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.
Thanks for pointing out the comment. I feel better now. :-)
Uncool.
Is the author really Michele Catalano???
Former music contributor at Forbes, freelance writer published in The Magazine, Maura Magazine and at Boing , as it says at the link.
There’s an update to the article, in that they were there because (mostly, only?) of her husband’s searches at his old job. She doesn’t say what his old job was, or what he searched for, or how long ago the old job was. And then says she didn’t mean to mislead, and wrote the article with the information she had at the time.
“...And I’m supposed to feel safer with these clowns protecting me?...”
No, actually, you’re NOT supposed to “feel safer”.
You’re supposed to feel intimidated, coerced, threatened, frightened, scared, apprehensive, watched, observed, surveilled, kept-in-line, and otherwise controlled by a Damocles sword of Selective Enforcement hanging over your head for everything you think, say, feel, write, and believe.
And you are.
Because that’s what all of this nonsense was designed to do.
It’s not designed to protect YOU; it’s designed to protect government functionaries and government workers FROM you.
And they’re not “Keystone Cops”. Far from it.
They’re trained, professional Agents of Der Staat that would have wasted this guy and his family in a heartbeat given even the remotest threat to themselves, and Der Staat would back them up fully and completely regardless, and make up some story about the unfortunate couple to cover it over - not that they’d need to, mind you, because their compliant buddies in the media would be more than happy to help them smooth things over. Nothing to see here, move along.
That’s where we are right now, whether people want to admit it or not.
ping
see post 106
Maybe legal (having the appearance of law), but not lawful (unless the Constitution is not the supreme law of the lang).
Maybe an actual, open, constitutional court of law, but what about a secret & closed court where only the government's case is presented?
Indeed, everyone needs to stop thinking they know how to interact with government agents, the old ways have passed away and the new ways are upon us; no more are they public servants, but lords and masters; everything you need to know about your new relationship with the government is explained in this handy and informative brochure:
Stop, Drop, and Cower
[Direct Link]
well its that or start shooting
“...no more are they public servants, but lords and masters; ...”
Which is why they want us all disarmed.
Not an option. Ever.
No kidding.
Heh, amusing.
…but do you know what this story will do to my chances of patenting a backpack pressure-cooker?
“..in a way that makes someone think and/or laugh..”
And I understand that... just that to me, I can’t laugh about it at all.
There’s zero humor in anything these b*tches are doing to us.
I’m pretty much in absolute contempt mode most of the time.
“uncool”
Very
This is ominous. It’s hard to read news like this and not assume the worst.
Awesome husband she has there.
Amerika 2013.
Welcome to the U.S.S.A.
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