Free Republic

Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?

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...

Boo! Had a visit today from the FBI and the Army CID for a Freedom Of Information Act Request I made back in August, 2001. I received a call from the Apartment Manager where I live saying that some gentleman from the FBI were here to speak with me. I initially said I would meet them down at my apartment, but then remembered I had a meeting to go to, so I called back and asked if they would meet where I work. They did so, presented their credentials, and explained that an FOIA request of the Seneca Army Depot ...