Editor's note: This story has been updated.
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.
She thinks it was related to her online search history, as she explained in a post on Medium:
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-year-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.
Two pressure cooker bombs killed three people and injured more than 260 on April 15 at the Boston Marathon.
Catalano says the agents proceeded to search her house and to ask her husband questions including "Do you have any bombs?""Do you own a pressure cooker?" and "Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb?"
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."
The Nassau PD denies that its officers were involved.
[UPDATE 20:00 EDT] Here's the statement from the Suffolk County Police Department. The "recently released employee" is Catalano's wife, according to Wired:
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. The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms ‘pressure cooker bombs’ and ‘backpacks.’
After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject’s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature.
Caitlin Dewey of The Washington Post notes that the visit might have been spurred by "information that is not Catalano's search history — say, an anonymous tip from a jumpy neighbor."
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.
Catalano says that the men in suits told her husband that "they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing."
Here are the tweets:
Pro tip: don't do a search for pressure cookers right after your spouse does a search for backpacks if you don't want the FBI at your door.
— Michele Catalano (@inthefade) July 31, 2013
Seriously everyone. Be careful what you're googling. Scary experience today.
— Michele Catalano (@inthefade) July 31, 2013
After the initial scare, Catalano made light of the situation.
I keep thinking those six guys from the joint terrorism task force are sitting around talking about what a mess my house is.
— Michele Catalano (@inthefade) August 1, 2013
Nevertheless, judging by the last two lines of her blog post, the circumstantial gravitas has stayed with her:
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.
SEE ALSO: New NSA Leaks Show How Easily The Government Can See Almost Everything You Do On The Internet