[ButThreeLeftsDo]

See also....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3049937/posts

[PAR35]

How'd the government know what they were Googling?

If that was a serious question from someone, the answer is easy - Google tells them.

[SkyDancer]

Use that DuckDuckgo.com browser.

[GraceG]

If a million peopel decided to search for those terms, what would happen to their little spy grid?

[Vaquero]

Atlantic it is probably true, but I do not give credence to anything from Atlantic.

[jurroppi1]

Anybody still think they’re not looking at everyone and everything?

[Red Badger]

Did they shoot their dog?..............

[bolobaby]

[Mr. K]

so this is how the government spends its time?

Sending SIX officers to the home of someone who googled backpacks and pressure cookers?

not one, not even two (ok for safety) but SIX? On the First visit?

Did they have no info at all on these people and their background that would have told them they are just a family?

Is their brother over in Saudi Arabia on the terrorist watch list?

Please tell me there is more to this than SIX officers sitting around monitoring for terorist to google pressure cookers...

[TheDon]

Not a likely story. If they showed up at my door I’d tell them to get off my property.

[familyop]

Thanks for bringing the prices down on pressure cookers. :-)

[Defiant]

That's not nearly as bad as posting on FR. I wonder when our visits will begin?

[justa-hairyape]

And I thought they were only keeping the Meta Data, not the actual material or information. You mean the government lied to us again ?

[JoeProBono]

[Minutemen]

This is how Assinine our federal government has become:
The Russian secret police warned American feds to be on the lookout for the Chechnyan terrorist brothers (Boston bombers), the Feds ignored the warning!

Dare to Google "Pressure Cooker"? Uncle Sap is all over you pronto!

[nascarnation]

I made a visit to rural Indiana to look at an old car for sale.
It was sitting out behind this guy’s house with the classic blue tarp and two old “heavy duty” pressure cookers used to keep it from blowing away....

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Let's assume, for the moment, that this story is factual and complete. If so, it illustrates one of the (many) problems with comprehensive electronic surveillance, combined with data mining -- False Positives.

If the DHS, FBI, etc. had prior reasonable cause to suspect this couple, and that caused them to check their Google searches -- then, those results might be considered evidence.

However, when you surveil everyone routinely, a large number of apparent hits will occur randomly. (Think of Google search topics as cards -- deal enough of them, and you will have a number of random "hits" of "hot" topics.) Anyone, who has studied (even somewhat) advanced statistics, will understand this problem quite well. Rather than using the data mining to confirm suspects -- they're using data mining to produce suspects. Given that there are probably a lot more people, who happen to search on two or more trigger words, than there are actual active terrorists, at any given time -- you are going to generate more false positives than real hits. A lot of innocent citizens are going to be treated like terrorists; because of this bass-ackwards way of collecting evidence.

[JimRed]

Don’t Google- BING.

[Truth29]

I suppose if someone had asked for a warrant, really bad things would have started to happen...

[eartrumpet]

Our county extension office has an ad in this week’s paper telling about their annual pressure cooker gauge calibration program. Bring in your bomb and they make sure it reads right so the green beans don’t poison you later. I wonder if the feds will raid their office at the courthouse?