"Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles..." (updated) [View all]

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Last edited Thu Aug 1, 2013, 08:53 PM - Edit history (1)

From Michele Catalano's piece

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 9am, 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.

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

She said she wasn't home. Here the photo The Atlantic Wire attached to its story, and it's now being spread as the actual photo.



Google 'Pressure Cookers' and 'Backpacks,' Get a Visit from the Cops
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/

The Guardian:

New York woman visited by police after researching pressure cookers online

A New York woman says her family's interest in the purchase of pressure cookers and backpacks led to a home visit by six police investigators demanding information about her job, her husband's ancestry and the preparation of quinoa.

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".

Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday. 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."

The Guardian has contacted the Suffolk County and Nassau County police departments for comment.

Catalano was at work, but her husband was sitting in the living room as the police arrived. She retold the experience in a post on Medium.com on Thursday. She attributed the raid largely to her ongoing hunt for a pressure cooker, an item used devastatingly by the two Tsarnaev brothers in Boston, but also used by millions across the country to prepare vegetables while retaining most of their nutrients.

- more -

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker

This was local police, and there is no indication that her claim about "pressure cookers" is accurate. It could be, but this story is full of contradictions.

The NSA is not the FBI, and it's definitely not the local police.

Edited to add The Atlantic Wire update:

Update: Now We Know Why Googling 'Pressure Cookers' Gets a Visit from Cops

<...>

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-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/