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.
In Amerika today skybot can check anyone out...unless their in a mosque. That’s off limits.
Probably because it would be racist to profile a Muslim. It is much easier to profile ordinary citizens instead.
Did you ever read Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn? I did way back when I was in high school. It provides splendid insight on the nanny state mindset.
One passage which particularly struck me told of some neighbors who went to the local KGB office to complain about the lack of arrangements made to care for the young children of a couple which had been detained for suspicious activity. Unfortunately for them, the office was short exactly two people of their detention quota for the month. Guess who filled it?
>>Either this article is BS or we have officially crossed a line. A Big Red One.<<
BUMP
no it won’t stop them if they choose to come in but it may prevent them from using it in court.
It's not for that purpose. That's just the public justification. Its real purpose is to collect extorsion information to use against political enemies. Think Obama, Axelrod and Jarrett handling opposition research on this scale. Who would dare oppose them? Certainly not John Roberts. Who would choose to run for office knowing that the Chicago bolshevik mob has access to this kind of information?
Do you have a warrant?
Am I being detained?
You’re trespassing
Ask them to let you rifle through their wallet while you're deciding whether or not to let them.
try coming up positive on one of their ‘random’ explosives tests and see what happens.
they didn’t know what to do.
They do not spy on muslims. Only Americans that might resist the takeover of this country.
Sounds like the movements of a hit team. Were they trying to start a firefight?
smh... You are so right. Everyone, stop to think on it.
If Bush were president we’d be hearing stories about Bush/Hitler.
That is why I will assume this story is bogus until corroborating evidence reveals itself.
No, Dearie, you are scared of exactly the right things.
*shrug* The last time an FBI agent showed up on my doorstep, I invited him in.
I agree with you about the impact, but disagree that it couldn’t be happening.
It is. Sadly. More than sadly, we should all be moaning and crying like banshees! But most will just turn away, nothing to see here, I’m busy....
Use a search engine that doesn’t spy on you.
There is no such thing. They may make the claim, but the govt can track anything.
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