Many, many thousands of pressure cookers are sold every year. Terrorist attacks are extremely rare. Millions and millions of backpacks are sold every year. The intersection of those two products isn't helpful. The base rate theorem dictates that pressure cooker sales will turn out to be a very poor signal for terrorism.
This article posits (or is trying to sell you on the idea) that the FBI watches for pressure cooker sales on the Internet and dispatches teams of extremely expensive FBI agents to investigate them. Stipulate that the FBI has access to that information (I don't think they do, but whatever). What the FBI isn't going to do is compromise sources and methods in a pressure cooker dragnet. They are mathematically assured not to find terrorists that way. But they'd make a huge amount of noise. They don't burn sources for no good reason.
I don't buy this, at all.
Also not helpful, if you're trying to sell a hoax: the too-vivid callbacks to the Boston bombers, and to the FBI's television show image.
Later
Note also that this story wants you to infer that the FBI told her husband that they were following up on Internet search leads. Not only did they roll trucks to a residence to do a search that was almost mathematically guaranteed to come up blank, but when they did that, they hinted around at the secret program that got them to do it.
TFA: "They asked my husband about his work, his visits to South Korea and China"
I'd say the NSAs '3 steps' policy is far more likely. The husband interacts with someone overseas who interacts with someone else who is on a list somewhere. [1] The NSA does the routine profile on everyone within three steps of the-guy-on-the-list, some key words generate hits, salaried agents get another address to visit.
That possibility doesn't get hung up on the problematic notion that anyone's setting up such visits based on google searches alone, nor implies a JTTF agent caughed up real information on how they actually got their lead or why they were actually there.
[1] If you're doing business on the Chinese mainland, it seems pretty likely you'll be within three steps of 'potential terrorists', given the whole cyber cold war and economic espionage thing.
What about Justin Carter, a 19-year old recently freed on $500,000 bail for another Facebook post?
So we know that Federal (and State) law enforcement spends resources following up very tenuous leads.
As far as burning sources and methods, what else would you have them do to follow up on this specific lead? Six agents interviewing someone for an hour seems less expensive than weeks or months of surveillance.
What does it matter if the account is true or false? It's completely plausible.
The story is gaining traction via the Guardian [1] and Atlantic Wire [2]. That's not vindication, but it does offer an additional layer of fact checking.
The Atlantic Wire piece points out that while the FBI "was aware of the visit...it was conducted by local police on Long Island".
Your whole assumption is based on the fact that they want to find terrorists when I would put forward that their mission is actually to grow the institutional power. Budget share, it's what drives DC.
When I type in "pressure cooker", the very first suggested Google query is "pressure cooker bomb"...which means a non-significant number of people have either searched for that query or have written about it.
And this is the first dramatic account we've heard of this? We've heard of several National Security Letters, the disclosure of which is breaking the law...yet none of the presumably hundreds and thousands of people who have been visited by government black SUVs have not made a quip about being erroneously searched? Even though such searches, as the OP describes it, are mostly non-confrontational and end with the agents being non-threatening?
Yeah, I also have to express some skepticism here.
I got the same impression after reading the post and before looking at the HN discussion. Good to see I wasn't the only one.
Initially I was horrified by the blog post because we now know for certain that google search histories are readily available without warrant to certain subsets of NSA analysts. Then it hit me that the blog post content and timing was too perfect. If such an uproarious event happened to the author, why on earth hold on to the story for "a few weeks"?
Who knows, maybe the author's husband did get searched and she's only assuming it was related to interest in pressure cookers and backpacks. I have no real reason to assume the author is lying, but I also don't have to assume she's telling the whole truth and not just trying to attract page views.
You're calling her a liar based on her second hand account of what JTTF (not FBI) agents told her husband. But the Google searches might have been only one element of what led the agents to go knocking on her door. We know for a fact that the feds do get people's Google searches after they've convinced some rubber stamp court that someone is suspicious.
"
Update, 7:05 p.m.: Because the Googling happened at work.
The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement this evening that answers the great mystery of the day.
Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.”
After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature.
"
While, I agree this COULD all be a sham story for someone who may be a bit of an attention seeker ... I would like to counter your arguments anyways to show that this story is actually perfectly believable.
In the article, the 'Task Force' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Terrorism_Task_Force) probably has a set of "Tasks" that they must accomplish to be ... well ... worth being a department with a budget. And I imagine one of those is following up on "profile-perfect" households or individuals.
So what would make this household 'profile-perfect'? Well it is true that there were searches for Pressure cookers and backpacks but that alone won't mean much due to the massive amounts of searches for these products.
But BOTH searches were done; and yet still I have to agree that the intersection still does not provide an un-biased view.
However, what if we take into consideration the timescale at which these searches (and possible purchases) took place? We know that the searches were made WITHIN the same week. This factor could possibly give us stronger signals for a profile-match.
Now what if we couple that with 'international travel'(e.g. how often a passport was used in a system for out-of-country travel)? The profile match would become higher due to the husbands business trips.
And I don't know where these people live, but location could also be a factor as well (e.g. the closer you live to a major city the greater your risk potential factor).
Now the cross-section for these factors would have such precision that doing a dragnet on this profile-match set would be feasible. And I imagine it would amount to less than 100 households a week (although I think if the story is true that the agent said this just to 'console' the family that this is common practice and there is nothing to worry about).
What do you guys think?
EDIT: Also not to mention that another factor could be 'Copy-cat-syndrome'(made up the term) e.g. how many things were occurring at this household to make them appear like potential Boston-bomber copycats?
First: On your assertion that federal government agencies (or agencies that work in tandem with them) act in line with mathematical probability like the base rate theorem and that they necessarily allocate resources in a cost-effective manner.
Has a federal agency ever been funded to the tune of 8 billion dollars a year, infringed on individual freedoms, harassed innocent civilians, all of which are tangible wastes and violations while based on a premise that also completely ignores the base rate theorem? Has such an agency been scrapped even though they have failed to negate the base rate theorem after billions of resources invested and negative collateral effects?
Second: On your point that revealing their methods in this case "burns a source" How is this burning a source?
1. As others have provided citations for, the FBI has already revealed that they surveil communications.
2. One would assume that competent terrorists are not in complete ignorance of the possibility that the FBI utilizes a domestic surveillance system. Thus, the "secret source" does not really provide the element of surprise.
3. If by burning you mean revealing to the masses and compromising public opinion, the federal government of the US has already shown that they believe in the checks and balances of their system (such as warrants, blanket or otherwise) and this is one of their major defenses of these practices. If they wholeheartedly believe that the system is legal (as they have demonstrated), then they would not feel the need to hide this kind of investigation.
Regardless of whether the story is true or not (I haven't made up my mind on this yet), I don't think the arguments you give for discrediting the story seem as strong as you present them.
Yep, doesn't stop NYPD from stopping and frisking random minorities (including a 3 star NYPD police chief who was not very happy about having guns pulled on him while sitting in his NYPD vehicle with a badge around his neck). Looks like this was local cops, never underestimate the desire of a cowboy to be a hero.
I was unable to find the reference where Ms Catalano claimed to be visited directly by FBI agents as you are suggesting in your posts, and not as she said (https://medium.com/something-like-falling/2e7d13e54724) the Joint Terrorism Task force, which includes local law enforcement members who are part of it and who work together with the FBI and other agencies. JTTF is generally overseen and investigation coordinated by the FBI, and the FBI also pays the participating agencies expenses for costs incurred during their JTTF work.
(http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec04/jttf120114.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Terrorism_Task_Force)
Searching the article which is linked to and which you are commenting about reveals that it does not even include the term "FBI". However that is hardly relevant given then connection to the FBI that the JTTF has, members are generally acting on behalf of FBI investigations when they do JTTF work. If someone were to call them de facto FBI agents it would not be inaccurate given they act with the authority of the FBI and are paid by the FBI for their work on the JTTF.
Please state clearly whether you are asserting that Ms Catalano's article here contains lies in your opinion, and clarify exactly what she said that you believe she is lying about or misrepresenting. Please provide a reference quote to the part of the referenced article that you are commenting on where she makes a claim to be visited by FBI agents specifically and not the JTTF.
This story doesn't mention the FBI at all, man. It mentions six plainclothes guys in three black SUVs who've obviously had some tactical training, and leaves it at that.
The point being that America has become a country where six armed guys can show up at your door with pointed questions and no warrant, and you will never be told why.
Your skepticism turns out to be warranted. Apparently the operation was conducted after local police "received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee."
It was implied in the story that the husband was looking up how to create a pressure cooker bomb as well out of curiosity. Even that might not be enough though. If FBI are smart they just classify each user into brackets of suspicious activity. The top N% get investigated, where N depends on the current available resource/budget. Not hard to believe at all.
This was exactly my impression reading this. I fully expect -- if the author wants to regain any credibility -- that the author will say that it was a fiction "based on real events" of where society will be if the NSA moves ahead, etc (which goes along with the fact that they categorized it under "thoughts into essays". Read the other entries so categorized). That it was but an enlightened warning.
At first reading, I was wondering is this a think piece or is it real. Based on her twitter account, it appears it is real: "You don't believe my story? Ask any of my followers about my credibility. Then kiss my ass. Thanks." https://twitter.com/inthefade/status/362890947165564928
What do you guys think?
Seems to have difficulty keeping her word just talking to someone:
============
@jsin you're the only one doubting me, dude.
Michele Catalano @inthefade 17h
To clarify, they turned out to be a terrorist task force, not FBI. I wasn't home, my husband and son were
Michele Catalano @inthefade 16h
Going silent on the issue now.
Michele Catalano @inthefade 16h
@jsin How the hell is it hearsay when it happened to ME? 4h
============
I don't think credibility like this can be meaningfully established by polling someone's twitter followers. How would they know if it were true or not?
I suppose if they've not been caught in a lie before, it's less likely that they're lying this time. But how persistent is their identity, how many do they have running at the same time, is it just a case that all the people who think they're lying have left? And are all the ones that question just banned?
-shrug-
I doubt the story. Whether it's a lie or not -shrug- It's not totally outside the realms of credibility I suppose, but her word alone isn't sufficient evidence.
http://news.yahoo.com/google-pressure-cookers-backpacks-visi... also an article from yahoo. the problem is that we have to wonder if this is real. it shouldn't be. it should be found in a book written about a horrible distopia in the future... but it's not.
This confirmation is the legwork I was hoping for. "A spokesman for the FBI told to the Guardian on Thursday that its investigators were not involved in the visit, but that 'she was visited by Nassau County police department … They were working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department.'"
(5, at least, this has been going on) * (52 weeks) * (100 a week) = 26,000 homes would have been entered, averaging 3 people per home (on the low side)
= ~78,000 people have had this happen to them and I haven't heard about it?
Not to mention, I would say no to any plain clothes government official without presenting a warrant and badges.
There are plenty of other issues with the blog post, but those two alone are enough for me to call B.S.
Maybe you would but most people wouldn't. It takes guts to say no to six armed men with government documents, even if the law is technically on your side. They are very cordial and nice, they just want to ask a couple of questions, and they have the gigantic power of US government standing behind their backs. And you are in your pajamas and slippers and would you dare to say no to them, whatever the consequences would be? If you doubt what most people would choose, look how many people are completely OK with what TSA is doing. And that's your ass, literally, being inspected, not your kitchen.
Same here. I'm at a point now where I've basically wholesale adopted the "don't talk to the police" mindset.
A few nights ago, I went through one of those DUI checkpoints. I handed the cop my license, and then he started asking me questions:
Cop: "Where are you headed?"
Me: "That's none of your business."
Him: <surprised look>
Different night, different DUI checkpoint:
Cop: "Where are you coming from?"
Me: "Sorry, I don't answer questions for cops unless I'm under arrest and have an attorney present."
Cop: "That's a pretty intense position, any particular reason for it?"
Me: "It's just a matter of principle. This is a free country and we don't have a Gestapo or a Stasi here that we have to answer to, and somebody needs to remind you guys of that."
Cop: <looking in my window with his flashlight> "You always ride around with all this stuff in your truck?"
Me: <forgetting for a moment that I'm not planning to answer any questions> "Yeah"
Cop: "You moving?"
Me: "I just told you, I don't answer questions unless I'm under arrest and have a lawyer present. If you think you have probable cause to arrest me for a crime, arrest me, I'll call a lawyer and we'll do this right."
Cop: <finally noticing all the anarchist and anti-govt. stickers on my truck> "Oh, I see the stickers now. I guess you think of yourself as sovereign, huh?"
Me: "I guess that's an open question, isn't it?"
Cop: "Good luck with that. Have a good night."
So yeah, technically speaking I did answer a couple of his questions, one out of sheer instinct, and two that were "meta" questions in a sense. But the point is, this is now how I routinely deal with the police. You want to search my car? Get a warrant. You want to play twenty questions? Arrest me and wait until my lawyer is in the room. Etc.
Maybe a lawyer can chime in, but if you said 'no' to when the police asked if they could see your residence, would they not be able to come in and then need a warrant?
I remember a friend telling me that when police come to your door and ask if they can come in (say for loud music or such), you can say 'no' and then put the onus on them to actually come in. And a lawyer said if you say 'yes' then you give them access to prowl through your stuff.
I get a little doubt. Its good, but I think we can all try to discern some facts here from what she's said.
1) She wasn't there so this is a second hand story. Most second hand stories are embellished to a certain degree. Fact is she just wasn't there. (from her twitter) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140924
2) Government agents (who knows where they are from because who has time to remember THOSE details in the moment). FBI, Internal Task Force, MIB, it really doesn't matter that much.
3) Were they merely concerned with Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa. That is all just conjecture and really not relevant to the story.
The REAL issue here is that government agents appeared on her doorstep and asked to come in, for no apparent reason. Then they asked a bunch of questions that made her feel as if she was a suspicious character. This all causes an atmosphere of fear, similar to what special police units in other countries have done.
This is about the fact that she doesn't know WHY they came by. Sure she's speculating to make herself feel better, who wouldn't but what's more important is that there is someone watching you out there and determining if a person is suspicious or not and we (US citizens) have NO control over that. Matter of fact we don't even know what it is all about.
Did she make this story up. Sure, in part. But there is a core set of facts here (assuming she is just elaborating and not lying out right) that are hard to ignore.
Big brother is watching you...
EDIT: For the comment below. If you are curious how they are doing this, the best theory I've seen has come from Steve Gibson on his Security Now podcast. He speculates that they are taking raw data before it goes to Google and explains how that may be possible. https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm start with episode #408.
Regardless of whether or not this happened, it's scary because I actually find it plausible. Similar themes have appeared across countless headlines over the last few months and if we aren't already here, we soon will be. The sad part is that like all such power struggles, things are not going to change before a lot of bad things happen.
More that Quinoa, backbacks, the rest, was "his visits to South Korea and China." Author is disingenuous in burying that deep into article and create a title that implies it was just normal stuff, regular people would like you! would have.
Investigation by people IS how police and anti-terrorism work should be done.
The question I'd like to pose (and it's something I have a hard time with answering myself):
Would you prefer that the government watches your Google searches, your forum postings, your Facebook messages, and your emails and potentially stops these terrorist attacks, or would you prefer to be free of government spying and possibly give up safety?
If another Boston Bombing happened and it was later found out that the terrorists had bought pressure cookers, nails, and other bomb-making materials on Amazon, wouldn't there be outrage that it didn't raise any red flags? Yet when the government tries to investigate potential threats like the one explained in the article, they're seen as bad guys.
I think the real problem is that we were never asked. 9/11 happened and the war on terror began. Americans never chose to be spied on in order to prevent attacks, it was just assumed that we valued our safety more than our privacy.
So when I read about NSA spying articles, or blog posts like this, I always have to ask myself "what if these really were terrorists?" because I know that there are hundreds or even thousands of lives saved through operations like this, and we never hear about the successes.
100 times a week? Maybe 1 is an actual hit? Blimey.
Presumably this little team don't run around all of the US. So, a state level team doing 100 per week? 50 states, right? So, that's a potential 5,000 searches, per week. 52 weeks in a year. So, 260,000 innocent homes searched by an armed team per year, purely from "suspect" searches on the internet.
People wise, average number of people in a US household? Say 4? So, that's 1.4M people affected, per year.
Ok, the maths doesn't include the 1 out of 100, however, we can be sure a good number of them still turn out to be nothing. Sadly, I bet the 1 is the Arab or dark skinned middle eastern looking family.
No mention of any sort of search warrant either.
Yeah, you terrorists hate US "freedoms" alright.
Well....... nothing to hide, nothing to worry about, right? I dont care if the authorities want my internet history to creep through, why would I be bothered, all I do is shopping........
Just to check, at what point are we allowed to use phrases like "police state", "fascist", "oppression" and what not? Whats the number? Or is this for ever fine as long as the government has the fig leaf of the American vote?
I routinely buy quinoa, as well as somewhat more obscure things, such as mayocoba beans and Salsa Lizano. I own two pressure cookers - a search of my e-mail history will show me asking my sister for a recommendation, followed by a purchase from Amazon. When my decade+-old computer backpack gave out, I asked my friends for recommendations.
[+] [-] tptacek|12 years ago|reply
This article posits (or is trying to sell you on the idea) that the FBI watches for pressure cooker sales on the Internet and dispatches teams of extremely expensive FBI agents to investigate them. Stipulate that the FBI has access to that information (I don't think they do, but whatever). What the FBI isn't going to do is compromise sources and methods in a pressure cooker dragnet. They are mathematically assured not to find terrorists that way. But they'd make a huge amount of noise. They don't burn sources for no good reason.
I don't buy this, at all.
Also not helpful, if you're trying to sell a hoax: the too-vivid callbacks to the Boston bombers, and to the FBI's television show image.
Later
Note also that this story wants you to infer that the FBI told her husband that they were following up on Internet search leads. Not only did they roll trucks to a residence to do a search that was almost mathematically guaranteed to come up blank, but when they did that, they hinted around at the secret program that got them to do it.
[+] [-] roc|12 years ago|reply
I'd say the NSAs '3 steps' policy is far more likely. The husband interacts with someone overseas who interacts with someone else who is on a list somewhere. [1] The NSA does the routine profile on everyone within three steps of the-guy-on-the-list, some key words generate hits, salaried agents get another address to visit.
That possibility doesn't get hung up on the problematic notion that anyone's setting up such visits based on google searches alone, nor implies a JTTF agent caughed up real information on how they actually got their lead or why they were actually there.
[1] If you're doing business on the Chinese mainland, it seems pretty likely you'll be within three steps of 'potential terrorists', given the whole cyber cold war and economic espionage thing.
[+] [-] sehugg|12 years ago|reply
What about Justin Carter, a 19-year old recently freed on $500,000 bail for another Facebook post?
So we know that Federal (and State) law enforcement spends resources following up very tenuous leads.
As far as burning sources and methods, what else would you have them do to follow up on this specific lead? Six agents interviewing someone for an hour seems less expensive than weeks or months of surveillance.
What does it matter if the account is true or false? It's completely plausible.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|12 years ago|reply
The Atlantic Wire piece points out that while the FBI "was aware of the visit...it was conducted by local police on Long Island".
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police...
[2] http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-k...
[+] [-] ianstallings|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|12 years ago|reply
And this is the first dramatic account we've heard of this? We've heard of several National Security Letters, the disclosure of which is breaking the law...yet none of the presumably hundreds and thousands of people who have been visited by government black SUVs have not made a quip about being erroneously searched? Even though such searches, as the OP describes it, are mostly non-confrontational and end with the agents being non-threatening?
Yeah, I also have to express some skepticism here.
[+] [-] mcphilip|12 years ago|reply
I got the same impression after reading the post and before looking at the HN discussion. Good to see I wasn't the only one.
Initially I was horrified by the blog post because we now know for certain that google search histories are readily available without warrant to certain subsets of NSA analysts. Then it hit me that the blog post content and timing was too perfect. If such an uproarious event happened to the author, why on earth hold on to the story for "a few weeks"?
Who knows, maybe the author's husband did get searched and she's only assuming it was related to interest in pressure cookers and backpacks. I have no real reason to assume the author is lying, but I also don't have to assume she's telling the whole truth and not just trying to attract page views.
[+] [-] guelo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dubyah|12 years ago|reply
" Update, 7:05 p.m.: Because the Googling happened at work.
The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement this evening that answers the great mystery of the day.
Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.” After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature. "
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-k...
[+] [-] steveklabnik|12 years ago|reply
That said, I posted this specifically because I thought the discussion around exactly this would be interesting.
[+] [-] StandardFuture|12 years ago|reply
In the article, the 'Task Force' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Terrorism_Task_Force) probably has a set of "Tasks" that they must accomplish to be ... well ... worth being a department with a budget. And I imagine one of those is following up on "profile-perfect" households or individuals.
So what would make this household 'profile-perfect'? Well it is true that there were searches for Pressure cookers and backpacks but that alone won't mean much due to the massive amounts of searches for these products.
But BOTH searches were done; and yet still I have to agree that the intersection still does not provide an un-biased view.
However, what if we take into consideration the timescale at which these searches (and possible purchases) took place? We know that the searches were made WITHIN the same week. This factor could possibly give us stronger signals for a profile-match.
Now what if we couple that with 'international travel'(e.g. how often a passport was used in a system for out-of-country travel)? The profile match would become higher due to the husbands business trips.
And I don't know where these people live, but location could also be a factor as well (e.g. the closer you live to a major city the greater your risk potential factor).
Now the cross-section for these factors would have such precision that doing a dragnet on this profile-match set would be feasible. And I imagine it would amount to less than 100 households a week (although I think if the story is true that the agent said this just to 'console' the family that this is common practice and there is nothing to worry about).
What do you guys think?
EDIT: Also not to mention that another factor could be 'Copy-cat-syndrome'(made up the term) e.g. how many things were occurring at this household to make them appear like potential Boston-bomber copycats?
[+] [-] aznjons|12 years ago|reply
Has a federal agency ever been funded to the tune of 8 billion dollars a year, infringed on individual freedoms, harassed innocent civilians, all of which are tangible wastes and violations while based on a premise that also completely ignores the base rate theorem? Has such an agency been scrapped even though they have failed to negate the base rate theorem after billions of resources invested and negative collateral effects?
Second: On your point that revealing their methods in this case "burns a source" How is this burning a source?
1. As others have provided citations for, the FBI has already revealed that they surveil communications.
2. One would assume that competent terrorists are not in complete ignorance of the possibility that the FBI utilizes a domestic surveillance system. Thus, the "secret source" does not really provide the element of surprise.
3. If by burning you mean revealing to the masses and compromising public opinion, the federal government of the US has already shown that they believe in the checks and balances of their system (such as warrants, blanket or otherwise) and this is one of their major defenses of these practices. If they wholeheartedly believe that the system is legal (as they have demonstrated), then they would not feel the need to hide this kind of investigation.
Regardless of whether the story is true or not (I haven't made up my mind on this yet), I don't think the arguments you give for discrediting the story seem as strong as you present them.
[+] [-] glesica|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ethomson|12 years ago|reply
The author, Michele Catalano lists herself as a political writer not a news reporter.
http://michelecat.wordpress.com/about/
Edit: I take it all back, she claims on her twitter that this is accurate and true. I share your reservations on the veracity of this account.
[+] [-] droithomme|12 years ago|reply
Searching the article which is linked to and which you are commenting about reveals that it does not even include the term "FBI". However that is hardly relevant given then connection to the FBI that the JTTF has, members are generally acting on behalf of FBI investigations when they do JTTF work. If someone were to call them de facto FBI agents it would not be inaccurate given they act with the authority of the FBI and are paid by the FBI for their work on the JTTF.
Please state clearly whether you are asserting that Ms Catalano's article here contains lies in your opinion, and clarify exactly what she said that you believe she is lying about or misrepresenting. Please provide a reference quote to the part of the referenced article that you are commenting on where she makes a claim to be visited by FBI agents specifically and not the JTTF.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Vivtek|12 years ago|reply
The point being that America has become a country where six armed guys can show up at your door with pointed questions and no warrant, and you will never be told why.
[+] [-] snupples|12 years ago|reply
http://gothamist.com/2013/08/01/li_woman_says_she_was_invest...
[+] [-] vladimirralev|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mpyne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] corresation|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matznerd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6d0debc071|12 years ago|reply
============
@jsin you're the only one doubting me, dude. Michele Catalano @inthefade 17h
To clarify, they turned out to be a terrorist task force, not FBI. I wasn't home, my husband and son were Michele Catalano @inthefade 16h
Going silent on the issue now. Michele Catalano @inthefade 16h
@jsin How the hell is it hearsay when it happened to ME? 4h
============
I don't think credibility like this can be meaningfully established by polling someone's twitter followers. How would they know if it were true or not?
I suppose if they've not been caught in a lie before, it's less likely that they're lying this time. But how persistent is their identity, how many do they have running at the same time, is it just a case that all the people who think they're lying have left? And are all the ones that question just banned?
-shrug-
I doubt the story. Whether it's a lie or not -shrug- It's not totally outside the realms of credibility I suppose, but her word alone isn't sufficient evidence.
[+] [-] mrt0mat0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paraboul|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danenania|12 years ago|reply
Apparently it was the local police.
[+] [-] NelsonMinar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lettergram|12 years ago|reply
(5, at least, this has been going on) * (52 weeks) * (100 a week) = 26,000 homes would have been entered, averaging 3 people per home (on the low side)
= ~78,000 people have had this happen to them and I haven't heard about it?
Not to mention, I would say no to any plain clothes government official without presenting a warrant and badges.
There are plenty of other issues with the blog post, but those two alone are enough for me to call B.S.
[+] [-] smsm42|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lizzard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrime|12 years ago|reply
A few nights ago, I went through one of those DUI checkpoints. I handed the cop my license, and then he started asking me questions:
Cop: "Where are you headed?"
Me: "That's none of your business."
Him: <surprised look>
Different night, different DUI checkpoint:
Cop: "Where are you coming from?"
Me: "Sorry, I don't answer questions for cops unless I'm under arrest and have an attorney present."
Cop: "That's a pretty intense position, any particular reason for it?"
Me: "It's just a matter of principle. This is a free country and we don't have a Gestapo or a Stasi here that we have to answer to, and somebody needs to remind you guys of that."
Cop: <looking in my window with his flashlight> "You always ride around with all this stuff in your truck?"
Me: <forgetting for a moment that I'm not planning to answer any questions> "Yeah"
Cop: "You moving?"
Me: "I just told you, I don't answer questions unless I'm under arrest and have a lawyer present. If you think you have probable cause to arrest me for a crime, arrest me, I'll call a lawyer and we'll do this right."
Cop: <finally noticing all the anarchist and anti-govt. stickers on my truck> "Oh, I see the stickers now. I guess you think of yourself as sovereign, huh?"
Me: "I guess that's an open question, isn't it?"
Cop: "Good luck with that. Have a good night."
So yeah, technically speaking I did answer a couple of his questions, one out of sheer instinct, and two that were "meta" questions in a sense. But the point is, this is now how I routinely deal with the police. You want to search my car? Get a warrant. You want to play twenty questions? Arrest me and wait until my lawyer is in the room. Etc.
[+] [-] mox69|12 years ago|reply
1. They don't show up in black SUV's.
2. The FBI will ALWAYS be there. (NSA/CIA/Men In Black/etc cannot physically interact with american citizens on US soil)
3. They don't show up in plain cloths.
4. They would have showed up with a SWAT team.
[+] [-] palidanx|12 years ago|reply
I remember a friend telling me that when police come to your door and ask if they can come in (say for loud music or such), you can say 'no' and then put the onus on them to actually come in. And a lawyer said if you say 'yes' then you give them access to prowl through your stuff.
[+] [-] bargl|12 years ago|reply
1) She wasn't there so this is a second hand story. Most second hand stories are embellished to a certain degree. Fact is she just wasn't there. (from her twitter) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140924
2) Government agents (who knows where they are from because who has time to remember THOSE details in the moment). FBI, Internal Task Force, MIB, it really doesn't matter that much.
3) Were they merely concerned with Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa. That is all just conjecture and really not relevant to the story.
The REAL issue here is that government agents appeared on her doorstep and asked to come in, for no apparent reason. Then they asked a bunch of questions that made her feel as if she was a suspicious character. This all causes an atmosphere of fear, similar to what special police units in other countries have done.
This is about the fact that she doesn't know WHY they came by. Sure she's speculating to make herself feel better, who wouldn't but what's more important is that there is someone watching you out there and determining if a person is suspicious or not and we (US citizens) have NO control over that. Matter of fact we don't even know what it is all about.
Did she make this story up. Sure, in part. But there is a core set of facts here (assuming she is just elaborating and not lying out right) that are hard to ignore.
Big brother is watching you...
EDIT: For the comment below. If you are curious how they are doing this, the best theory I've seen has come from Steve Gibson on his Security Now podcast. He speculates that they are taking raw data before it goes to Google and explains how that may be possible. https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm start with episode #408.
[+] [-] ISL|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lovesgreen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njharman|12 years ago|reply
Investigation by people IS how police and anti-terrorism work should be done.
[+] [-] duggieawesome|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darien|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drunkenmasta|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frasierman|12 years ago|reply
Would you prefer that the government watches your Google searches, your forum postings, your Facebook messages, and your emails and potentially stops these terrorist attacks, or would you prefer to be free of government spying and possibly give up safety?
If another Boston Bombing happened and it was later found out that the terrorists had bought pressure cookers, nails, and other bomb-making materials on Amazon, wouldn't there be outrage that it didn't raise any red flags? Yet when the government tries to investigate potential threats like the one explained in the article, they're seen as bad guys.
I think the real problem is that we were never asked. 9/11 happened and the war on terror began. Americans never chose to be spied on in order to prevent attacks, it was just assumed that we valued our safety more than our privacy.
So when I read about NSA spying articles, or blog posts like this, I always have to ask myself "what if these really were terrorists?" because I know that there are hundreds or even thousands of lives saved through operations like this, and we never hear about the successes.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] alan_cx|12 years ago|reply
Presumably this little team don't run around all of the US. So, a state level team doing 100 per week? 50 states, right? So, that's a potential 5,000 searches, per week. 52 weeks in a year. So, 260,000 innocent homes searched by an armed team per year, purely from "suspect" searches on the internet.
People wise, average number of people in a US household? Say 4? So, that's 1.4M people affected, per year.
Ok, the maths doesn't include the 1 out of 100, however, we can be sure a good number of them still turn out to be nothing. Sadly, I bet the 1 is the Arab or dark skinned middle eastern looking family.
No mention of any sort of search warrant either.
Yeah, you terrorists hate US "freedoms" alright.
Well....... nothing to hide, nothing to worry about, right? I dont care if the authorities want my internet history to creep through, why would I be bothered, all I do is shopping........
Just to check, at what point are we allowed to use phrases like "police state", "fascist", "oppression" and what not? Whats the number? Or is this for ever fine as long as the government has the fig leaf of the American vote?
[+] [-] jstalin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bandy|12 years ago|reply
No FBI yet.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
Basically we're at the point where there is no benefit to be had, and great risk, in talking with law enforcement. That is a sad place to be.