Thank god for the war on Terror
We don't have anything to fear anymore!
Oh wait...
Freelance writer Michele Catalano thought she might get herself a pressure cooker to prepare Quinoa, the south American wonder-grain. Her husband wanted a new backpack. Both did what you do these days: go online and search for them. Catalano's husband did so from his work computer, and later left his job. Nothing to see here …
The attention was probably largely due to the boss. I doubt the searches alone caused any issue. Without knowing the content of the bosses call it's tough to say.
I know I haven't recieved a visit even after some searches for alcohol stoves that use a pressured fuel supply which probably would not look great. fwiw the stove is for camping and during frequent and prolonged power cuts. Much easier to grab alcohol (heet, even isopropyl) during a pre tsunami rush than butane \ petrol etc.
>Which of course is just how the terrorists want us to feel.
Terrorists: those who use fear for political ends.
The ones with official power or the others? So far the ones with official power have cost more in terms of deaths of innocents, deprivation of freedom and non-required spending of cash than the others.
Bother, it was click-bait!
The main problem being here is if 1 turns out to be something and they don't check.
Hell even 99.9% turn out to be bugger all that 0.1% is still kinda important. They have check shit out.
Its not like the dude had been dragged to a dark room and hit by rubber hoses. Security theather annoys teh crap out of me (3 suvs and what 6 or 8 guys? comeon thats gotta be taking the piss), but they do have to check when a mbr of the public drops a tip.
"The main problem being here is if 1 turns out to be something and they don't check."
Because when you go to trrrrrism school in Central Nowhereistan, the first thing they teach you is how to make a bomb with a backpack and a pressure cooker.
It's a sure tell. And not stupid at all, considering all the other things an informed trrrrist might use to blow shit up.
Why all the down votes. It sounds like a reasonable response to a tip off. They didn't drag him off, bash down the doors or go in guns blazing.
Yes disturbing and a little frightening, and I wouldn't like it to happen to me, but the officials involved have a duty to follow leads.
The only unreasonable action was of the ex-employer to leap from two innocent search term to the idea of terrorist and call in the cops.
" It sounds like a reasonable response to a tip off. They didn't drag him off, bash down the doors or go in guns blazing."
Guns blazing - bashing down doors, is much more UK Plod Style.
i.e. effectively lie to the judge to get a dodgy warrant, bash down the door and shoot the naked guy in his own bedroom
or accidentally shoot the suspect, as at Forrest Gate in 2006
So a single tip off follows leads by blockading someones house and scaring theshit out of them? How about some detective work first such as checking the internet logs from said company?
It was disproportionate, threatening and damn scary for the recipient.
My god, ive looked at stuff that could be seen in logs as being suzpect. I help out at am-dram making props and have looked at how easy it is to reactivate firearms so i can purposefully do the opposite on already deactivated ones etc.
"... and the other 1 time falls on our day off. It probably would have been nothing too, you know, past performance being a predictor of future behavior, so we KNOW there is a 99% chance of nothing. We are pretty confident of that. Yep, we spend our time on nothing, nothing at all!"
"Just out of curiosity, I wonder what would have happened if the person concerned won't talk to them and won't let them in without a warrant".
Hahahahaha. Very funny indeed. What do you think Homeland Security is going to do if a terrorist blockades himself in his compound and refuses to surrender? Legal rights are for decent honest upright citizens, not enemy combatants. They'd be lucky if Obama himself didn't decide to drop in with a Hellfire missile or the like.
Although I completely agree that this is a pretty good example of what can happen, even if you have "nothing to hide", it also shows another issue: be careful with the private stuff you do at work.
Even at my last job, where the boss was even OK with me hanging around on IRC on Friday, I never ever went online shopping while at work. At the very most visiting a news website or something, but that's about it.
Personally I think that's the main problem at hand here; don't treat your working environment as your personal living environment. It's not. You don't go shopping during lunch break, so why would you go do that stuff online?
I do not know in which wonderland you live, but around these parts of the world what I do in any of my breaks is my own bloody business. If need to buy something and if it I can do it within the allocated time to me for my break I am entitled to do so.
In any case, the lunch breaks aside, the culture of fear and thinking of everything from the perspective of "Am I doing the right thing? will the cops come for me?" is what differentiated USSR, East Germany and Romania from the rest of the world (even from some other countries in the Eastern block for that matter). What goes around, comes around. 20 years later things have gone full circle. The noise you are hearing is Suslov, Brezhnev and Cheushesku giggling madly in whatever circle of hell is assigned to scum like them.
There are employers out there who regard using the company internet for private purposes as grounds for dismissal. I hope that they get the sort of employees they richly deserve (ones so incompetent that they can't get a job anywhere more enlightened, and "seagull" mercenaries in it just for the money).
I go shopping in my lunch break all the time! Why wouldn't I, it's my time, the shops are in town, I'm in town, it seems the sensible thing to do.
I also clear my browser history when I leave a job (I can't clear the proxy logs of course, but it doesn't sound like they examined those)...
Going back to the story though, the guy shopped for a backpack, why would that cause his ex employer to call the police. His wife was shopping for a pressure cooker, on a different PC, on a different network. As it's been described there is no link between the backpack and the pressure cooker. Unless she actually borrowed his work laptop whilst at home to do that shopping.
So.. If I bought a cooking magazine, and had it open on my desk on a page about pressure cookers when the boss walked by, would that be incriminating too? Or is it only suspicious when done on the internet, because the girl behind the counter at Argos is really a highly trained MI5 profiler, and can spot suspicious explosive kitchenware purchasers... Right?
Do only suspicious people read up on things to find out what the best brand/specifications are?
And for reference, yes. I used to do my grocery shopping during my lunch hour. I worked about 2 minutes from a Safeway in Lewisham at the time, so it was a handy time to do it, and they would be shut by the time I left work. Pre open til midnight days. And we had a nice roomy fridge in the staff room.
Just out of curiosity.. If I bought a bunch of 7 segment displays, a mixed bag of coloured hookup wire, a bunch of 555 timers and some battery connectors, would I qualify for a watch list too? Because I did that a few months ago, and amazingly, the retailer I bought all this potential bomb making equipment from doesn't seem to have turned me in to the secret police. Perhaps I should report him for not reporting me, so we can all be watched in case we are tourists.
If you alter your behaviour to avoid suspicion, then is that not also being suspicious? And if this even crosses your mind, as anything but a joke, it is already too late.. The intimidation has worked.
Mine's the orange jump suit.
"Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house"
At that moment people should engage with their AR-15s.
Because if these guys happen to be cartel, then shit's gonna hit the fan. You better take down a few ASAP.
Do not forget to call 911. Apparently you can have "help", it's some sort of kool-aid.
To be honest if I saw 3 vehicles of uninvited unknown 'guests' spreading out and boxing me in my home I would certainly call the police and grab a selection of knives. That is because in the UK you cannot have a gun for home defence. Not 1 person would be entering without proper identification and I will demand the police authenticate the visitors or turn up.
I can imagine it would be very unsettling for a gang of plain clothes people to trap you in your home without any reason. Surely a single vehicle would have done (visible)
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Well they already got swords banned (kinda) which I always found confusing. Why would I go on a rampage with a large heavy piece of steel which, in the hands of average joe with no training, isn't as dangerous as it seems, when I can go into a kitchen drawer and grab a pair of freakin huge butchers knives which can cut through most anything, as well as stab and they're perfectly easy to weild as weapons, far simpler for average joe to carry around than a katana for cods sake.
Just a moment, there's somebody at the door.
*doesn't come back*