Posted on 08/01/2013 9:40:07 AM PDT by kristinn
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-ear-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.
“They never asked to see the computers on which the searches were done.”
because they had already searched those from the main office.
Never ever let the police conduct a search without a warrant
OH NO..my recent online ammo order and my stint in Turkey, 79-80,..will I get a visit also????
just wow
This guy let 6 strangers into his house and answered all those personal questions, without even the mention of warrant? I’d slap my husband upside the head for doing such a thing!
“May we search your house?” Not unless you have a warrant and I’m in cuffs.
It has never been suffieciently expplained, as far as I know, how - with all of this out of control surveillance - they did not catch the Boston Marathon bombers.
It can’t be said enough!!!!
Never ever let the police conduct a search without a warrant
Never ever let the police conduct a search without a warrant
Never ever let the police conduct a search without a warrant
I'm still wondering what prompted an explosives test on a set of C.S. Lewis paperbacks I was carrying through an airport checkpoint in June.
Either this article is BS or we have officially crossed a line. A Big Red One.
If the story is true, it means they are actively trying to connect the dots of discussions, internet surfing, etc. Of every man woman and child in this nation. That doesn’t just give me pause. It is several orders of magnitude worse, especially if THAT ONE GROUP shows up at a hundred homes a week. That is proactive surveilence of all citizens, without a warrant.
As I said, Either this article is BS or we have officially crossed a line. A Big Red One. And we have moved out of what Claire Wolfe called “that awkward stage”.
America,,,2013.
Too bad that doesn’t stop the NSA from spying on you.
And I'm supposed to feel safer with these clowns protecting me? Gosh, it's just not happening.
Maybe he Boston Bombers used Ixquick.
This guy let 6 strangers into his house and answered all those personal questions, without even the mention of warrant? I’d slap my husband upside the head for doing such a thing!
I have to see it that way. The implications of it being true are just to huge.
Never ever let the police conduct a search without a warrant
You think not having a warrant will stop them? Wow.
They get all the packets from your house at the local switch. That they have backdoor access to the search engines is lagniappe and only makes things faster and easier for them.
They have all your searches too. From any engine you choose. It just takes them a millisecond longer to put them together.
"No."
...They asked if they could search the house...
"Do you have a search warrant?"
...they were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he from? Where are his parents from? ...
"Am I under arrest? I will not answer any questions outside the presence of my attorney."
I smell a “Run the FBI Ragged with Google” protest campaign a comin’....
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