Surveillance Story Turns Into a Warning About Employer Monitoring

rtfa-troll writes "The story from yesterday about the Feds monitoring Google searches has turned into a warning about how work place surveillance could harm you. It turns out that Michele Catalano's husband's boss tipped off the police after finding 'suspicious' searches (including 'pressure cooker bombs') in his old work computer's search history. Luckily for the Catalanos, who even allowed a search of their house when they probably didn't have to, it seems the policemen and FBI agents were professional and friendly. Far from being imperiled by a SWAT raid, Catalano spoke to some men in black cars who were polite and even mentioned to Catalano that 99 times out of 100, these tip-offs come to nothing. Perhaps the lesson is to be a bit more careful about your privacy, so that what you do on the internet remains between you and the professionals at the NSA."

Comments

99 out of 100

[gsslay]

99 times out of 100, these tip-offs come to nothing

That's not quite what was said. From the original blog ; "they mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing."

So we have three possibilities;

1/ this statistic is a bullshit overstatement, talking up a minimal danger
2/ they are arresting terrorist bombers at a rate of 1 a week
3/ they are prosecuting 1 person a week on an unrelated matter, after gaining access to their house on the pretext of "war against terrorism".

Which do we think it is?

This could well be search suggestions.

[jaseuk]

Typing "pressure cooker" lists pressure cooker bomb as the 3rd suggestion in Google.

Jason.