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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lycanthrope" data-source="post: 39758" data-attributes="member: 562">Just dont order fertilizer and a pressure cooker together or you will have NSA knocking at your door....[h=1]<a href="http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/feds-visit-family-who-googled-backpacks-pressure-cookers-but-the-nsa-isnt-watching-you-08012013" target="_blank">Feds Visit Family Who Googled Backpacks & Pressure Cookers…But the NSA Isn’t Watching You</a>[/h]                             <img src="https://nodakangler.com/forums/images/not_found/2015/07/swat-1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Be careful what you Google….you never know when it might get you a  visit from the  federal anti-terrorism task force, despite the  government’s claims that information about average Americans is not  being analyzed. What shows up in your search history?  I just checked mine. In the past week I  have looked up… <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Pressure canning recipes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Guard llamas</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Where to buy organic fertilizer</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wildfires on the West Coast</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A new crochet stitch</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A newly discovered antibiotic that is effective against anthrax</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Healing time for concussions</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The favorite color of Louie from One Direction</li> </ul>If you put all these things together, does it put together a picture  of a terrorist, bent on destruction, or just a newbie homesteader who is  also interested in current events and has a tween daughter? Well, with the algorithms the government is using, those searches might not look so innocent. Michelle Catalano and her husband were the targets of a visit by  federal officials based on nothing more than their Google history.   While the NSA is fervently denying that they are collecting information  on average citizens, an early morning knock on the door of this  family’s home says otherwise. Catalano, a writer, told the <a href="https://medium.com/something-like-falling/2e7d13e54724" target="_blank">story on her blog</a>:Little did we know our seemingly innocent, if curious to a  fault, Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of  terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching.  Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the  internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history. Most of it was innocent enough. I had researched pressure cookers. My  husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe in another time those two  things together would have seemed innocuous, but we are in “these  times” now. And in these times, when things like the Boston bombing  happen, you spend a lot of time on the internet reading about it and, if  you are my exceedingly curious news junkie of a twenty-ear-old son, you  click a lot of links when you read the myriad of stories. You might  just read a CNN piece about how bomb making instructions are readily  available on the internet and you will in all probability, if you are  that kid, click the link provided… …What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened  to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs  when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window  and 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. Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread  out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one  side, two on the other side, two toward the front door…. …“Are you [name redacted]?” one asked while glancing at a clipboard.  He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in.  Sure, he said. They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be  just a cursory search. They walked around the living room, studied the  books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook),  looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They  asked if they could go in my son’s bedroom but when my husband said my  son was sleeping in there, they let it be. Meanwhile, they were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he  from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I,  where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs,  they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we  have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no,  my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked. They searched the backyard. They walked around the garage, as much as  one could walk around a garage strewn with yardworking equipment and  various junk. They went back in the house and asked more questions. Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My  husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves  weren’t curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if they ever  looked it up. Two of them admitted they did… …They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing. Do you wonder what would have happened to the Catalanos if they’d  refused to answer questions, as is their right under the Constitution?   What if they had denied entry when the feds had asked to do a casual  inspection of their home, which is also their right?  What if the  husband had asked, with his morning cup of coffee in hand, “Do you have a  warrant?”  I strongly suspect that if they had chosen to stand up for  their rights, the intimidating visit would have gotten a whole lot  worse. When every thing you do is recorded, analyzed, and judged, you are  not truly free.  No matter how independent you think you are, someone,  somewhere is watching you in a manner so creepy and so intent that no  fiction writer has ever captured the full extent of it in even the most  gripping spy novel. Many people are careful, not joining social networks, using proxy  servers, and using search engines that are supposed to be private. But  with the recent release of information from Edward Snowden, I would be  willing to bet that isn’t enough to keep your internet comings and  goings out from under the microscope of the NSA.  In fact, those things  might make you seem even more suspicious. These algorithms are designed to “prove” the guilt of anyone that the  federal government wants to target.  Back in the 1500s, Cardinal  Richelieu knew the truth of this when he said, “If one would give me six  lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find  something in them to have him hanged.” What kind of world do we live in when you are always watched?  When  doing things openly makes you a suspect but the pursuit of privacy also  makes you a suspect? Well, don’t worry…they’re doing this for your own good. Do you feel any safer now?</blockquote>

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