>>>>>http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/
>>>>
>>>>This is pretty dubious journalism.
>>>>The picture leads us to believe that the cops in the picture are the ones referred to in the story.
>>>>We read down a bit and we find that the picture has nothing to do with the story.
>>>>That would flunk this story in any course on journalism.
>>>>The report is taking the word of one person ("a professional writer")
>>>>I followed the "professional writer" link the story supplied and found some pretty weird stuff, so I'd like to know a little more about this writer before drawing any conclusions.
>>>>Did anyone ask the police for ID?
>>>>We get a report from the Guardian that someone at the FBI said that it was the Suffolk County police but no one can confirm that.
>>>>That's not much of a confirmation.
>>>>I have friends and family in both the Nassau and Suffolk PD's.
>>>>They're pretty fanatic about personal freedoms and go out of their way to protect them.
>>>>I'm taking this one with a pound of salt.
>>>
>>>More info at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/02/michele_catalano_home_visit_after_googling_backpacks_and_pressure_cookers/
>>
>>This story becomes less credible by the nanosecond.
>>
>>It's easy to brush this kind of nonsense off as harmless publicity-seeking, but there are people like Timothy McVeigh reading this stuff and becoming incited.
>>Then one day they blow up a federal building and kill innocent people.
>
>Do you have information that the gist of the story is incorrect? What do your inside sources say?
>
>I have seen no denial from the agencies involved that they visited and interviewed the couple in question, and because they performed certain internet searches.


Al

Here's what the original story said:
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?

The update (posted a long time after a lot of people read the original post) quotes the FBI as saying the husband had been reported by his employer for searching "pressure cooker bombs."

That's a lot different from the impression we first got of a housewife searching for ways to use her pressure cooker and being watched by the government.

We can have a good discussion about what the police should or should not have done after the employer reported it, but my point was that the original report was irresponsible because the writer jumped the gun without checking the facts.