Googling kitchenware and school supplies at work could land you a visit from the police. At least, that was the case Wednesday morning for a couple in Long Island, N.Y., who answered their door to six men from a joint terrorism task force.
Michele Catalano’s husband had searched for “pressure cookers bombs” and “backpacks” on his work computer, sparking concern in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. The bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had used backpacks to hide the pressure cooker bombs they used to kill three people and injure more than 200 others.
Catalano initially presumed that the family’s Google searches had been obtained by the National Security Administration — which remains at the current center of controversy regarding its surveillance of Americans. She noted on her blog that she had been researching pressure cookers and her husband had been looking for a backpack. Local law enforcement recently revealed an ex-employer of Catalano’s husband tipped the police, however, prompting their investigation and visit.
According to the Suffolk County Police Department, detectives had “received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee [Catalano’s husband]. 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,” as reported by the Atlantic Wire.
And while the what happened to the Catalano family doesn’t seem to be the result of NSA surveillance, it is a sign that people should monitor their online presences more closely. Following events like the Boston bombing and Sandy Hook shooting, it has become common for authorities to keep their eyes out for Internet threats.
Just last month, a Texas teenager was released on a $500,000 bail after spending five months in jail for joking on Facebook about shooting up a kindergarten classroom. The teen wasn’t serious about the threat, but he still faces a potential 10 year sentence for his online remarks.
Fortunately for Catalano and her family, their Internet searches only resulted in the police visit and temporary embarrassment.
Nevertheless, the incident evokes an important lesson for Americans: be careful when Googling from public computers.
“All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online,” Catalano wrote.
