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.
That is a passage well worth repeating.
No mention of badges or uniforms yet. Something like that happens and I believe my Mossberg would have made an appearance.
we are beyond the awkward stage
I’m sure the FBI agent is just THRILLED to be sent to your doorstep for this as well. Takes time away from looking up high-school classmates of some contractor who’s applied for a Security Clearance to track them down and ask them if their classmate had ever been a member of the Communist Party.
Yep. I was a total waste of his time.
Ideally, it would require a browser that can encrypt the search request (such as: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) or anonymize you as the source (see: https://www.torproject.org/)
Plus a search server that would deliver the results in a discreet form (ixQuick and perhaps startpage and duck duck go) through a proxy server setup, as explained here: http://lifehacker.com/5763170/how-to-secure-and-encrypt-your-web-browsing-on-public-networks-with-hamachi-and-privoxy
A huge pain.
so... anyone saying you’re paranoid if you think they’re listening...
is just ignorant.
they ARE listening to you and watching everything you do
just the facts
I feel much better knowing that none of Ed Snowden’s high-school classmates thought he had been a member of the Communist Party.
And as one would expect the results they are getting are useless garbage.
The story sounds fabricated.
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.
Of course we later found out that Russia told us to watch these guys, but I would imagine arab oil money has been manipulating washington to look the other way or be attacked viciously by their owned media interests....
We are fully and completely the Soviet Union now.
Do you think the FBI really cares who has been a member of the Communist Party when the White House and Congress is currently full of them? After the cow has bolted from the barn, there is no point closing the door.
We should all install hidden cameras around the perimeters of our homes, over the front doorway, and even cameras inside the house that can be turned on before we leave for the day (or that can be turned on quickly when we are home if need be).
If this incident really happened as described, it would have been useful to have it all on video or digitized.
And these guys claim they do this 100 times a week?
I bet they never visit any mosques.
PLEASE tell me this is satire. This CANNOT be happening in our nation.
I have a family member who had to get a security clearance. Virtually every surviving member of his high school graduating class (from the 1950’s!) was tracked down and asked by an FBI agent whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party.
Did not ask much more than that.
So stay away from your high school’s Young Communist Club and you’re good to go with Federal employment.
For what it is worth:
Privacy Policy
In short:
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When I originally got mine they asked more than that. Of course i graduated well after the 1950s.
They also asked about my sexual proclivities, financial problems, drinking and of course drugs.
Probably because it would be racist to profile a Muslim. It is much easier to profile ordinary citizens instead.
They should go where the terrorism comes from. From Muslims. The Muzzies can do their internet searches etc in Arabic or Urdu. I doubt the FBI can deal with those languages in volume so they hassle American citizens instead. Visit enough Muszzies this way and they will raise hell and claim racism
This is TRUE...further updates and confirmation:
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