Yes, The FBI Is Tracking American Google Searches
Michele Catalano, a writer for Forbes, Boing Boing, and other publications, received a friendly visit from the FBI at her home today, which according to her Twitter profile is in Long Island, NY.
Maybe she's only one hop away from the neighbor of the cousin of Osama bin Laden's third wife, but she doesn't seem like a terrorist.
In case we needed more proof that the U.S. government is in fact reading the contents of American's online activity, this should do it. That is, unless we refuse to believe it until the FBI makes a personal visit to each of our abodes. In which case, now we know which search terms tend to attract their interest.
Happy web surfing!
Below are some of Catalano's follow-up tweets.
A more complete account of the story was written by Michele Catalano and published by The Guardian today. In the article, Catalano explained that she was at work at the time of the visit and that her husband provided details of the visit to her by phone immediately afterward.
The Guardian reached out to various U.S. agencies to find out exactly which federal, state, or local agency was responsible for the visit. The FBI claimed that they were not involved but that Catalano's family was "visited by Nassau County police department ... They were working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department." The level of cooperation between the FBI and local police departments in organizing the visit is not entirely clear.
See the Guardian links below.
New York woman visited by police after researching pressure cookers online [The Guardian]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker
My family's Google searching got us a visit from counterterrorism police [Michele Catalano via The Guardian]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/government-tracking-google-searches
Source; http://whitenoise.gizmodo.com/yes-the-fbi-is-tracking-americans-google-searches-981986667
Michele Catalano, a writer for Forbes, Boing Boing, and other publications, received a friendly visit from the FBI at her home today, which according to her Twitter profile is in Long Island, NY.
Maybe she's only one hop away from the neighbor of the cousin of Osama bin Laden's third wife, but she doesn't seem like a terrorist.
In case we needed more proof that the U.S. government is in fact reading the contents of American's online activity, this should do it. That is, unless we refuse to believe it until the FBI makes a personal visit to each of our abodes. In which case, now we know which search terms tend to attract their interest.
Happy web surfing!
Below are some of Catalano's follow-up tweets.
A more complete account of the story was written by Michele Catalano and published by The Guardian today. In the article, Catalano explained that she was at work at the time of the visit and that her husband provided details of the visit to her by phone immediately afterward.
The Guardian reached out to various U.S. agencies to find out exactly which federal, state, or local agency was responsible for the visit. The FBI claimed that they were not involved but that Catalano's family was "visited by Nassau County police department ... They were working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department." The level of cooperation between the FBI and local police departments in organizing the visit is not entirely clear.
See the Guardian links below.
New York woman visited by police after researching pressure cookers online [The Guardian]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker
My family's Google searching got us a visit from counterterrorism police [Michele Catalano via The Guardian]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/01/government-tracking-google-searches
Source; http://whitenoise.gizmodo.com/yes-the-fbi-is-tracking-americans-google-searches-981986667
