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Wait a moment. Before you get carried away, we still only have her word. Also on the piece : In a conversation with The Atlantic Wire, FBI spokesperson Peter

by eksith 13y ago

Wait a moment. Before you get carried away, we still only have her word. Also on the piece : In a conversation with The Atlantic Wire, FBI spokesperson Peter Donald confirmed The Guardian's report that the FBI was not involved in the visit itself. Asked if the FBI was involved in providing information that led to the visit, Donald replied that he could not answer the question at this point, as he didn't know So at the moment, we still have hearsay. It's from the original source and I'm not calling her a liar, but I still don't know what exactly happened. Just who came to the residence beyond some scary looking guys in SUVs who said they were FBI. Edit: Interesting that asking for evidence warrants downvotes.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
You possibly got downvoted because people assumed that the scary photograph at the top of the article was taken during this incident and not during the aftermath of the Boston marathon bombings, and that it is therefore a piece of evidence. I thought the same thing at first.
- eksith 13y ago
  That's just an indication of how much TAW is milking this story for all of its shock effect before the facts are fully established. Besides, in the original article, she said the guns were holstered when they were talking to her husband and from the tone, they were cordial and shook his hand before they left. Hardly a "raid".
  - dmix 13y ago
    The police were polite... so it's not a raid? What if he denied a voluntary search of the house? Would they politely stop investigating them as terrorists and monitoring their internet activity?
    - Zelphyr 13y ago
      Exactly. How it is labeled isn't the important bit here. The fact that they showed up AT ALL based on what appears to be a confluence of Internet searches is what is concerning.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    Six strangers with guns coming to your home and demanding to conduct a search is hardly a friendly visit. And however cordial they are, they have the right to use any violence against you - including lethal - at any moment they decide there's anything suspicious, and the experience suggests even if they are completely wrong worst thing that would happen to them is suspension with pay. As for you, anything you say to them can and will be used against you, and any factually incorrect statements, however trivial and minute the incorrect part is, that you make to them can be grounds to a felony prosecution if they so desire. So I don't think it can be dismissed as a friendly encounter. I would certainly feel extremely discomforted by such a visit.
  - ballard 13y ago
    Between assisting the greater good and looking out for number one, they didn't seem to do enough of the later. IANAL: They took a gamble by letting them in the door without a warrant. That opened themselves up to legal liability, regardless of "nothing to hide" innocence. If they had found anything that looked suspicious, it would be a different story. They lucked out, this time. A law school professor and a police investigator teach a class of law students why you can gain nothing by talking to the police: https://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc https://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc
rossjudson 13y ago
See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police... The Guardian says they confirmed that there was a visit, and were told that it was a local police force. The Atlantic's headline was updated to reflect that.
griffordson 13y ago
Did you read the Guardian report? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police... Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday. 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."
- eksith 13y ago
  That wasn't the linked story on this thread, but I found this bit interesting : 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. But it was only after the story ran that she Tweeted this : https://twitter.com/inthefade/status/362707932586053633 https://twitter.com/inthefade/status/362707932586053633 So FBI became JTTF, which in turn became Nassau cops? This is why we should all stop listening to the 24 hour news machine and wait a while before everything is cleared up and fully presented. This is a developing story and clinging to one or two tidbits finagled from the authorities here and there aren't going to cut it.
  - griffordson 13y ago
    Who would the JTTF be made up of?
    - ethomson 13y ago
      While I see where you're going with this, let's take a moment to remember that the Joint Terrorism Task Force is made up of individual law enforcement officers, not agencies. That is to say that not all members of the Whatever County Sheriff's Department are inherently part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. So it's certainly possible that three black SUVs worth of the local sheriff's deputies, all of whom were members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, showed up to question her about her internet searching. Or this fiction writer is not portraying an accurate version of the events.
edmccard 13y ago
>Just who came to the residence beyond some scary looking guys in SUVs who said they were FBI. From the article, "the Suffolk and Nassau police, which The Guardian reported were the authorities that effected the raid". As to the downvotes: you could have pointed out the discrepancy between "Feds" and "cops" (the article's title was changed to reflect that) without turns of phrase such as "we have only her word", "hearsay", "I'm not calling her a liar".
praptak 13y ago
There is another huge step missing here - proof of causation. How do they know it was their web searches that caused the visit?
- declan 13y ago
  They don't. See: https://plus.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/FWAVRVaN64h https://plus.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/FWAVRVaN...
  - md224 13y ago
    So you're saying that a woman posted photos of firecrackers on Facebook on July 4th, and this may have contributed to a visit by the police? And this is supposed to be BETTER? I agree that we need more information before jumping to conclusions, but the additional context you're providing doesn't give me much comfort.
    - declan 13y ago
      I'm not trying to comfort you or defend the local cops who showed up. Arguably showing up over a FB post is even dumber than if they actually had snarfed Internet searches. But local cops acting dumb is a different story entirely than LOCAL COPS WATCHING OUR GOOGLE SEARCHES.
      - md224 13y ago
        Alright, that's a fair point. I still think it's a bit scary/sad that we need to worry about our public Facebook posts being potentially misconstrued by local police as grounds for a visit.
    - jmccree 13y ago
      Far better in my book. It means what likely happened is any one of her FB friends, or since the firecrackers were public, anyone else saw the image of fireworks and possibly other comments, became concerned, and reported it to law enforcement. Even if this was found via some source of open source intelligence gathering operation that ended up in a visit, that is leagues away from private google searches leading to a visit.
tryitnow 13y ago
The original commenter wrote: "Our government is sending gangs of armed men to perfectly innocent citizens" Local governments are governments too. Just because the Feds didn't show up doesn't mean this isn't highly problematic behavior. The fact remains that harmless private communication was used as an excuse to interfere in the lives of ordinary citizens. This is what is so problematic about it. EDIT: After reading some more critical comments, I should state that I am ASSUMING what she said is true - that the agents actually asked her about Internet searches. I have to admit that she could just be making that part up.
joseflavio 13y ago
The article was updated. "The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement this evening that answers the great mystery of the day. 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."

by eksith 13y ago

foobarbazqux 13y ago

You possibly got downvoted because people assumed that the scary photograph at the top of the article was taken during this incident and not during the aftermath of the Boston marathon bombings, and that it is therefore a piece of evidence. I thought the same thing at first.

eksith 13y ago
That's just an indication of how much TAW is milking this story for all of its shock effect before the facts are fully established. Besides, in the original article, she said the guns were holstered when they were talking to her husband and from the tone, they were cordial and shook his hand before they left. Hardly a "raid".
- dmix 13y ago
  The police were polite... so it's not a raid? What if he denied a voluntary search of the house? Would they politely stop investigating them as terrorists and monitoring their internet activity?
  - Zelphyr 13y ago
    Exactly. How it is labeled isn't the important bit here. The fact that they showed up AT ALL based on what appears to be a confluence of Internet searches is what is concerning.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Six strangers with guns coming to your home and demanding to conduct a search is hardly a friendly visit. And however cordial they are, they have the right to use any violence against you - including lethal - at any moment they decide there's anything suspicious, and the experience suggests even if they are completely wrong worst thing that would happen to them is suspension with pay. As for you, anything you say to them can and will be used against you, and any factually incorrect statements, however trivial and minute the incorrect part is, that you make to them can be grounds to a felony prosecution if they so desire. So I don't think it can be dismissed as a friendly encounter. I would certainly feel extremely discomforted by such a visit.
- ballard 13y ago
  Between assisting the greater good and looking out for number one, they didn't seem to do enough of the later. IANAL: They took a gamble by letting them in the door without a warrant. That opened themselves up to legal liability, regardless of "nothing to hide" innocence. If they had found anything that looked suspicious, it would be a different story. They lucked out, this time. A law school professor and a police investigator teach a class of law students why you can gain nothing by talking to the police: https://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc https://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc

rossjudson 13y ago

See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police... The Guardian says they confirmed that there was a visit, and were told that it was a local police force. The Atlantic's headline was updated to reflect that.

griffordson 13y ago

Did you read the Guardian report? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police... Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday. 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."

eksith 13y ago
That wasn't the linked story on this thread, but I found this bit interesting : 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. But it was only after the story ran that she Tweeted this : https://twitter.com/inthefade/status/362707932586053633 https://twitter.com/inthefade/status/362707932586053633 So FBI became JTTF, which in turn became Nassau cops? This is why we should all stop listening to the 24 hour news machine and wait a while before everything is cleared up and fully presented. This is a developing story and clinging to one or two tidbits finagled from the authorities here and there aren't going to cut it.
- griffordson 13y ago
  Who would the JTTF be made up of?
  - ethomson 13y ago
    While I see where you're going with this, let's take a moment to remember that the Joint Terrorism Task Force is made up of individual law enforcement officers, not agencies. That is to say that not all members of the Whatever County Sheriff's Department are inherently part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. So it's certainly possible that three black SUVs worth of the local sheriff's deputies, all of whom were members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, showed up to question her about her internet searching. Or this fiction writer is not portraying an accurate version of the events.

edmccard 13y ago

>Just who came to the residence beyond some scary looking guys in SUVs who said they were FBI. From the article, "the Suffolk and Nassau police, which The Guardian reported were the authorities that effected the raid". As to the downvotes: you could have pointed out the discrepancy between "Feds" and "cops" (the article's title was changed to reflect that) without turns of phrase such as "we have only her word", "hearsay", "I'm not calling her a liar".

praptak 13y ago

There is another huge step missing here - proof of causation. How do they know it was their web searches that caused the visit?

declan 13y ago
They don't. See: https://plus.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/FWAVRVaN64h https://plus.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/FWAVRVaN...
- md224 13y ago
  So you're saying that a woman posted photos of firecrackers on Facebook on July 4th, and this may have contributed to a visit by the police? And this is supposed to be BETTER? I agree that we need more information before jumping to conclusions, but the additional context you're providing doesn't give me much comfort.
  - declan 13y ago
    I'm not trying to comfort you or defend the local cops who showed up. Arguably showing up over a FB post is even dumber than if they actually had snarfed Internet searches. But local cops acting dumb is a different story entirely than LOCAL COPS WATCHING OUR GOOGLE SEARCHES.
    - md224 13y ago
      Alright, that's a fair point. I still think it's a bit scary/sad that we need to worry about our public Facebook posts being potentially misconstrued by local police as grounds for a visit.
  - jmccree 13y ago
    Far better in my book. It means what likely happened is any one of her FB friends, or since the firecrackers were public, anyone else saw the image of fireworks and possibly other comments, became concerned, and reported it to law enforcement. Even if this was found via some source of open source intelligence gathering operation that ended up in a visit, that is leagues away from private google searches leading to a visit.

tryitnow 13y ago

The original commenter wrote: "Our government is sending gangs of armed men to perfectly innocent citizens" Local governments are governments too. Just because the Feds didn't show up doesn't mean this isn't highly problematic behavior. The fact remains that harmless private communication was used as an excuse to interfere in the lives of ordinary citizens. This is what is so problematic about it. EDIT: After reading some more critical comments, I should state that I am ASSUMING what she said is true - that the agents actually asked her about Internet searches. I have to admit that she could just be making that part up.

joseflavio 13y ago

The article was updated. "The Suffolk County Police Department released a statement this evening that answers the great mystery of the day. 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."