more scrutiny.

gohrt6• 13 years ago

Keep it simple to avoid slipping into trouble.

"Am I under arrest, sir?"

"Am I free to go, sir?"

"Am I under arrest, sir?"

"Am I free to go, sir?"

Yver• 13 years ago

Indeed, if searching for pressure cookers and backpacks really get law enforcement to your door (assuming this article is factual) then you definitely don't want them to look into your garage/toolshed where you may have some fertilizer, gasoline, metal canisters, bolts, nails, etc...

sophacles• 13 years ago

I've always been very curious about "bomb making materials" reported in the news. A reasonably clever person can turn common household items into "bombs" - a rapid exothermic reaction and a containment vessel with "good" failure properties and there you go.

Does anyone realize just what a person could do by just having bleach and ammonia!?

Extra paranoid: Think about how much shrapnel material you are "hiding" in your computer - all those little screws cleverly disguised as "holding it in the right places".

btipling• 13 years ago

"I would not have let them in." No you should not get in their way. Don't give them permission if they ask if that is your desire, but don't get in their way. For what it's worth police don't need a warrant to enter your house, they just need probable cause a crime is in progress. If you try to stop police as they attempt to enter, you may find yourself arrested for getting in their way.

magicalist3• 13 years ago

There's nothing in lizzard's post to suggest physically barricading the house against law enforcement. Meanwhile if you read the article, you'll see that according to the author's account, the police did indeed ask the husband "if they could search the house".

Always say no[1].

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

jstalin• 13 years ago

Why is this site (Medium) always so slow to load?

regularfry2• 13 years ago

I'm seeing a couple of seconds grabbing a kissmetrics url...

itp• 13 years ago

For me, all Medium pages were slow until I stopped using Ghostery in Chrome. If you're hitting the same problem I am, you might want to disable/remove Ghostery and look at the Disconnect extension instead. I have found Disconnect to be far less disruptive and break far fewer pages than Ghostery did.

vitno• 13 years ago

It's also open-source. It always bothered me that Ghostery wasn't.

ck2• 13 years ago

Someone please rename this article title because it's very important people read this.

And since Google is https now, that means the feds have a realtime hook into the data.

jsolson• 13 years ago

... or that they clicked on a link from the search results to a non-https website about backpacks or pressure cookers.

Say, I don't know, Amazon, where even if you try to visit it as https it redirects you to http.

* edit: On second thought, I'm not buying it. The whole thing reads too much like a bad police procedural. Thomas's commentary more or less sums up my thoughts on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6141113

tptacek16• 13 years ago

Many, many thousands of pressure cookers are sold every year. Terrorist attacks are extremely rare. Millions and millions of backpacks are sold every year. The intersection of those two products isn't helpful. The base rate theorem dictates that pressure cooker sales will turn out to be a very poor signal for terrorism.

This article posits (or is trying to sell you on the idea) that the FBI watches for pressure cooker sales on the Internet and dispatches teams of extremely expensive FBI agents to investigate them. Stipulate that the FBI has access to that information (I don't think they do, but whatever). What the FBI isn't going to do is compromise sources and methods in a pressure cooker dragnet. They are mathematically assured not to find terrorists that way. But they'd make a huge amount of noise. They don't burn sources for no good reason.

I don't buy this, at all.

Also not helpful, if you're trying to sell a hoax: the too-vivid callbacks to the Boston bombers, and to the FBI's television show image.

Later

Note also that this story wants you to infer that the FBI told her husband that they were following up on Internet search leads. Not only did they roll trucks to a residence to do a search that was almost mathematically guaranteed to come up blank, but when they did that, they hinted around at the secret program that got them to do it.

steveklabnik6• 13 years ago

I agree that I'd like to see some actual evidence. The author _is_ someone with a degree of credibility, but it is a little hard to believe.

That said, I posted this specifically because I thought the discussion around exactly this would be interesting.

tptacek16• 13 years ago

Can you tell me more about the author's credibility?

(She could be the US National Security Advisor and I still would not buy the idea that the FBI is simultaneously (a) dragnetting Google search teams and (b) noisily following up on suspicious ones; if the FBI is watching Google, they sure as fuck don't want you to know that.)

corresation2• 13 years ago

This was exactly my impression reading this. I fully expect -- if the author wants to regain any credibility -- that the author will say that it was a fiction "based on real events" of where society will be if the NSA moves ahead, etc (which goes along with the fact that they categorized it under "thoughts into essays". Read the other entries so categorized). That it was but an enlightened warning.

ianstallings5• 13 years ago

Your whole assumption is based on the fact that they want to find terrorists when I would put forward that their mission is actually to grow the institutional power. Budget share, it's what drives DC.

tptacek16• 13 years ago

I'm sure there's a bunch of non-falsifiable fuzzy arguments you could substitute for this one. How about, "you assume they're looking for terrorists, but really they just don't like the texture of pressure-braised chicken."

guelo• 13 years ago

You're calling her a liar based on her second hand account of what JTTF (not FBI) agents told her husband. But the Google searches might have been only one element of what led the agents to go knocking on her door. We know for a fact that the feds do get people's Google searches after they've convinced some rubber stamp court that someone is suspicious.

tptacek16• 13 years ago

I have no trouble believing that the FBI would do things that would compromise the fact that they collect information about searches for targets of investigations. That's a very different compromise than the one that reveals they dragnet all Google searches for lead generation.

sehugg• 13 years ago

Remember when the Secret Service visited the 13-year old boy at his school regarding a Facebook post? http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/national_worl...

What about Justin Carter, a 19-year old recently freed on $500,000 bail for another Facebook post?

So we know that Federal (and State) law enforcement spends resources following up very tenuous leads.

As far as burning sources and methods, what else would you have them do to follow up on this specific lead? Six agents interviewing someone for an hour seems less expensive than weeks or months of surveillance.

What does it matter if the account is true or false? It's completely plausible.

tptacek16• 13 years ago

You're not following. Yes, Bayes says that following up on stupid Facebook posts is also a waste of time. But the cost of following up on Facebook posts is low; nobody is surprised that the FBI finds out about stupid threats you post to Facebook, because Facebook is essentially public. The cost of following up on a Google dragnet is very high; the whole artifice of the Internet surveillance program is that it's not used this way.

Note that I'm not saying that Internet surveillance data doesn't get used this way. I'm saying that when it does, the USG sure as shit doesn't advertise the fact. They don't burn sources and methods for no good reason.

It's almost totally implausible.

300bps3• 13 years ago

So we know that Federal (and State) law enforcement spends resources following up very tenuous leads.

Approximately 18 years ago I had 4 local police show up at my front door at 11:00 PM because my roommate had broken up with a girl and she told her parents that I posted her phone number on a Prodigy message board. I didn't do it and have never even had a Prodigy account.

I also barely knew the girl and she was only doing it to get back at my roommate through me.

I was in bed when they knocked on the door, I went downstairs and didn't let them in. They threatened everything short of killing me, I told them I had no idea what they were talking about. They then grilled my roommate outside for about 20 minutes. Dumbest situation I've ever been involved in.

So yeah, local cops have way to much time on their hands.

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

What does it matter if the account is true or false?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

ethomson2• 13 years ago

My takeaway from this article is that it was a piece of realistic fiction, not reported as fact and thus not a "hoax".

The author, Michele Catalano lists herself as a political writer not a news reporter.

http://michelecat.wordpress.com/about/

Edit: I take it all back, she claims on her twitter that this is accurate and true. I share your reservations on the veracity of this account.

StandardFuture3• 13 years ago

While, I agree this COULD all be a sham story for someone who may be a bit of an attention seeker ... I would like to counter your arguments anyways to show that this story is actually perfectly believable.

In the article, the 'Task Force' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Terrorism_Task_Force) probably has a set of "Tasks" that they must accomplish to be ... well ... worth being a department with a budget. And I imagine one of those is following up on "profile-perfect" households or individuals.

So what would make this household 'profile-perfect'? Well it is true that there were searches for Pressure cookers and backpacks but that alone won't mean much due to the massive amounts of searches for these products.

But BOTH searches were done; and yet still I have to agree that the intersection still does not provide an un-biased view.

However, what if we take into consideration the timescale at which these searches (and possible purchases) took place? We know that the searches were made WITHIN the same week. This factor could possibly give us stronger signals for a profile-match.

Now what if we couple that with 'international travel'(e.g. how often a passport was used in a system for out-of-country travel)? The profile match would become higher due to the husbands business trips.

And I don't know where these people live, but location could also be a factor as well (e.g. the closer you live to a major city the greater your risk potential factor).

Now the cross-section for these factors would have such precision that doing a dragnet on this profile-match set would be feasible. And I imagine it would amount to less than 100 households a week (although I think if the story is true that the agent said this just to 'console' the family that this is common practice and there is nothing to worry about).

What do you guys think?

EDIT: Also not to mention that another factor could be 'Copy-cat-syndrome'(made up the term) e.g. how many things were occurring at this household to make them appear like potential Boston-bomber copycats?

tptacek16• 13 years ago

You're not engaging with my point. Manpower and expense is a problem with this story, yes, but not the main problem; the main problem is that it's a strategy that is practically guaranteed to betray the existence of a whole new domestic Internet surveillance program while at the same time being almost mathematically guaranteed never to find a single terrorist.

jen_h2• 13 years ago

Agree on plausibility. Also, don't forget the 20-year-old son. Bet they checked the medicine cabinet.

danso3• 13 years ago

When I type in "pressure cooker", the very first suggested Google query is "pressure cooker bomb"...which means a non-significant number of people have either searched for that query or have written about it.

And this is the first dramatic account we've heard of this? We've heard of several National Security Letters, the disclosure of which is breaking the law...yet none of the presumably hundreds and thousands of people who have been visited by government black SUVs have not made a quip about being erroneously searched? Even though such searches, as the OP describes it, are mostly non-confrontational and end with the agents being non-threatening?

Yeah, I also have to express some skepticism here.

roc6• 13 years ago

TFA: "They asked my husband about his work, his visits to South Korea and China"

I'd say the NSAs '3 steps' policy is far more likely. The husband interacts with someone overseas who interacts with someone else who is on a list somewhere. [1] The NSA does the routine profile on everyone within three steps of the-guy-on-the-list, some key words generate hits, salaried agents get another address to visit.

That possibility doesn't get hung up on the problematic notion that anyone's setting up such visits based on google searches alone, nor implies a JTTF agent caughed up real information on how they actually got their lead or why they were actually there.

[1] If you're doing business on the Chinese mainland, it seems pretty likely you'll be within three steps of 'potential terrorists', given the whole cyber cold war and economic espionage thing.

jpalioto2• 13 years ago

I was disappointed that it took her 14 paragraphs to get to this. She starts "I was buying a pressure cooker and my husband was looking at backpacks" when she should have started "my husband makes frequent trips to China and Korea ..." Less frenzy that way I guess.

smsm424• 13 years ago

"Potential terrorist" is a very vague term. Anybody who is alive and not brain-dead can be "potential terrorist". However I don't see how you explain the police asking questions about pressure cookers. Is that just a common thing - anybody that visits China gets a visit from the police that ask them if they make a pressure cooker bombs, just in case? Like the routine "How are you, sir? Is everything alright? How was your China trip? Did you make any pressure cooker bombs today? How about tomorrow? Good day to you, sir, then!".

mcphilip2• 13 years ago

I don't buy this, at all.

I got the same impression after reading the post and before looking at the HN discussion. Good to see I wasn't the only one.

Initially I was horrified by the blog post because we now know for certain that google search histories are readily available without warrant to certain subsets of NSA analysts. Then it hit me that the blog post content and timing was too perfect. If such an uproarious event happened to the author, why on earth hold on to the story for "a few weeks"?

Who knows, maybe the author's husband did get searched and she's only assuming it was related to interest in pressure cookers and backpacks. I have no real reason to assume the author is lying, but I also don't have to assume she's telling the whole truth and not just trying to attract page views.

munificent• 13 years ago

If such an uproarious event happened to the author, why on earth hold on to the story for "a few weeks"?

The author said this happened Wednesday (yesterday). The "few weeks ago" was when she searched for pressure cookers and imagined alerts going out.

JumpCrisscross• 13 years ago

The story is gaining traction via the Guardian [1] and Atlantic Wire [2]. That's not vindication, but it does offer an additional layer of fact checking.

The Atlantic Wire piece points out that while the FBI "was aware of the visit...it was conducted by local police on Long Island".

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police...

[2] http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-k...

tptacek16• 13 years ago

I do not believe that the Atlantic Wire did any fact checking at all. The Atlantic Wire is The Atlantic's in-house HuffPo operation.

The Guardian apparently discovered that County PD visited Catalano's house. That's all we know, despite the fact that The Guardian ran a headline that said that Google searches produced a visit.

aznjons• 13 years ago

First: On your assertion that federal government agencies (or agencies that work in tandem with them) act in line with mathematical probability like the base rate theorem and that they necessarily allocate resources in a cost-effective manner.

Has a federal agency ever been funded to the tune of 8 billion dollars a year, infringed on individual freedoms, harassed innocent civilians, all of which are tangible wastes and violations while based on a premise that also completely ignores the base rate theorem? Has such an agency been scrapped even though they have failed to negate the base rate theorem after billions of resources invested and negative collateral effects?

Second: On your point that revealing their methods in this case "burns a source" How is this burning a source?

1. As others have provided citations for, the FBI has already revealed that they surveil communications.

2. One would assume that competent terrorists are not in complete ignorance of the possibility that the FBI utilizes a domestic surveillance system. Thus, the "secret source" does not really provide the element of surprise.

3. If by burning you mean revealing to the masses and compromising public opinion, the federal government of the US has already shown that they believe in the checks and balances of their system (such as warrants, blanket or otherwise) and this is one of their major defenses of these practices. If they wholeheartedly believe that the system is legal (as they have demonstrated), then they would not feel the need to hide this kind of investigation.

Regardless of whether the story is true or not (I haven't made up my mind on this yet), I don't think the arguments you give for discrediting the story seem as strong as you present them.

glesica• 13 years ago

Yep, doesn't stop NYPD from stopping and frisking random minorities (including a 3 star NYPD police chief who was not very happy about having guns pulled on him while sitting in his NYPD vehicle with a badge around his neck). Looks like this was local cops, never underestimate the desire of a cowboy to be a hero.

vladimirralev• 13 years ago

It was implied in the story that the husband was looking up how to create a pressure cooker bomb as well out of curiosity. Even that might not be enough though. If FBI are smart they just classify each user into brackets of suspicious activity. The top N% get investigated, where N depends on the current available resource/budget. Not hard to believe at all.

droithomme• 13 years ago

I was unable to find the reference where Ms Catalano claimed to be visited directly by FBI agents as you are suggesting in your posts, and not as she said (https://medium.com/something-like-falling/2e7d13e54724) the Joint Terrorism Task force, which includes local law enforcement members who are part of it and who work together with the FBI and other agencies. JTTF is generally overseen and investigation coordinated by the FBI, and the FBI also pays the participating agencies expenses for costs incurred during their JTTF work. (http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec04/jttf120114.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Terrorism_Task_Force)

Searching the article which is linked to and which you are commenting about reveals that it does not even include the term "FBI". However that is hardly relevant given then connection to the FBI that the JTTF has, members are generally acting on behalf of FBI investigations when they do JTTF work. If someone were to call them de facto FBI agents it would not be inaccurate given they act with the authority of the FBI and are paid by the FBI for their work on the JTTF.

Please state clearly whether you are asserting that Ms Catalano's article here contains lies in your opinion, and clarify exactly what she said that you believe she is lying about or misrepresenting. Please provide a reference quote to the part of the referenced article that you are commenting on where she makes a claim to be visited by FBI agents specifically and not the JTTF.

ethomson2• 13 years ago

Her twitter: https://twitter.com/inthefade

States: "Pro tip: don't do a search for pressure cookers right after your spouse does a search for backpacks if you don't want the FBI at your door."

Before later clarifying: "To clarify, they turned out to be a terrorist task force, not FBI. I wasn't home, my husband and son were."

Vivtek3• 13 years ago

This story doesn't mention the FBI at all, man. It mentions six plainclothes guys in three black SUVs who've obviously had some tactical training, and leaves it at that.

The point being that America has become a country where six armed guys can show up at your door with pointed questions and no warrant, and you will never be told why.

snupples• 13 years ago

Your skepticism turns out to be warranted. Apparently the operation was conducted after local police "received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee."

http://gothamist.com/2013/08/01/li_woman_says_she_was_invest...

dubyah• 13 years ago

Per an update via the The Atlantic Wire:

" Update, 7:05 p.m.: Because the Googling happened at work.

The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement this evening that answers the great mystery of the day.

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. "

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-k...

mpyne4• 13 years ago

FWIW looks like you were right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6146898

daemon13• 13 years ago

Strange story - why allow anyone into the house???

My understanding is that any sane person would do this only if there was a paper signed by judge ...

drunkenmasta2• 13 years ago

This story reads like fiction to me. but it does inspire me to search using the same phrases.

palidanx• 13 years ago

Maybe a lawyer can chime in, but if you said 'no' to when the police asked if they could see your residence, would they not be able to come in and then need a warrant?

I remember a friend telling me that when police come to your door and ask if they can come in (say for loud music or such), you can say 'no' and then put the onus on them to actually come in. And a lawyer said if you say 'yes' then you give them access to prowl through your stuff.

uxp• 13 years ago

I'm not a lawyer, however I've been told by lawyers that the only thing that should come out of my mouth when a cop asks me a question is either "No" or "I'd like to speak with my lawyer".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

Of course. You enjoy the protections of the 4th amendment at home, under normal circumstances the only way the police can search your apartment is with a warrant.

llamataboot4• 13 years ago

It's true, hard to remember when you have a bunch of cops telling you how much worse it is going to be for you if you make their job harder, but they can't enter your house w/out a warrant unless you invite them in.

FBI folks are usually MUCH more polite than cops. The times I have had FBI agents at my door (twice, regarding protest activity) once I told them I wasn't talking to them without my lawyer they thanked me for my time, gave me their business cards, and told me to call them if I changed my mind.

luscious• 13 years ago

When your intelligence and security services don't know what quinoa is, you're in trouble.

bandy2• 13 years ago

I routinely buy quinoa, as well as somewhat more obscure things, such as mayocoba beans and Salsa Lizano. I own two pressure cookers - a search of my e-mail history will show me asking my sister for a recommendation, followed by a purchase from Amazon. When my decade+-old computer backpack gave out, I asked my friends for recommendations.

No FBI yet.

sitkack• 13 years ago

Bla bla correlation and causation. I did not infere that ALL users whom exhibited the same online behavior got the same search. Other factors led the cops to the premises. To me the point was, yes they are looking at your search history. But as other users have pointed out, her husband could have been included in a 3-degrees of separation blanket warrant.

bandy2• 13 years ago

…and by now you've seen the rest of the story: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-k...

tl;dr: It was a former employer of her son or husband who called the local cops because of searches for "pressure cooker bombs" and "backpacks" in a work computer's browser history.

koenigdavidmj• 13 years ago

"No, you may not enter my house without a warrant. Good day."

D9u2• 13 years ago

Welcome to 1984, check your civil liberties at the door. Never mind if we're almost 30 years too late, and oh, by the way, how's that hope & change going for you?

pekk• 13 years ago

As if this kind of investigation would not have occurred under McCain or Romney? Cut the partisan bullshit, please.

D9u2• 13 years ago

Well, neither one of those politicians campaigned on promises of dismantling the NeoCon policies initiated by the Bush/Cheney gang, so who's playing partisan politics here?

bargl• 13 years ago

I get a little doubt. Its good, but I think we can all try to discern some facts here from what she's said.

1) She wasn't there so this is a second hand story. Most second hand stories are embellished to a certain degree. Fact is she just wasn't there. (from her twitter) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140924

2) Government agents (who knows where they are from because who has time to remember THOSE details in the moment). FBI, Internal Task Force, MIB, it really doesn't matter that much.

3) Were they merely concerned with Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa. That is all just conjecture and really not relevant to the story.

The REAL issue here is that government agents appeared on her doorstep and asked to come in, for no apparent reason. Then they asked a bunch of questions that made her feel as if she was a suspicious character. This all causes an atmosphere of fear, similar to what special police units in other countries have done.

This is about the fact that she doesn't know WHY they came by. Sure she's speculating to make herself feel better, who wouldn't but what's more important is that there is someone watching you out there and determining if a person is suspicious or not and we (US citizens) have NO control over that. Matter of fact we don't even know what it is all about.

Did she make this story up. Sure, in part. But there is a core set of facts here (assuming she is just elaborating and not lying out right) that are hard to ignore.

Big brother is watching you...

EDIT: For the comment below. If you are curious how they are doing this, the best theory I've seen has come from Steve Gibson on his Security Now podcast. He speculates that they are taking raw data before it goes to Google and explains how that may be possible. https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm start with episode #408.

joering2• 13 years ago

The REAL issue here is that government agents appeared on her doorstep and asked to come in, for no apparent reason.

They search pressure cookers and backpack and got the visit from gov agents after boston bombing. how hard is it to put 1+1 ?

The REAL question is: what kind of cooperation is Google in this time that not long after doing one of trillion searches in a popular browser you get gov officials exactly at your doorstep?

It seems they have to be tapping into the google bloodstream, because I am not aware of any Google department that big that could weed through billions of searches and flag those as potential t. and hand them over to officials.

Anyone?

gohrt6• 13 years ago

The truth is always more mundane. She posted a picture of explosives on her public Facebook timeline.

https://plus.sandbox.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/...

frasierman• 13 years ago

The question I'd like to pose (and it's something I have a hard time with answering myself):

Would you prefer that the government watches your Google searches, your forum postings, your Facebook messages, and your emails and potentially stops these terrorist attacks, or would you prefer to be free of government spying and possibly give up safety?

If another Boston Bombing happened and it was later found out that the terrorists had bought pressure cookers, nails, and other bomb-making materials on Amazon, wouldn't there be outrage that it didn't raise any red flags? Yet when the government tries to investigate potential threats like the one explained in the article, they're seen as bad guys.

I think the real problem is that we were never asked. 9/11 happened and the war on terror began. Americans never chose to be spied on in order to prevent attacks, it was just assumed that we valued our safety more than our privacy.

So when I read about NSA spying articles, or blog posts like this, I always have to ask myself "what if these really were terrorists?" because I know that there are hundreds or even thousands of lives saved through operations like this, and we never hear about the successes.

aba_sababa• 13 years ago

Sorry, but that is misguided thinking. It is a misuse of resources. A death by terrorism is no worse than a death by cancer, and cancer deaths happen much more often than terrorism deaths. So, resources should be allocated accordingly.

snarfsnarf• 13 years ago

I would much prefer that we retain basic freedoms such as privacy than give them up for some small increases in safety. While the 9/11 attacks were truly terrible, our absurd responses have cost far more in both money and lives.

During the height of Soviet Union its citizens were very safe, except from their government. Crime rates were dramatically lower than in the United States, yet few Americans advocated moving toward a Soviet-style police state to increase their safety. That is exactly what we have been doing to combat terrorism though.

Suddenly it became okay to detain suspects without trials, eavesdrop without warrants, harass and demean travelers, and implement new Top Secret data collection programs, the likes of which would have been a KGB agent's wet dream. That is in addition to starting two wars which cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars each.

Am I the only one that thinks 10/26 (the date the Patriot Act was signed into law) should be remembered as a far greater tragedy than 9/11.

HPLovecraft2• 13 years ago

the category of the blog post is "writing out loud" described as "thoughts as essay By Michele Catalano · 16 Posts" Fiction?

HPLovecraft2• 13 years ago

author profile from 2004: http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2004/02/the_normblog_pr...

smnrchrds• 13 years ago

I wonder if they were a Muslim family, would they have been treated similarly?

njharman2• 13 years ago

More that Quinoa, backbacks, the rest, was "his visits to South Korea and China." Author is disingenuous in burying that deep into article and create a title that implies it was just normal stuff, regular people would like you! would have.

Investigation by people IS how police and anti-terrorism work should be done.

moocowduckquack3• 13 years ago

Tell me more about how to identify those regular people and this normal stuff of which you speak. You must be so proud to have such a level of searing insight.

njharman2• 13 years ago

By having a modicum of intelligence. To know that, almost no people living in USA have visited South Korea and China.

danenania• 13 years ago

Guardian article about this incident: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police...

Apparently it was the local police.

NelsonMinar• 13 years ago

This confirmation is the legwork I was hoping for. "A spokesman for the FBI told to the Guardian on Thursday that its investigators were not involved in the visit, but that 'she was visited by Nassau County police department … They were working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department.'"

sp3322• 13 years ago

Isn't it odder that local police have access to this data?

jlgreco2• 13 years ago

Yeah, this is far more odd.

FrankenPC• 13 years ago

And so it begins.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

Reminds me of this ACLU link : http://privacysos.org/node/1048

Basically we're at the point where there is no benefit to be had, and great risk, in talking with law enforcement. That is a sad place to be.

lettergram• 13 years ago

I doubt this story is real...

(5, at least, this has been going on) * (52 weeks) * (100 a week) = 26,000 homes would have been entered, averaging 3 people per home (on the low side)

= ~78,000 people have had this happen to them and I haven't heard about it?

Not to mention, I would say no to any plain clothes government official without presenting a warrant and badges.

There are plenty of other issues with the blog post, but those two alone are enough for me to call B.S.

smsm424• 13 years ago

Maybe you would but most people wouldn't. It takes guts to say no to six armed men with government documents, even if the law is technically on your side. They are very cordial and nice, they just want to ask a couple of questions, and they have the gigantic power of US government standing behind their backs. And you are in your pajamas and slippers and would you dare to say no to them, whatever the consequences would be? If you doubt what most people would choose, look how many people are completely OK with what TSA is doing. And that's your ass, literally, being inspected, not your kitchen.

larrywright3• 13 years ago

I don't buy this. If, as the article maintains, there were 100 of these a week, I think we'd hear a lot more about these sorts of incidents.

VladRussian22• 13 years ago

few years back had a visit from a bunch of police guys. They never shown any warrant, said they were looking for some guy who i have no idea about, they checked our apartment and left (5th, ie. don't talk to the police, 4th amendment, etc... - it looked so laughably unapplicable in front of these towering and pushing forward guys (and i'm 6ft btw)) What was it about - have no idea, may be they were really looking for that guy, at least that is my hope and my desire to believe in. I'm an immigrant, with clear record, official record i mean - what they have in secret files about me - have no idea.

Wrt. the topic of this discussion - FBI/NSA/etc... have been monitoring what people have been checking out in libraries, so it is only natural that they continue doing it on the Internet. Of course that is blatant violation of 4th, yet citizens of this country through their elected representatives have been strangely content with it.

larrywright3• 13 years ago

I think you're missing the point of my argument: if there were 100 raids a week to homes of innocent people, I think we would hear more about it.

larrywright3• 13 years ago

Turns out I was right: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/01/employer-tipped-off-police-...

The search was nothing like that article described.

milesf• 13 years ago

This story has a whiff of being fake, but that being said I'm glad I switched my whole family over to DuckDuckGo & Firefox. The mental overhead of "am I being watched" by Google/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook is not there anymore, and it feels good.

I am not hiding anything. I am a free, Canadian citizen with no criminal record. I am simply not willing to give up my freedom and liberty because other people are either scared or in the business of fear mongering.

Ol' Benny Frank said it best "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

gohrt6• 13 years ago

Perhaps you should be afraid that DDG is secrety tracking you, as well. Or do you naively believe that some tiny little company, without billions in the bank, has the power to stand up to the Feds?

downandout2• 13 years ago

If true, this story is appalling. In order to do this, the Feds would have to have "fire hose" access to Google queries or have access to their servers to be able mine the search data of everyone, including US persons. Since a regular federal judge couldn't issue a search warrant for such sweeping surveillance on US citizens, it would mean that Google is voluntarily giving up all of its search data to government agencies. That would be a striking and disturbing revelation, given their adamant PRISM denials. It would be enough to make millions of Google customers run away from them.

Houshalter2• 13 years ago

Isn't the stuff you search for encoded in the URL? Could they get it just by intercepting your web traffic?

downandout2• 13 years ago

They aren't supposed to be able to do that since google uses SSL by default. But if Google has coughed up its SSL keys, I guess anything is possible.

junto• 13 years ago

This is 'pre-crime', Minority Report v1.0

i386• 13 years ago

Wait... he let them in without a warrant? If it were my house, I would have said that they couldn't come in.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

100 times a week? Maybe 1 is an actual hit? Blimey.

Presumably this little team don't run around all of the US. So, a state level team doing 100 per week? 50 states, right? So, that's a potential 5,000 searches, per week. 52 weeks in a year. So, 260,000 innocent homes searched by an armed team per year, purely from "suspect" searches on the internet.

People wise, average number of people in a US household? Say 4? So, that's 1.4M people affected, per year.

Ok, the maths doesn't include the 1 out of 100, however, we can be sure a good number of them still turn out to be nothing. Sadly, I bet the 1 is the Arab or dark skinned middle eastern looking family.

No mention of any sort of search warrant either.

Yeah, you terrorists hate US "freedoms" alright.

Well....... nothing to hide, nothing to worry about, right? I dont care if the authorities want my internet history to creep through, why would I be bothered, all I do is shopping........

Just to check, at what point are we allowed to use phrases like "police state", "fascist", "oppression" and what not? Whats the number? Or is this for ever fine as long as the government has the fig leaf of the American vote?

Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa, oh my

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