

We Can All Resume Googling Backpacks And Pressure Cookers - luigi
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/an-update-on-the-pressure-cookers-google-search-story/

======
ollysb
There can't be many people that have at least searched for the anarchists
cookbook at some time. The notion that the authorities now think it's ok to
turn up at my doorstep for that is incredible. The language used is pretty
chilling as well, apparently just searching for "bomb" is now an "incident".
I'm also aware that I now have a little voice questioning whether or not I
should post this comment...

~~~
grimtrigger
Did you even read the article? The whole point is that isn't what happened.

Edit: Misunderstood the parent's comments. Yes, this is what happened.

~~~
ollysb
> After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police
> Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet
> searches.

So they went to someone's house because of "suspicious internet searches". The
fact that the search wasn't detected using an automated system doesn't
diminish my point that they think it's ok to turn up on your doorstep if they
don't like the searches you're making.

~~~
jaredmcateer
They received a tip form a employer that they discovered some suspicious
searches on their former (fired?) employee's work computer. These sort of tips
kind of have to be followed up on.

~~~
joering2
Seriously? Officials needs to follow up every time a company is pissed at the
employee and they fire employee and that's not enough for them so lets report
him/her on some "suspicious activity"?

I am not implying this happened here, but we don't know what's the story
behind this guy being fired. There are remote chances that the company tried
to be vicious with him after letting him go. It happened many times before.

This could be similar situation to the one where A starts beating B, out of
nowhere, and then A calls cops before B had a chance to do so. Cops show up
and A says: "look at my bruises" and B gets arrested.

~~~
saalweachter
I think this was a mostly appropriate response. In my opinion (and it wouldn't
surprise me if this was the opinion of the law) police are obligated to follow
up on more or less ever tip. I think if it had just been a couple of cops
instead of the reported multitude, that would have been better.

The problem is people making bad tips to the police; if the intent is
malicious, they should be prosecuted.

~~~
joering2
Exactly my point so what I want to see from Suffolk is their follow up and
thorough investigation into said computer of fired employees and some hard
proof of what they searched for.

------
JPKab
Cue the massive avalanche of 'I told you so' from all of the smart people on
HN who were arguing that there was no way this was NSA related yesterday.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Nobody was (or at least I wasn't) claiming 100% that this was the result of
NSA spying. My big frustration was that in a matter of half an hour, 2 very
viral denouncement posts appeared from honest-to-god journalists, basically
belittling this woman's claims implying that she is an idiot, an attention
whore or a hoaxer, without any additional facts or insights.

If anything it is a stark foreshadowing of how we will be shamed and mocked
into the status quo not by our government but by our peers, eased into it like
an old man gently lowering his body into an uncomfortably warm bath.

~~~
phpnode
I'm confused by your point. Are you suggesting that we should assume
everything we read is true until we have 'more facts' or 'additional insight'?

The reason her story was denounced by a few people is because those people had
not let their ability to think critically be clouded by the current
NSA/Snowden frenzy.

~~~
PebblesRox
I think the point was that while skepticism is good, assuming the worst of
someone is bad. It's not good to default to belief, but defaulting to abusive
disbelief is also a problem. I think it is good to point out what we don't
know and ask questions, but not to accuse someone of being a malicious liar.
Give them the benefit of the doubt that they at least mean well, even if they
are probably mistaken.

------
mpyne
I read this on my phone last night and was convinced it would have already
been submitted to HN by the time I got to work. Sad to say I was wrong, but
I'm glad someone mentioned it.

Here we have another win for tptacek in the "common sense and reason" column.

~~~
cobrausn
Not completely. He was quick to link alternate explanations that made equally
little sense but didn't make it the result of NSA data mining - such as a
picture of fireworks posted on facebook causing it all, despite the fact they
showed up asking about pressure cookers. He was fighting a wave of people who
were 100% certain it was the NSA, but still...

'Common Sense and Reason' belongs only to those who read the story and waited
to hear more before posting. But I'm biased. :-D

~~~
tptacek
Huh? I linked to Declan McCullagh's alternate (and more plausible)
_possibility_. Nobody, including McCullagh, claimed to know for sure that that
alternative was what happened. It's telling that you'd continue to make that
argument --- noting that I was "quick to link to it" \--- despite repeated
clarifications from both me and McCullagh about the point of the link.

~~~
cobrausn
It was only more plausible if you believe they would see fireworks on facebook
and show up asking about pressure cookers.

The fact was something in between, of course, it was computer searches but
they weren't passed on from the NSA to some JTTF agents.

~~~
tptacek
You mischaracterized my post. I've corrected you. The rest of the argument
isn't interesting to me.

~~~
cobrausn
I corrected your assertion of 'more plausible'. Feel free to carry on, we're
splitting some fairly meaningless hairs.

~~~
tptacek
The difference between your correction and mine is that yours is a matter of
opinion and mine one of fact; I did not, in fact, post the Facebook page story
because I was certain it was correct, nor did its author write it because he
thought it was correct.

The difference isn't meaningless; it's useful to spotlight point-scoring
goalpost-moving when it occurs.

~~~
cobrausn
I don't care about points (this thread is off the front page, nobody paying
attention here but me and you, maybe mpyne if he's bored), but linking to a
laughable opinion about pictures of fireworks (sorry 'explosive devices')
being the cause of the whole visit was enough to make me think you were
linking to it because you agreed with it. Coming here and defending it as
'more plausible' when the evidence didn't match up bothered me enough to keep
this going.

------
jrkelly
The bigger point is that the general public is starting to get worked up about
this stuff - I could see lots of people retelling the "can you believe you
can't google pressure cookers anymore?" story. Even though the NSA isn't
related here people are starting to assume the worst. Hopefully this will
start to make the general public more upset which is only way to ultimately
change anything.

~~~
gohrt
The general public will realize that these complaints are unfounded, because
the most famous ones all turn our to be false, and starts trusting the
government over the privact advocates. And maybe the general public is
right... HN has gone from skeptic to full nutter over the NSA recently,
accusing the NSA of doing excessively expensive and complicated secret
projects for no benefit, not even their own benefit, and of ignoring cheap,
easier, well-dcoumented, more obvious techniques to achieve the same results.

------
grimtrigger
Here's the HN thread when the story was first posted:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140545).
Its fun/important to go back and do a little autopsy about the way things
played out.

------
thesis
Ok, so, what IS the point of PRISM (or any other service monitoring Google or
whatever company) then?

Do you have to search something like "I want to _____ (insert terrorist
action) on _______ (insert date) at ______ (location)" in order to actually
trigger something?

~~~
mpyne
The point of PRISM is that if you already have a person of interest in mind,
you can data mine within that persons's communications, likes, pages read,
etc. to determine if he/she is actually being 'radicalized', or if they have
connections to other people who are 'radicalized'.

From there you can determine "who's who in the zoo" of extremist cells for use
in other intelligence collection schemes. E.g. if someone receives messages
from known intermediaries of an AQ bomb makers and then 'drops off the grid'
it may be a good time to step up to video/satellite surveillance.

Simply doing random searches isn't tracked by PRISM (though it might be from
systems that use wiretap features). But even random searches like those are
likely to simply be filtered out outright by the NSA, they are simply too
common (even without pranksters who run the search thinking they're Sticking
It to The Man) to be worth following up individually.

Even the NSA doesn't have infinite resources after all, and they are still
dependent on other agencies for follow-up activities, and those other agencies
are _certainly_ more resource-constrained than NSA is.

------
lettergram
Well it wasn't a PRISM program or anything, simply a company monitoring
internal internet usage. This I understand and makes sense, although I don't
think it warranted a call to police...

My company does the same thing, turns out one of the managers had been
downloading porn onto their computer for months and the first time we
installed it we noticed. When we checked out his computer he had over 200 Gb
of the stuff... so yeah, he was fired, clearly he wasn't doing his job to the
best of his performance.

------
joering2
I hate to be this guy, but knowing this [1] and this [2] and this [3], I think
that news release from Suffolk Police is not sufficient enough. I mean there
are bigger scandals full of lies coming from official officials, how can I be
assured local Suffolk Police tells the truth?

[1]
[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130611/11122823408/senato...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130611/11122823408/senator-
wyden-calls-hearings-over-intelligence-officials-lying-to-congress.shtml)

[2] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/obama-syria-
cong...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/obama-syria-
congress_b_3540921.html)

[3] [http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/02/national-
inte...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/02/national-intelligence-
director-apologizes-for-lying-to-congress)

~~~
grimtrigger
When authorities make small claims that make common sense, they require less
discretion.

Common sense indicates that this was not part of a dragnet of people searching
pressure cookers and backpacks. If it was: where are the reports of the
certainly dozens (hundreds/thousands?) of people who have made similar
searches?

------
superconductor
Who are you to tell me it's okay to compromise my privacy?

~~~
grimtrigger
The home owner voluntarily agreed to a search. Not sure what the privacy
violation was... unless you think internet searches on your employer's network
falls within your domain of privacy?

~~~
gohrt
It it legally impossible to consent under duress. (for example, this is why
rape is still illegal, even if she says "yes" after the perpetrator pistol-
whips her.) No contract would be upheld if the court found out that one of the
parties was weilding a gun during the negotiation.

The police have no right to "ask" you for permission to search your home, as
there is an implied threat of deadly force. (Cf everybody who gets shot for
flinching while in view of a cop.)

Sadly, the old white rich person judges pretend that this doesn't happen, and
allow this unconstitutional activity to continue.

~~~
Karunamon
>The police have no right to "ask" you for permission to search your home, as
there is an implied threat of deadly force.

If the police are asking instead of saying "we have a warrant" and kicking the
door down, it's because they don't have the necessary evidence and are fishing
for some.

There is no implied threat of anything to those with the slightest bit of
knowledge of how law enforcement works. This whole story could have just as
easily went the other way.

>May we come in?

>I'd rather you didn't. Do you have a warrant?

>No we do not. What do you have to hide?

>I would rather not speak with you any further until you both have a warrant
and I have a lawyer present. Good day sir. _door shut_

Respectful, yet assertive.

