UPDATE: Local police say the Catalanos were reported by an employer. See something, say something -- even if you're just a possibly-paranoid job creator, I guess!
I'm surprised no one's showed up at my house yet, since I've researched both these things in the past few months:
Freelance journalist Michele Catalano, a former music contributor at Forbes, received a friendly visit at her Long Island home from six agents from a joint terrorism task force on Wednesday morning.
In March Google reported that the FBI monitors the Web for potential terrorist activity, although the FBI told Adrien Chen of Gawker that the "FBI had no part in this law enforcement action."
The FBI told to the Guardian that Catalano was "visited by Nassau County police department … They were working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department."
Catalano said she had researched pressure cookers and her husband was looking for a backpack, a combination of terms that raises flags in the wake of bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15 that killed three people and injured more than 260.
In a post describing the incident, Catalano writes:
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. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.
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.
"But if you're not doing anything wrong, what's the big deal?"
