Sunday, August 31, 2014

Be Careful What You Google

English: cooked red quinoa
English: cooked red quinoa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This would be disturbing if it wasn't so farcical.
Be careful what you Google. That was the clear message after a New York couple received an unwelcome visit from counterterrorism authorities.
Blogger and journalist Michele Catalano was Googling pressure cookers. Yep. Pressure cookers. She wanted a pressure cooker to (wait for it) cook quinoa. For those who might not know what that it is, Quinoa is a South American grain you can purchase in a health food shop. It was a harmless Google search.
Next, her husband was using the same computer to search for backpacks. He needed a backpack. Don't we all from time to time. Again it was a harmless Google search.
The couple's 20 year old son was also on the computer. After reading about the Boston bombings he was clicking on links about home-made bombs. He wasn't doing anything wrong. It was harmless curiosity.
But unfortunately there is no such thing as harmless anything any more. Not in the days of terrorism and counter terrorism. And especially not if it leads to authorities concluding that someone might be trying to manufacture a home made bomb.
Now apparently unbeknown to the Catalanos someone, somewhere in authority was putting all of this Google searching together and came to the conclusion that this family represented enough of a threat to warrant a visit.
Around 9 am one morning the family answered a knock on the front door. We are talking black ops. Six men in three black SUVs pulled up and surrounded the house.
Like I said they knocked. This time. As opposed to kicking the door down. Michele's husband let them in. They searched and after not a long time they left.. Clearly convinced that the couple's home was one of 99 percent of cases where there was no threat.
And that was that. Except it wasn't. Because a lot of people are now asking how does the Government know what people are Googling?
It has already been pointed out elsewhere, that this question suddenly has great relevance given the case of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia. One of the disclosures revealed by Snowden was details of an American intelligence programme that monitors internet activity.
Michele Catalano has since learned that authorities also monitored topics her husband looked at on his work computer.
She has no idea which counterterrorism group visited her home. They apparently did not identify themselves.
The U.S. website Atlantic Wire tried to get to the bottom of who these spooks might have been without any success. They were not the FBI or the local police.
One thing's for sure they were not foodies. They had no idea what Quinoa was.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Damien_J_Comerford

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8685396

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