You can never be too careful.
A warning has been issued over Googling four particular words that can lead to the police arriving at your house.
Michele Catalano, a freelance journalist, shared a story to her blog about how some innocent googling by her and her husband in 2013 led to the couple getting a surprise visit.
Living in New York at the time, she explained: “Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling.”
In her blog post she explains how she was looking for a new pressure cooker and her husband was on the lookout for a new backpack.
The two googled these items on their own devices, with her husband doing so on his work computer.
However, what seemed like fairly innocent web surfing was flagged due to an unfortunate coincidence.
The alleged Boston bombers were said to have hidden pressure cookers in backpacks and given New York’s history with terrorism these searches raised a red flag with her husband’s employer.
The searches were flagged by IT staff, and the employer then reported it to the Suffolk County Police Department.
This led to several SUVs showing up to Michele and her husband’s house.
She described in her blog post how he “saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband’s Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.”
However, after realising that the couple had made an innocent mistake, the Suffolk County Police Department released a statement.
They said: “Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore-based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee.”
Michele wrote on her blog: “Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety. This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list.
“All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online.
“I’m scared. And not of the right things.”
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