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The police police report says the employer (singular) noticed the searches (plural) made on a workplace computer and reported to the FBI. The context is a case

The police police report says the employer (singular) noticed the searches (plural) made on a workplace computer and reported to the FBI. The context is a case where the wife searched for "pressure cooker", and the husband for "backpack" at the same time. Has it been established that both the husband and the wife worked for the same company? No need to respond, the police department is claiming this unnamed company that the wife or possibly the husband works for says that it was "the employee" who made both searches at the workplace on the company owned computer. > 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.”

md224 13y ago
The wife's search was irrelevant, as the report states the search was for "pressure cooker bombs" not "pressure cooker". So we really have no idea who searched for that one.
tptacek 13y ago
Do I understand properly that you're still seeking an angle in which the USG or some agent of it got access to this family's Google searches?
pkinsky 13y ago
It's not implausible that the employer's tip led to a full trawl of the family's stored online history. Which, with what I'm sure is a shockingly high false positive rate, found cause for suspicion.
- tptacek 13y ago
  We also can't disprove that it was the Roswell aliens that secretly control the Trilateral Commission that were behind the whole story.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    The only thing implausible here is that the FBI or other Federales would reveal intelligence sources and methods so carelessly. The fact remains that the gov't maintains systems that monitor and log online activity with automatic flagging/storage based on keywords. I do find it unlikely that peon-agents and JTTF types have routine access to that data, but I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that some info regarding a potential threat might have been passed down to peon-agents with a suggestion or task for them to follow up on.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I respect that you managed to restate a point I spent ~500 words making in just 70 words.

md224 13y ago

The wife's search was irrelevant, as the report states the search was for "pressure cooker bombs" not "pressure cooker". So we really have no idea who searched for that one.

tptacek 13y ago

Do I understand properly that you're still seeking an angle in which the USG or some agent of it got access to this family's Google searches?

pkinsky 13y ago

It's not implausible that the employer's tip led to a full trawl of the family's stored online history. Which, with what I'm sure is a shockingly high false positive rate, found cause for suspicion.

tptacek 13y ago
We also can't disprove that it was the Roswell aliens that secretly control the Trilateral Commission that were behind the whole story.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  The only thing implausible here is that the FBI or other Federales would reveal intelligence sources and methods so carelessly. The fact remains that the gov't maintains systems that monitor and log online activity with automatic flagging/storage based on keywords. I do find it unlikely that peon-agents and JTTF types have routine access to that data, but I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that some info regarding a potential threat might have been passed down to peon-agents with a suggestion or task for them to follow up on.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I respect that you managed to restate a point I spent ~500 words making in just 70 words.