This piece by New York writer Michele Catalano is going viral. Her Long Island house got visited by law enforcement agents — agents of the “Joint Terrorism Task Force”— on Wednesday, because she had searched online for a pressure cooker and her husband had searched for a backpack.
Catalano’s piece speaks to Edward Snowden’s contention that he is not alone, that there will be many more Bradley Manning’s and Edward Snowden’s as ordinary Americans who have strong independent characters survey what has happened to our civil rights in the shadow of the war on terror.
Catalano excerpts:
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…
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 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 …
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.
Thanks to Colin Wright.
Update: Forbes reports that the surveillance originated in a suspicious boss not in “big brother.”
The Internet activity was actually monitored by an employer not the feds. The Suffolk County police department says that it questioned the family after getting a tip about suspicious computer searches on an ex-employee’s work computer. The statement from the police department:
‘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.”’
Thanks to Donald.
It turns out it was a tip from his boss–he was doing his google searches on the work computer and the boss called the cops, or so this story says–
link to forbes piece which I found at Digby’s blog Hullabaloo
It is apparent that
1. NSA and various other agencies and their contractors can follow every keystroke, and can search vast repositories to find whatever they are looking for.
2. They are prepared to mislead and prevaricate and dissemble in public statements to conceal their capability.
3. Many of them feel righteous in doing so, on the basis that what they do is essential to foil terrorist plots and protect the homeland. Many Congresspersons either have bought into this thinking, or have been corrupted by those with big interests in these capabilities. “Inside the Beltway” includes a certain “group think” that influences the whole lot.
4. Snowden proves that many low-level people have access and can do what they want with it (including downloading it and taking it to foreign countries), without effective oversight.
It is inevitable that the capability will not only be used to screen for “known threats,” such as illustrated here (Big Brother is watching every keystroke), but for political purposes and greed-related insider knowledge, to be leveraged in government contracting, through hedge funds and various other corrupt purposes to make easy money.
There are reasons to doubt the “official” version because it is inconsistent with the account of Michele Catalano. Number one, she was investigating “pressure cooker” before deciding that rice cooker is what she needs. Although her husband could be inspired to make a similar search. Number two, if there were about 100 such checks, I doubt that they were prompted solely by tips from employers. Number three, it is highly unclear how the employer would know what key words for Google searches were used on their computer.
By the way, I suspect that if you conduct your searches in a language different than English than this investigating/snooping tool can be quite disabled. In particular, “Google translate” is a very good tool for finding amusement. One feature of that program is that when there are several possibilities, it tries all of them one after another. Thus a title from Polish press that occurred twice on a list of news stories was rendered as follows:
Komorowski lost his arms
Komorowski lost his coat
The person is the current President. Quiz: what did he loose? Mind you, the first version suggests that the Polish president was a victim of a terrorist attack.
The final sentences of LA Times editorial on Snowden: “Disclosing intelligence operations directed at foreign countries does nothing to protect Americans’ privacy, and it doesn’t seem to us like whistle-blowing.
Snowden is entitled to his day in court, but that won’t be possible as long as Russia shelters him on the mistaken premise that he is a victim of political persecution.”
LA Times is considerably more enlightened than NY Times, and these final sentences have a whiff of appeasing corporate censors after making many critical observations about US government. That said, it is an attitude that is utterly baffling to non-Americans. Suppose that Snowden is not a “victim of political persecution”. Possibility: he uncovered operations that may be directed at Russia and China. While it may be of no consequence to Americans, why Russia and China are not expected to appreciate it? Possibility: Snowden is a traitor. Then the situation is clear: USA shelters Russian traitors who benefited USA and vice versa and nobody complains about it or pontificates that this is “mistaken”.
The expectation (or obligation) that a country that is not “a faithful vassal” is supposed to deport people who damaged American national interest, but not their interest, simply does not exists and USA never deported anyone for a similar reason. The image of Senator Schumer whining about being stabbed and the knife being twisted has high comedic value in foreign TV newscasts.
1984 is upon us, every keystroke and every site visited can be known to the United Stasi of America, Palestinian supporters on this site will have special attention, you Phil are well in the frame, so changing the subject to copperhead snakes will not give you a pass.