Grumbler's Guide On How To Make Friends And Influence People

[mongers]

I don't know what I find most disturbing about this story, maybe it's the former boss's paranoia pinpointing an ex-employee as a terrorist.

Perhaps its that a few, in the scheme of things, trivial events have created the surveillance state or put another way a East German like stassi state has been reborn, but this time in the West:

Michele Catalano in writing out loud · 5 min read
pressure cookers, backpacks and quinoa, oh my!

It was a confluence of magnificent proportions that led six agents from the joint terrorism task force to knock on my door Wednesday morning. Little did we know our seemingly innocent, if curious to a fault, Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching. Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history.

Most of it was innocent enough. I had researched pressure cookers. My husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe in another time those two things together would have seemed innocuous, but we are in "these times" now. And in these times, when things like the Boston bombing happen, you spend a lot of time on the internet reading about it and, if you are my exceedingly curious news junkie of a twenty-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.

Which might not raise any red flags. Because who wasn't reading those stories? Who wasn't clicking those links? But my son's reading habits combined with my search for a pressure cooker and my husband's search for a backpack set off an alarm of sorts at the joint terrorism task force headquarters.

That's how I imagine it played out, anyhow. Lots of bells and whistles and a crowd of task force workers huddled around a computer screen looking at our Google history.

This was weeks ago. I don't know what took them so long to get here. Maybe they were waiting for some other devious Google search to show up but "what the hell do I do with quinoa" and "Is A-Rod suspended yet" didn't fit into the equation so they just moved in based on those older searches.

I was at work when it happened. My husband called me as soon as it was over, almost laughing about it but I wasn't joining in the laughter. His call left me shaken and anxious.

What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband's Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.

Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.

A million things went through my husband's head. None of which were right. He walked outside and the men greeted him by flashing badges. He could see they all had guns holstered in their waistbands.

"Are you [name redacted]?" one asked while glancing at a clipboard. He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in. Sure, he said.

They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search. They walked around the living room, studied the books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook), looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They asked if they could go in my son's bedroom but when my husband said my son was sleeping in there, they let it be.

Meanwhile, they were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked.

They searched the backyard. They walked around the garage, as much as one could walk around a garage strewn with yardworking equipment and various junk. They went back in the house and asked more questions.

Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves weren't curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if they ever looked it up. Two of them admitted they did.

By this point they had realized they were not dealing with terrorists. They asked my husband about his work, his visits to South Korea and China. The tone was conversational.

They never asked to see the computers on which the searches were done. They never opened a drawer or a cabinet. They left two rooms unsearched. I guess we didn't fit the exact profile they were looking for so they were just going through the motions.

They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing. I don't know what happens on the other 1% of visits and I'm not sure I want to know what my neighbors are up to.

45 minutes later, they shook my husband's hand and left. That's when he called me and relayed the story. That's when I felt a sense of creeping dread take over. What else had I looked up? What kind of searches did I do that alone seemed innocent enough but put together could make someone suspicious? Were they judging me because my house was a mess (Oh my god, the joint terrorism task force was in my house and there were dirty dishes in my sink!). Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety. This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

All I know is if I'm going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I'm not doing it online.

I'm scared. And not of the right things.

CLARIFICATION AND UPDATE

We found out through the Suffolk Police Department that the searches involved also things my husband looked up at his old job. We were not made aware of this at the time of questioning and were led to believe it was solely from searches from within our house.

I did not lie or make it up. I wrote the piece with the information that was given. What was withheld from us obviously could not be a part of a story I wrote based on what happened yesterday.

The piece I wrote was the story as we knew it with the information we were told. None of it was fabricated. If you know me, you know I would never do that.

If it was misleading, just know that my intention was the truth. And that was what I knew as the truth until about ten minutes ago. That there were other circumstances involved was something we all were unaware of.

Thank you.

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

More here:
http://m.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/02/michele_catalano_home_visit_after_googling_backpacks_and_pressure_cookers/

[Grallon]

The worm is now in the apple yes. 

Even if all the terrorists were eliminated overnight - the habbit of watching & recording has been acquired.  Profiling is so useful after all.  Imagine you can prevent crime in advance!




G.

[CountDeMoney]

Lulz, JTTFs.  A mishmash of local yokel cops, with a Fed or two jammed in there to make it all official-like.

[Brazen]

It took me a while to realise this wasn't the Suffolk Constabulary from sleepy East Anglia. I suspect their terrorism operation is somewhat underfunded.

If no-one's had a word considering what I Google for work, I think I'm pretty safe.

As a side note, there should be lessons in schools on how to stay the right side of the law on the internet.

[Valmy]

It sure seems like they made the US a much worse place to live.

Typical, my teams never seem to win on penalties.

[mongers]

It took me a while to realise this wasn't the Suffolk Constabulary from sleepy East Anglia. I suspect their terrorism operation is somewhat underfunded.

If no-one's had a word considering what I Google for work, I think I'm pretty safe.

As a side note, there should be lessons in schools on how to stay the right side of the law on the internet.

How do you teach people to hit an always moving target?

[Sheilbh]

I'd read that this was because she'd been doing searches at work. Her boss got a bit overexcited an called the police or whoever.

[CountDeMoney]

How do you teach people to hit an always moving target?

Once the next bombing event uses a different device, that will be all the rage for the Po-Po to over-analyze, and backpacks and pressure cookers will have been forgotten, because that's how cops think.

[mongers]

I'd read that this was because she'd been doing searches at work. Her boss got a bit overexcited an called the police or whoever.

Yes, hence my comment on that issue in the first line of the OP, additionally she amended her blog post at the end to reflect this new information. 

Do keep up dear boy.   

[mongers]

How do you teach people to hit an always moving target?

Once the next bombing event uses a different device, that will be all the rage for the Po-Po to over-analyze, and backpacks and pressure cookers will have been forgotten, because that's how cops think.

Oh dear, that's not unsurprising, but to be expect as you say.

And what with you being an expert in the field from two different angles, it's depressing to know it's true. 

[CountDeMoney]

I'd read that this was because she'd been doing searches at work. Her boss got a bit overexcited an called the police or whoever.

More like a combination of the Boston event being in the fresh recent past and her proximity to Boston/NY.  This was the JTTF that covers NY.  I sincerely doubt a similar internet search in North Platte, Nebraska would garner the same attention. 
After they hit her house, those 3 black SUVs went and investigated the brunch buffet at the local Bob's Big Boys.

[Sheilbh]

Okay. So boss calls police, police then have to choose to ignore potential terrorist plot or report it up the chain. There's nothing wrong with this story. Except for her moaning about it

[mongers]

Okay. So boss calls police, police then have to choose to ignore potential terrorist plot or report it up the chain. There's nothing wrong with this story. Except for her moaning about it

I think your transformation to future tool of the Blairite system is complete. 

[grumbler]

Thank Hod we've reached the point where we can draw public-policy conclusions based on an unsubstantiated blog entry.  The old days of sources, fact-checking, and editing made it virtually impossible to believe in black helicopters, the one-world-government conspiracy at the UN, and Bigfoot - and what fun was that?

[CountDeMoney]

When the next bombing event involves Dieskau 6-pdrs, grumbler's is going to be the first house hit.